RE: Project... maybe...
Okay, here comes a picture heavy post...
Last week was horrendous... the week before the third quarter ended, the week when teachers realized that they didn't have enough grades to constitute a report card...
w/e, now it is spring break, although it is going by way too fast. The past few days I have been working feverishly, and today I have a working airboat. The motor mount is made out of aircraft grade 3/8" birch 5-ply. It is held on the boat with four 3/6" thick stainless steel bolts, capped with locknuts and washers. I don't see this thing separating, even in a violent blowover. For the hatch, I imitated CLaserdesigns' plexiglass locks, which are an amazing simple yet effective way of holding down a hatch...
Today I ran the boat in my yard, and it was surprisingly fast! I am running a 9x7 APC prop and I couldn't go past half throttle or it would hit a bump and fly out of control. turning is good, and the twin rudder setup is very responsive. I might want to turn down the expo on them a bit. After a full run, which lasted somewhere between 10-15 minutes, I decided to bring her in. The battery was air temp (60 degrees farhenheit), Esc was 110, and the motor was 95. I think I can get away with a 9x9, or a 10x7 for that matter. The runs took 2381mAh out of the battery, so I imagine that full throttle runs will give me a full ten minutes with some juice left over. No video, but lots of pictures... maybe a video of trial runs tomorrow, depends if my mom can drive me down to the pond. (I should seriously consider getting my license... but I'm too lazy!)
lets have the pictures do the talking... I am going to post final weights soon as well.