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Thomas B -> Micro Space Shuttle (4/21/2005 5:23 AM)
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Greg Covey had asked a question about my micro Shuttle in another thread. Thought I would start this new thread to help keep the other thread on topic.
Last year I noticed that the local Michael's craft store was stocking an old favorite of mine..the 10" span Guillow's Space shuttle foam FF toy. The price was an attractive $2.99.
Years back I had made several model rocket boosters that could loft this fun FF toy up for a nice long glide. I had even converted one to R/C using an Ace baby actuator ith the old Ace R/C Pulse proportional system....but it was heavy and glided VERY fast....and with rudder only, it was hard to flare for landing..;)
Anyway, I bought a few of these last year after I figured out that it had lots of conversion potential with modern gear. I chose a 2 cell 340 Kokam, a GWS EDP-50 with a GWS 3/3 prop, a GWS 050 ESC a GWS R4P RX and a pair of HS50 servos. All up weight is only 3.3 oz using this common stuff. It has a little less than 1/3 of a square foot of wing, making the wing loading about 9oz/sq foot and it is flying at about 14 watts...or about 70 watts per lb...;)
I added some Depron elevons at the trailing edge of the stock wing. This added some badly needed wing area and gets the model up to about 45 square inches of wing area. I used the stock 1 mm Depron vertial tail that comes with the toy.
I cut away the three foam representations of the Shuttle main engine nozzles and discarded them. The motor is glued to a narrow ply tongue and is all external to the back of the model, for better prop airflow and motor cooling. I cut away the top of the model at the cargo bay door lines and hollowed out the interior for the radio gear, as shown. I had noted the FF CG before starting the conversion, and kept the same CG for R/C.
Here is a layout photo, a before flight photo and launch photo at SMALL Steps 2004 last year.......
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