OK, I got a flip as my first plane designed for 3d.. I'm usually a pattern guy, but this thing is awesome. But it has gotten me to think about how to take the envelope much further. Don't know if this is possible or if anybody has tried this, but here is the idea...

Build a 3d airplane with a huge, fully collective and cyclic, reduction driven prop. The concept here would be to build an airplane with a helicopter main rotor system as a propulsion source. Perhaps cutting the rotor span down to about 24" or so and building the plane with lots of prop clearance.

Seems like this could be pulled off with a scrapped .60 rotor mechanism and a good 60-1.20 sized 3d platform. I don't know what all of the technical challenges would be yet, but I think with some effort it could be done. It seems like you could use some creative mixes with the tail for full range cyclic / collective that would enhance pitch/yaw performance and lead to some really wild stuff.. Also constant speed prop, etc. etc..

Nose down hovers, continuous pinwheels, knife edge waterfalls, nose down slides, and dozens of cool moves that have never been named.

I know that the design would be heavier than typical 3d airplanes, but with a huge prop running lower RPM's, it should produce lots of thrust, and wing loading / etc. wouldn't be as important as you could thrust vector. Sounds crazy, but I might just try it as a winter project.. Anybody tried this? Thoughts???

I don't normally reply to myself.. Just saw the thread on inverted prop hanging with the colletive stuff. Looks like ya'll have already talked about it, at least in humor. I really think it can be done!

Technical issues.. added weight with reduction unit / rotor shaft / head / 3 additional servos, firewall strength, rotor integrity (from higher RPM's and gyroscopic forces), having enough mixes, enough channels (I count 8 minimum), additional torque from big prop. What's missing?

how are you gonna control all 3 rotor servo's to get your pitch, and the airplane at the same time? Sounds to me like you'd need 4 sticks, or some serious mixing with the elevator and rudder. I dont even know if a matchbox would do it. Maby the 10X..

I'm thinking 2 cyclic servos - left / right mixed to rudder, up down mixed to elevator. 3rd servo collective mixed to throttle. Or go the CCPM (?) route with several (6-9?) mixes to link to the tail with some creative math that takes the 120 degree servo postition on cyclic / collective and translates to 90 degree offset on the tail. The simplest approach would be a traditional heli design rotor that uses a separate collective servo. So you'd have 90 degree offsets on the cyclic, which match the tail for simple mixing. Mixing can be switched on / off with switch for cyclic (off = neutral), separate on/off for collective mix to throttle (off = full forward) .. Make sense?

Might be easier to glue some wings on a heli.

I think the guy who built the turbo prop plane had adjustable pitch props. Perhaps you could apply what he did to what you're thinking. I think his member name was MECAM. Do a search and see what you come up with.

Mike

I don't think it was MECAM who did the turboprop, if I'm not mistaken it was MEC.