ORIGINAL: captain_castor
wow! great thread. A buddy and I just got back from E-fest in Champaign Illinois last weekend and we saw some incredible new stuff there. We have been into indoor aerobatics and foamies since "the beginning" and we are just now looking into breaking into the 6 oz super lightly loaded planes. We design and build our own, and usually shoot for 3 to 3.5 oz/sqft. We saw several 5 to 6 oz shockies and a few Nikitis Animals also at 6 oz. We were amazed at how much lighter (and better) they flew. I am now in the process of building the Icarus Shock Flier F3A. I plan on using the new Eflite park 300, a Thunderpower 2s or 3s 480mah pack, a gws dd 7x4 prop, (3) bluebird 303 servos, a castle creations berg microstamp reciever, and a castle creations pheonix 10 lite esc. I hope to come in at or around 6 oz with a basically stock airframe. If its heavy, I will rebuild the airframe from 3mm and push for 5 oz. I know its possible because Devon McGrath has done it. He had a stock f3a shocky and used strings instead of the supplied carbon for support. Awesome plane, awesome pilot. Jason Noll flew a new biplane design to victory in the "estyle" contest. See pic. It has a wingspan of around 40" and an auw of around 6-7 oz. Very similar to the aito.
Hi guys that was my Nikitis Animal and F3A Shockflyer with mid wing counterbalances that you saw at E-fest
The F3A was interesting it came in at 5.6 ounces with a Kokam 2 cell 340 AXI 2204/54 3 Futaba 3110 servos (cut down) FMA M5 v2 . The counterbalances added some weight because of the extra carbon fiber that I used to make the wing stiffer. The major benefit to this plane is that it rolled very axial and it got allot of attention because it looked really cool. For more information on that plane go to
www.devinrocks.com That F3A has sense been retired and I will build another one when I get the time (it took allot of time to build). Sense then I have built A new F3A that is even lighter 5.1 ounces. In this one I am using the same set up except I am using a 2 Cell PolyQuest 300mah pack that only weights 18 grams compared to the Kokam and TP packs which both weight right around 24 grams. I could put lighter wire on the PolyQuest pack and get to 17 grams like I did with the Kokam 340 to get it to 23 grams. I did everything I could to get it as light as possible and now that it’s finished this thing floats around like a feather. The next one should be under 4.5 ounces
using a different set up. Hopefully I will have the new one ready before the ETOC.