hey warhead
i'm not surprised you're following this thread too. how've u been?
thinking of building this one?

Me thinks Al needs to start building the young one his plane already. http://www.aircraftspruce.me/catalog...blueprints.php

6.17 lbs doing it the hard way: 2.8 liters-->cuft x 62.4, or 6.17 lbs the easier way 2.8 kg x 2.2, or 2.8 kg doing basically nothing.

Won't be 2.8 liters in salt water, though. :-)

Hi Guys,

@Joe, thanks mate, I have seen them, aren't they great! There are a few designs out there, sidewalk flyers springs to mind, I'll get him to help with the build and choose what he wants, I could knock out a Cub or Spitfire from plywood, or go stick and fabric for lightness, have to make sure he doesn't take a header down the hill trying to get airborne!

A grand well done to vtdiy! Well done sir, I can see you are good at the hard sums. However... the displacement has changed for the worse, we will now have 3.2 ltrs, as 1 ltr of fresh water has mass of 1000g, my super acurate baking scale and poachers spring balance concour at 3200g
Never fear I have 994 sq inches of effective wing area, not counting the bit in the middle, the sponsons and the big flappy bit at the back. I worked out 16 1/4 oz per square foot, a well ballasted glider, no? All theory in the moment, what count's is when I open the throttle we get out of the pond and over the wall, what happens next is up for grabs.
To this end Ladies and Gentlemen, I have engaged a Mr Fritz Emental Toblerone, an out of work Yodeler, failed hill shepherd and test pilot, Fritz was in the area buying some goats to take home to his wife Heidi, who lives with her Grandfather in the mountains, now there's a story in itself.
Today's pics show the successful modifications to my Blazer, rear twin seat removed, a broom handle and steel tube from an old tent deftly trimmed to fit across the rear bay, as wing support, the designer transport tray fits snugly underneath, and doubles as a rigging aid from the down folded tailgate, or back door. We are good to go now, so up early tomorrow before the Fun Police are about and I'll give her a whizz in the Aquadrome.
Cheers,

regards to all,

Al

Al, we wanna see some pictures, not thumbnails !!!

Hi Guys,

@ boober, noted mate, thanks.

Well up at stupid o'clock and over to the Aquadrome for the test flight, all checked and got her in the water before 05:45, then remembered to turn on the tail cam, good checks, not. Glad I did as we have unique footage of a double engine failure after take off! You normally have to pay extra for that kind of fun. Seems my old Sunderland props have gone past their "best by date." Well with an untrimmed new aeroplane at 15 feet and no power available we were out of options, except the Impact one, and she did, as you will see in the clips. No big heartbreaker, we can fix her again, marvellous stuff this foam! I will need to reconsider the power plant set up though.
So here for your enjoyment, and perhaps some learning from my mistakes is 'Monster Puddle" EFATOx2.
I'm off down to the Kasbah in Khobar to get a couple of tubes of UHU POR.
@Walter, is that Swiss enough for you? You were correct about the wake patterns, very cool.

Cheers,

regards to all,

Al

Monster Puddle Maiden Flight, EFATO x2! (3 min 39 sec)

Sorry to see the damage, but getting that video of the prop failures was pretty impressive. Looking forward to the next round.

As cool as the 3 bladed props are, I would consider a pair of slightly larger conventional props. I think you will find more thrust to help takeoff and climb out performance.

Thayer

Hi Guys,

Thanks Thayer, yes you are spot on regarding the props, should have used my 8x4's for the first flight, no matter now.
OK plan B, I'll clean up the Skycampervan's wings and fit them to the Monster, still keeping the availablity for 'Van use. They have 7.2 sq ft as compared to 6.9 sq ft of the 'Monster's' wing, they are also very good at low speed, have more dihedral so I can ditch two servos, the big plus have two matched Axi motors and props.
The monsters wing will need a big strip out to remove motors and ESCs, time consuming. It's onwards and upwards time, I got a box of 10 x50ml size UHU POR (for SR50/$US13.3 or 8.37 British Pounds) laters guys.

Cheers,

regards to all,

Al

Al, here we talk about real STOL plane! Man that was about 15km/h! I don't know if it was due to your elevator up input but it looked to me that you plane was quite tail heavy...
Great build anyway and you've got some nice runaway over there, hope she'll be up cruising soon

yikes, that prop blade taking out the other prop really is a bummer.. i had a prop failure early on with my PuMO too, but i was lucky the blade got stuck in the fuselage
hope you have her up and running soon !

Hi Guys,

@MB, I looked over the prop fail vid in ultra slowmotion, one blade flies off verticaly first, then the 2nd right blade departs for the left motor, the left gives up two blades, all shoot away in the plane of rotation at a vast rate of knots, sure wouldn't want to catch one of those in my teeth, or antwhere else!
@ bobber, The balance point was 25% wing chord, that is also in front of the step by 3/4 inch, I was inputing down elevator and trying to trim forwards whilst avoiding the sun shades when it all went to rat's cocks, she might have been tail heavy-ish, or the sponson angle could have an influence? I'm sure the repairs will reduce tail heaviness to a degree.

Repairs underway now, inspected the motors and wing, the wing structue is 100% sound, but both motors are toast, I removed them, the copper windings are all broken and stretched when both motors twisted severely off their mounts, they have been striped for spare parts and live in the cardboard box under the bench where that special thing you need hides.
I opened all the cracks and reglued with POR, I made a new frame for the mid nose section and glued that in to provide some stability, then plated the whole front left side with 5mm sheet, she is back to being the right shape and stiff enough to cut out the damage on the right side for an inset and scab patch repair. I did a full survey on the fuselage and surprisingly not even cracked paint anywhere else, only foam could have absorbed the impact shock so well, if this was balsa we would have a huge bag of pencils.

News just in! Riley is at the Parachute Training stage of baby developement, at least that's what I think, his mum sent pictures of him under instruction, laters.

Cheers,

regards to all,

Al

Wow Al,
did'nt check for a few days, the usually so quiet Puddle forum turned into dramatic action, the prop scene is incredible but also a bit scary, did you find reasons for the failure ?
Yes I really like the paint sheme and my cousin Emmental Toblerone will always master the situation, glad the repairs are underway.

Even Riley found motivation to train with the chute, perfect !

thanks Al & keep them coming

Hi Guys,

Hi Walter, thanks, your very welcome, your cousin is a decent bloke, very quiet and doesn't eat much, just find the odd chocolate wrapper in the bin (trash can). He asked if you could post a picture of his dear wife Heidi, in Swiss National Dress, or her nurses uniform? He lost his wallet and her picture in the crash landing, thanks mate.
The root cause of the prop failure was me being cheap, it's the Scotsman in me, I can't throw anything away. Those props should have been scrapped.

After having said I would fit the Skycampervan Wing onto the Monster, I gave her a check over, the right motor bearing seems to be on the way out, not too bad for 5 years flyng in these dusty and gritty conditions, luckily my parts box from HK had a pair of Turnigy D3536-8's with 10x6 two bladers. The mounting holes are an exact copy of the old Axi 2808/24's, that's handy I thought. So now we have a 2300mm span wing with an advertised power available of 430W a side, so we get the big thrust to leave the water, it might not be a blessing, it could just take me quicker to the next crash??

Cheers,
regards to all,

Al

Hi Al

Found a recent pic of Heidi in her Edelweiss Garden, she just reminds the guy to save some money, hungry kids crying at home.

The other pic (located 200 meters from our home) will be exactly 100 years old 2012, the guy's name is Charles Favre, he built the plane, flew it from land and tried to strat it from our lake (Bienne) with no success, he later was a flight instructor in the London area, unfortunately I can't find any info after 1915

Of course that was an example of Swiss precision, the right blade taking out the left one, exact alignment is the rule, yes Captain?