Originally Posted by Grantham Kid

Nice. I'm sure you can handle it.

Cheers, well, before I managed to flick few switches to lower rates it kept me on my toes, and soon after I climbed to very safe altitude.
My second flight was lot more relaxed but it needed some work back on the bench before next flying sessions, hopefully more to my expectations.

I've had a fright or two in the past where I've taken off with twice as much throw as what I have needed. It can be very scary. LOL

Always better to have more than not enough!

After my initial 3 test flights I have found enough of Ail. authority to seal off the top wing , thus reducing the load on servos and extra free play. Another test flight with smaller prop and lover 3S voltage didn't make any difference in performance but the wind was too high to experiment with various props so after short much better stability flight I went for a swim instead.

WING

Another mod created for lighter power set up to minimize the all up weight.

Until yesterday I hadn't looked at this thread. So glad I did. Long story short, I built The Fish today. So very cool! Many thanks to RaptorTech for making his design available, and Blacky's Boy for posting about it here.

This is just the ticket for getting some family members into the game.

Who else to thank? FliteTest, Andrew Newton, and Ed Armin. Wouldn't be in RC in 2018 without them. Public benefactors, all.

Oops! Can't forget Daniel from rctestflight. His giant indestructible pink cargo plane was an inspiration! So have all his giant cargo planes since. And his drone skills. And his long-distance flights.

dup

Last Friday I started building my own Depron/foam plane. I am using 6mm Depron, hot glue, ducktape and packaging tape. I have watched some Youtube videos and based on that I started building my own plane. I am not following any specific instructions.

Some technical details:
- The plane has a width of 140 centimeters, each wing is build from a 70x40cm Depron plate.
- The length is 110 centimeters
- Motor: SunnySky X2212 KV980 (push)
- ESC: 30A
- Controls: throttle, ailerons, rudder and elevator.

Today I had my first flight:

Unstable RC Depron plane (0 min 40 sec)

As you can see, it's pretty unstable. I am thinking of moving the rear 10 centimeters to the front for more stability. At the moment the CoG is at 85% of the wing. I think moving the rear will move the CoG more to the front as well.

Images:

Increase the h- and v-stabilizer areas and change the v-stabilizer to something with a less pointy shape. The motor likely shifts the CG above the wing so some (geometric or aerodanymical) dihedral may help.

Originally Posted by Rednas_N

Last Friday I started building my own Depron/foam plane. I am using 6mm Depron, hot glue, ducktape and packaging tape. I have watched some Youtube videos and based on that I started building my own plane. I am not following any specific instructions.

Some technical details:
- The plane has a width of 140 centimeters, each wing is build from a 70x40cm Depron plate.
- The length is 110 centimeters
- Motor: SunnySky X2212 KV980 (push)
- ESC: 30A
- Controls: throttle, ailerons, rudder and elevator.

Today I had my first flight:
https://youtu.be/AAglvxMNIPs

As you can see, it's pretty unstable. I am thinking of moving the rear 10 centimeters to the front for more stability. At the moment the CoG is at 85% of the wing. I think moving the rear will move the CoG more to the front as well.

Images:

Originally Posted by ant0

Increase the h- and v-stabilizer areas and change the v-stabilizer to something with a less pointy shape. The motor likely shifts the CG above the wing so some (geometric or aerodanymical) dihedral may help.

Thanks for your reply! I am creating a new frame at the moment, the frame will have a length of 90cm (end to end) instead of 105cm. I have created a new less pointy vertical stabilizer which has at least two times the area of it's predecessor. The horizontal stabilizer is bigger too but not that much (45x14cm). I will also raise the wings a few centimeters from the fuselage. When it's finished I will post some pictures.

Small update! I have created a new fuselage, it's almost good enough for it's first test flight. I know I have to add more aërodynamica at the front for better performance and more stability. The total weight is 900 grams, but I still have to add some glue and two servo's. I think this will result in a total weight of 950 grams. With the changes I have made the COG is now at the right place (30% ).

Tail heavy, too small vert stab (corrected) and the motor thrust angles may be wrong.

Here are some pics of my latest Dollar Tree foam board scratch build. I use a lot of 3D printed parts in my foam board builds. In this one the motor mount/rear firewall is 3D printed. Two fuselage formers are 3D printed and provide 1/4-20 nylon nuts to bolt the wing to the fuselage. Forward and aft boom brackets are printed as well as elevator and rudder fin brackets. (the plane is elevator and aileron only). There is a 3D printed center rib (2.5" wide) that provides mounting holes for the 1/4-20 nylon bolts that hold the wing to the fuselage. In addition there are 16 more (1/4" wide) ribs that are strung together with carbon fiber archery arrows for spars. I makes for a perfectly formed airfoil. I also created 4 wheels from pool noodles and 3D printed hubs. It takes off from the ground and lands perfectly. No steering so cannot taxi but that's all right. I hope to build this into an FPV plane once I get all the video gear.