Orvie6

After 'proof reading'...I know..AFTER I sent it???.... I noticed that it would make more sence if the word 'motor' was added after the 'two' in my reference to the C-119... Sorry guys, you know how us old farts are...CRS!!!

Orvie6

Hey Saucerguy!! In Part 1 of this topic, you and Gary Gunnerson were discussing the .PAR files for the FMS flight sim version of the So. I have that sim, but would like to know if you can make a .PAR file for the So. with twin ailerons since mine has them and I use them as flapperons!! Now if you could set up the sim model to use flapperons, that would be cool... Just wondering how hard that would be....I would be happy if it just mimicked another plane with flapperons...they seem to all respond similar..
Thanks for listening..
Wayne

Orvie6

Hey guys, have been busy working on my original design foam twin..Still have a few things to finish up on it..but hope you get the general idea of it.. It is 60" span and has two Turnigy 2830-1050 motors swinging 9x6 props. It has retacts and landing lights as well as nav ligths in the wing tips.. It is comprised of just a few wood parts (landing gear mounts, etc.) so most of it is made from Dollar Tree foamboard! It is covered with econokote and monokote trim sheets accents.. Let me know what you think..

saucerguy

I really like that plane Orvie, let us know how the maiden goes. Along the sim, I haven't ever found the time to custom build a model for that one, I did d/l and use one that was created for it, but it's a sim, so can't really duplicate the properties of the plane to exact specs, be it, too perfect. I haven't actually flown the thing with only one aileron, not that there would be anything wrong with it, but can't see how big of a difference it would be without, and from the sounds of it, not a huge if any difference.

BJ64

WoW!

You built that from foam? Excellent job mate.

How did you get it all so smooth?

BJ

Orvie6

The twin is completed!! Here are a few pictures of my latest project...a semi-scale 60" span version of the Tecnam P2006 that was a Oshkosl last year.. No 'official' plans, just drew it up and built it as I went along! Made entirely from Foam!! Ok, so there are a few pieces of plywood in there where needed, but main structure is of Dollar Tree foamboard and Dow insulation!!! It has retracts, flaps, nav and landing lights, plus a flashing red LED in the verticle stab. It is powered by two Turnigy 2830-1050 kv motors with two Tower Pro 40 Amp ECS's. Batteries are 2 Fllightmax 1800 Mha.. Total weight is 74.2 0z.. Did a 'high speed' taxi last night and did see some daylight under the tires!! Could not fly it because I only did this in my drive way!!! so could not really take off... but at least it should fly!!
Now I need to take the receiver back out and put it back in my twin boomer so I can fly for awhile!!!
Hope you like the twin... the thread on it is in RC groups under Foam General Aviation Twin....
Later,
Wayne

BJ64

Bewdiful

BJ

Orvie6

Critterhunter... here is a twin boom plane you may want to consider as one of your 'So.' builds..looks like it would make a good camera thttp://www.jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=6127135&nseq=1

critterhunter

Some excellent builds being post.

Also amazing that foam board can be used and made to look so well.

I'm back down in VA and we are going to try to get some "Big Red" dual boomer FPV with me doing stunts and rolls in front of the camera. I also plan to put a few of those silver streamers on each v-stab so the plane will be easier for my friend to spot with his goggles. It's very tricky trying to keep two planes in track with each other so one can film stuff.

I've got the initial design idea for my So SFV (Sleek/Fast/V-Tail) drawn out on paper and she should be a rocket with a Don's RC 450H pushing her along. Might do well near or over 100mph if I streamline it enough. That's the problem with the So design. I love it's looks but it's a bit draggy for a high speed plane, so I am trying to streamline it without losing the classic So looks. A friend of mine said why not use two carbon arrow shafts for booms but that's too drastic to me, not keeping in style with the So for my tastes. I'll do some real thin foam booms and sheet two sides of them with 1/8" balsa to keep'em stiff, which is the norm for me in So boom building as well as for strengthening the fuse on my builds these days. I remember when I was running carbon tubes inside the fuse and booms which was both expensive and doesn't work out as well. These days I only put a carbon tube (or two) in the wings and then some flat carbon across the H-stab to join the two booms strongly and keep the H-stab stiff. Also use flat carbon or at least bamboo skewers in my v-stabs and builds and such. If you're not worried about weight as much fiberglass rods out of thrown out patio umbrellas make great ways to strengthen a wing.

Pictures when I start building. Keep up the good work everybody!

saucerguy

Well, since we are showing off some other planes, might as well show you my latest one I'm working on. Have the upper wing loosely resting in place, so it looks kind of off. Opted to snag a photo of the latest build since I had the camera out. I know, another stick build, it's close, yet still not going to let myself break into it while I have so much on my plate now, knowing myself well enough that I won't want to stop.

This is going to remain modular, so I can bold parts on and off of it if something breaks, will be easy to repair without surgery.

critterhunter

Here's a few pictures of where I was flying down in VA for the second visit. It's just about one of the most perfect flying spots I've seen, with a great view, sloping downward field that makes launches less tricky thanks to the higher elevation of the launch area, a gravel road to use as a landing strip for planes with landing gear, and plenty of open space to put a plane down should something go wrong in flight. The view of the Blue Ridge mountains was something else, not to mention the red sunset that I wish I would have taken a few pictures of. The dual boomer did fine and my glider was fixed from the last trip and had no problems. We had a great time.

You can also see the 2000 Ranger I just got a great deal on for $4400. The guy in the pictures is my friend Alex getting ready to launch another FPV flight. The telephone pole is strung with Christmas tree lights and from what I hear you can see that thing for miles around. This property is owned by the local church. What I found curious was the fire pit. It's gas powered. Out in the middle of no where and they are using gas for a fake fire. That just didn't seem right to me, but I guess when you've got money to burn you can do odd things like this.

critterhunter

Saucerguy, nice bipe! Keep the pictures coming.

saucerguy

Nice truck and flying field Critterhunter. Thanks for the compliment on the biplane. It should be a fun flyer, going with all brand new gear on it so no corners are cut as well as eliminating any potential problems with it in the air. I named it after an old timer that's barely hanging on for to his life, as a way to commemorate the guy for all of his efforts and help in this hobby.

BJ64

Maybe the 'gas fire' is just being a bit more canvenient and eco-friendly? Besides, it doesn't look like there's a lot of surplus firewood around there anywhere LoL And it's a very tidy looking place - guess they want to keep it that way?

But yah, hard to beat a real fire IMHO. It's not a 'fire' unless your eyes sting and you stink of smoke when you get home...

BJ

critterhunter

If you've heard of Jerry Fallwell (spelling?) I guess his church's college (Liberty University) owns that piece of land. My friend asked if we could fly there and they said no problem. I think they use that place for picnics and such. They own most of the town from the looks of it. Even have the top of a mountain carved out with the initials of the college. In a way it feels like you are in a bubble in that place, though not everybody in the town is part of that church or college. There are also several other colleges there so it's kind'a wierd to see all these college aged students running around in such a small town.

I've started on the So SFV (Sleek, Fast, V-Tail). Here's the initial build pictures...

The wing is going to be swept forward at the trailing edge and is about 37" long, so first thing I did was cut a foam block to 18 1/2" long to make my wings. I used a gravity cut since it's quick/easy and makes a straight cut. For any newbies who don't know what this is it's just hanging your cutting bow on the foam and then plugging in the power, letting gravity pull the bow through the foam. If you balance the bow halfway decent it should cut straight and even. Make sure you are ready to catch the bow! Used a ladder to elevate it since I didn't have a free table to hang it off of.

Next I was ready to cut out one wing half. I'm using (I think) a USA 27 airfoil for the larger wing jig, and just a custom hand drawn thin airfoil for the wing tip. I botched the first cut so that's why you see the nice square block of foam already cut up in the picture. With a thick piece of foam like this you can easily cut 4 to 6 wings out of it, so I'll use it to cut the other wing half out as well. The airfoil jigs are held in place by screwing a nylon bolt up through the board and into the jigs. They don't have to be snug, since cutting the foam slightly bigger than need be will snug things up when you force it to fit between the two jigs.

Ended up botching the trailing edge of the cut a bit. No big deal, I just used an exacto knife to cut off the excess there, and a little sanding will get both wing halfs to match up well with each other to be uniform in shape/thickness.

More pictures later as I go...

saucerguy

Good luck with that design, my forward swept wing using so. base parts turned out to be impossible to fly, I should have swept them forward more, it looked really cool though., So I highly recommend finding a currently working, forward swept design to model the angles you are going to use from.

There are a ton of fields close by, that's something this area I'm residing at is good for, and zero people I see flying at them, so will be putting on my own private airshow for the masses this summer. It's finally starting to become spring here and there are even days where most of it doesn't rain, so last night I pulled out my favorite, reliable stick creation, the Mini Mambo, and figured she's earned her wings, yet the many moves wreaked havvoc on the tissue paper covering, so used up the last bit of Monocoat, yanked the paper from the wing, and spent the evening covering it. I'll be redoing the elevator with tissue paper, I had the hindsight to mount it with high temp hot glue, which means I can remove it with just a heat gun, which is an advantage with paper covering.

It's an old timer design, circa 1960, 36" wingspan, was originally 2 channel, I've added ailerons and fixed the rudder, and added an elevator, as well as put in an airfoil to the stabilizer, which turned this into a very enjoyable stable flyer. The ailerons are fixed to the trailing edge of the wing, makes it so much easier to maintain, shown in the photo unmounted. I picked up the plans from an antique store a few years back, and made a copy of them for my purposes on the original build, had to guess on the fuse formers, of which I opted for crossmembers rather then thin flat plates in that area, gives it a lot of internal room as well. I've never crashed the thing, and have taken it up in severe winds, used it when I was in Tacoma mainly to test the skies for other planes.

I also was thinking of putting this into production at first, didn't know the legalities behind it all, yet found a company online that's selling them as lazer cut kits, in their stock 2 channel form for 60.00, I think I can arf it out without covering for the same price, with my revisions of course, and not get into trouble. It's a design I just want to share with others, these old designers really knew what they were doing.

saucerguy

I just love sharing our little advances, thus the nature of our trio on this thread, it's not so much about just the so. line or building with foam, it's us three, critterhunter, fisher and saucerguy's efforts in this hobby, and sharing our insights and advances through it. I came up with a doozy tonight and it's just darn cool in stick land. I've been spending a bundle on monocoat/ultracoat/solite,, etc, and it's been nice using the material for that shiny, nice looking finish, yet ended up with yet something else that's dirt cheap to use that produces the same results with very little babying.

If you guys recall, I picked up some colored packing tape I wasn't thrilled with a while back, it just didn't stick that well, thus the black so I assembled had some rather ragged edges, well I found out tonight, it adheasives quite well under some heat, I used my heat gun just for the heck of it to see if it could stick to balsa, well, it did, adding onto it simple dollar store glue stick material, even better, and it adheres to itself when drawn along in strips in mid air quite fine under heat as well using the iron. It also does very well around complex angles using it also using the iron. I found my new plastic covering that's only slightly temperamental to use, for 4% the cost of monocoat, I think I'll put up with it gentlemen for future stick builds at that price.

I did the stabilizer and upper section of the fuse and fin with it on the Mambo, it covered over raw paper on the underside without needing glue stick, ripped the paper on the top of it and used the glue stick to help adhere it down, regardless to say, a picture is worth a million words. I have to go back over my archives of email to find the brand and supplier for it to order more tape, but suffice it to say, I'm very happy this night of experimentation proved fruitful. Mambo is now ready for gear and re maiden, will likely have to add a slight amount of nose weight to make up for the added weight, but might not need to. The tail feathers came right off without a catch just fyi.

Also, working on the new color scheme, I am wanting red on one side, blue on the other to help with orientation, this is going to remain a plane I use to test the sky's with for other planes, so making it easier to see in the sky, where it's going under rough conditions when other planes are not able to, the better. I'll be adding some more decorations to the top of the wing to elaborate a bit more in that area as well.

critterhunter

Saucerguy, I really like the design of that plane. Looks tough, and good tip on using heat to make the tape stick better. I've found that clear packing tape also sticks better if you iron it on. Seems to activate the glue better. It will also take out some wrinkles in most tapes as well. 3M Super 77 Spray Glue will also work well to help various tapes to stick better. Some guys even use it to tack down a shrink covering before using heat to shrink it up. I find that after using two levels of heat with my iron to put on Ultracoat (my favorite), using a heat gun will also really take out some wrinkles that you might think just aren't going to go anywhere because the iron had no luck. It's a great tool to use on a plane after it's flown a while and the covering might be a little slacked, or in case of dings/wrinkles from some hard landings. Much easier as well than breaking out the iron. The only problem is you MUST keep moving constantly or risk burning a hole into it. I also will put a sock on my one hand and use that to smooth things out as I heat with the gun.

I see that Harbor Tool & Freight now has a cheap heat gun with a digital thermonstat to set the desired temperture. That probably would be very handy for getting temps just right.

Yea, besides my glider I have yet to build a forward swept wing design that would fly. I tried a few birds of prey and they just wouldn't fly because COG is real tricky and also because my elevons would work in reverse! I finally figured out this was due to my trailing edge of the wings being swept too much forward. It had the reverse affect on controls, at least at low air speed when launching.

My friend who does the FPV stuff has been hooked on forward swept wings for his planes as of late. He says they track much better and are also less prone to tip stalling. I've found that to be true with my glider.

One thing I'd like to bring up with the So and any plane for that matter is the importance of a correct COG. As we all know a tail heavy plane will not fly or at the very least becomes real twitcy and has a nasty tendency to stall. If anybody is flying a plane around that seems sloppy in tail motion like it's dragging it around, likes to stall easily at low speeds, or just doesn't seem "right" then there is a good chance it's tail heavy. I found my So has been overly nose heavy which hurt it at glide ratio. I finally added a weight to the tail and then found it was a bit too tail heavy with the above traits. Cut that weight in half and now for the first time in this So build's life it's got the proper COG, which I've found to be a bit more backward on the wing then what a conventional Clark-Y calls for, by maybe a quarter to a half inch further back then what the math normaly tells you for a 7" clark-y.

With my glider the reverse was true without any weight. It was tail heavy and as a result would tip stall rather easily, which it shouldn't do with a swept forward wing. At first I was giving it more downthrust in the motor and also shimming the back of the wing to try to compensate because it would climb way too much at full throttle yet needed that much elevator to glide well with the motor off. Since my radio doesn't have the ability to tie the throttle and elevator together I was stuck with this performance mismatch for a while until I decided it must be tail heavy. I kept the motor downthrust but I took the wing shim out (which pointed the leading edge of the wing more downward with the shim in) and then added weight to the nose. She's perfect now, and I don't have to adjust the elevator from full throttle to no throttle. She still climbs a bit at WOT, which is what you want in a glider anyway to quickly get back up to soaring heights, but it's not excessive. Once I kill the motor there is no need to adjust the elevator to keep good lift while soaring and not be dropping in elevation because the elevator trim isn't right.

I cut out the other wing half on the SFV So and also the fuse, which is going to be as thin as possible to just house my 2250ma battery so keep drag at a minimum. Next I'll be cutting out the booms which will also be as thin as I feel comfortable with. The fuse and booms will be sheeted on the left/right sides with 1/8" balsa to give them good strength. The inverted V-tail will either be made from Cell Foam 88 with added structural support (flat carbon or bambo skewers), or I'll just use balsa for the tail feathers.

Getting this So to test glide with a forward swept wing shouldn't be as hard as it is with a Bird Of Prey because you have tail feathers and so COG isn't as critical with things. This plane will have no ailerons or elevator, just V-Tail controls. I'm tempted to bypass the Don's RC 450H motor and use one of my ducted fans since I have yet to install them on any successful platform. Every prior build I've tried those on was so experimental is design that it never flew. I'm more confident that the So SFV will fly, though.

I saw months back a dual boom EDF that looked much like a So on the cover of a magazine. It looked really cool but I'll be darn if I can find that plane anywhere and can't remember where I saw it. If somebody can dig this thing up please post a link or pictures. It had the EDF in the fuse and not mounted on top.

BJ64

Um.... are we allowed to talk 'boats' in this foamie thread?

BJ

Swift427

Pseudo-Salamander by foamflyer
http://www.foamflyer.info/pseudo-salamander.html... a Short Flight Video link by SlopeShredder at bottom of page


Specifications:
Wing Span: 39 in (99 cm)
Wing Area: 312 in2 (20.1 dm2)
Airfoil: 12% Clark-Y
Wing Loading: 11.3 oz/ft2 (35g/dm2)
Fuselage Length: 39 in (99 cm)
Controls: Elevator, Rudder, Throttle, Nose gear steering
Servos: Hextronik HXT900 (three)
Receiver: Corona RD820
ESC: Castle Creations Phoenix 40 Brushless
Battery: Emax 3S2250 Lipo
Motor: Super Flying Model 2200-9-3500 outrunner
EDF: Super Flying Model #1028
All-Up Weight: 24.5 oz (695 g)
Performance: at 10 volts, motor drawing 14 Amps, 140 watts
Watts per Pound: 91

saucerguy

Really cool swift, love the design. Along talking about boats here, pretty much anything goes here, I have a camper I plan upon showing here, it's one of my next projects. Also, I'm going to do a limited production run on foamie version of the Mini Mambo., stay tuned for the fun on getting that line off the production line and it's maiden, in foam form.

saucerguy

I forgot how much tremendous amount of work it is to come up with a system, modeled after a specific plane design, and have the jigs and systems in place to put into production so that outside modelers can assemble their own with the least amount of bashing possible. I've been at it pretty relentlessly, the fuse is what was the hardest to figure out, and I had to do things out of order, so the next run will go more smoothly. This was originally designed as a 2 channel bird, which by default would have been nose light, and wasn't planned for eflight and battery pack. The foam version, because it's just foam without the original solid balsa blocks up front, I opted to move the firewall section forward, the motor will stick out a bit, but hopefully, will not require adding any nose weight to the bird. My light 3 cell, 1100 pack has something to do with it as well, a heavier one most people use wouldn't pose this issue onto it, yet leaving it up for future modelers to design, and at least incorporated this into the concept.

Will elaborate more on it, probably should just start another thread on the thing, or dig up an old one I posted on that design earlier. For now, just taped it loosely together so you guys can get a visual, I have 3 more from the run left over, will be doing sanding and assembly tomorrow, hopefully maiden the day after. So, introducing the Mini Mambo F line, "F stands for foamie"

saucerguy

Ready for it's maiden, will have kit contents detailed afterwards, looks like Sunday or Monday is going to be the day.

Orvie6

Ok, guys...since this is somewhat of an 'open' fourm at this point...I would like to give you some video of my scratchbuilt foamy A-7 pusher.. It is a heavyweight at 54 oz. and a little tail heavy, but did manage to get a couple of sucessful flights in today.. The span is 40 inches and entire model is made from Blue Dow insulation and Lowes Greenguard FFF..
I want to make another fuselage out of lighter foam.. a lot of the overall weight is because I had to use both of my 1800 Mha packs as far forward as I could get them to get the CG as far forward as I could get it... Park of the tail heavyness is due to the Grayson GH2814-08 motor and 11x7 APC prop sticking about an inch and a half farther out the back than I would like to have had it...but put motor mount base in place before I had the motor...so made a mistake in its location... But, like I say..want to build a new fuse for it...or just may make a totally new bird and use this one as a comparison.. Anyway..hope you enjoy the 'A-7, First Flights'.. Any and all comments are welcome..
Wayne
P.S. Trying to load the video, but having trouble..it is a .wmv file...trying to get it on youtube...If I cant get the video, will post still photos....sorry

Orvie6

Link to video on Youtube....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_5xjP8PPio