Ched

Does anyone combat or pylon race in their basement? I tried a few different planes and the IFO is the best so far. We have a race called " last in the air ". We fly until one plane is left flying and it is the winner. We also get a point for chopping a streamer off another plane. We don't keep track of laps but most of the time we go as fast as we can. We don't like getting passed. The more planes in the air, the harder it is with all the turbulence. My basement is 26 ft x 32 ft with a 9 foot ceiling. We can do a lap in under 2 seconds !! ( cutting close to poles that are 10.5 ft apart ) We don't want to fly outside anymore. It is more fun and challenging to fly in the basement. ( and the weather is always great ) Am I using the best plane? I need a plane that is very tough. ( every race ends in a crash for all but one) The props do the most damage. I tried making prop guards but it hurts the performance and a ducted fan would have less thrust too. ( wouldn't it ?) Are there other threads like this? I couldn't find any.

Ched

Seek and Destroy

actually a ducted fan would give you more lift and power. you just have to get the outside so close to the blade that it's almost impossible. on real hover jet pack sort of things the outside of the ducted fan has to be 1/16th of an inch away at the most. they have to be super close to provide any power. i think the ifo or any small 3d plane would be good for indoor flying.

micro_builder

My Feedback: (1)

a ducted fan usually produces less thrust than a normal motor/prop combo. they do look and sound cool though

a modified AA would work for pylon racing. if you were to go with a differant airframe, something more like a pylon racer, it would probably help. i'd also use an actuator and go with some ailerons, this would let you bank in a turn pretty nicely.

otherwise, plantraco is selling some nice little planes now to go with their equipment, they look perfect for pylon racing. an IFO is a good choice though, they're pretty manuverable as you know. you could even make a micro IFO, they can be scaled down just about as far as you want (quite litterally), the 9" one i did was pretty fast, and tough to control. very fun though!

nick

Ched

I thought a small IFO would be good. I would have to buy smaller brushless motor, lipo, servos, etc. I bought an aero ace and it was hard to fly more than a few laps in my basement. It was slow and hard to control compared to the IFO. I did like the design of the plane with the pusher props. The props rarely hit anything. We break about one prop a night per IFO. The props will cut right through the rip stop covering and chop the carbon rods too. I don't think a ducted fan would take the crashes we have. Are they pretty tough? I think a larger AA with 3 or 4 channels for flap control would be great. We have so much fun basement racing. We just need a pylon plane with a pusher prop and it needs to be unbreakable. ( good luck. right ? )
Ched

micro_builder

My Feedback: (1)

you could get away with a brushed motor for a small, lightweight IFO. an N20ULV geared with a 6" prop will put out about 32 grams of thrust for 7 grams or so of weight, they work on single cell lipos well too so it could all be even lighter. you can also get servos that are down to 1.7 grams, and receivers that are less than a gram, so you could go as light as your wallet would let you.

ducted fans are ok for streangth, they're pretty compact, but they dont put out the thrust like a normal prop would. what are your props on your IFOs made of?

nick

Ched

We use APC composite props. I counted about 40 broken props on my work bench. I need to post a picture of that! Do you think I could make the IFO as a pusher so the prop would be better protected? Thanks for the info, Nick.
Ched

monstermaker13

anythings possible with the right amount of money and time

micro_builder

My Feedback: (1)

the only thing i could see holding you back from making the IFO a pusher would be that the CG might be off. you'd either have to move all the weight forward to counteract the weight of the motor in the back, or you could put your motor up front like normal, but turn it around so the shaft is facing the tail and make a shaft extention and run the prop out the back.

i've never done that, but lots have done it and it seems to work fine. a "rear-driven" IFO would be pretty cool looking, and an interesting project, i cant say i've seen that done before. i wonder if it would perform differantly...keep us posted.

nick

Ched

My first try at posting pictures. My friends IFO when it was new and after a thousand races. See all the patches and extra carbon rods over the broken places. There were three of us racing last night. It was a blast. Notice the flaps, they are very responsive and the servos are never too weak at high speeds.

rwmson

mmmmm... Elvira!

monstermaker13

lol

Ched

My son made this plane. I can't believe he made it from carbon rods and a kite and it flies great. It is a real good backyard flyer and perfect for basement racing. It is very hard to hit the prop on anything and it is unbreakable. I watched him crash about 30 times with no damage.

Fisher

Ched,

That son of yours is quite clever. The bi-plane looks very good. Are there any plans available for building it? Are there any discussion threads on building with carbon and rip-stop nylon? I have been looking for a good indoor plane that can take some abuse. My wife is a science teacher and that Bi-plane would probably do a good job of wowing the students for a hour or so.

Ched

I don't think there are any plans for this plane. He made it up as he built it. I need to build one too. I race him with my IFO and it isn't fair that my plane can prop chop his and his won't hurt mine. I will ask him for some plans, but I bet they won't be too detailed.

Fisher

Thanks for replying. Any plans at all would be helpful. I have been working with hotwire foam cutting and have considered Depron. Your son's bi-plane was a real switch from all that. Almost seems like someone could kit a set of carbon rods and connectors along with a little ripstop nylon and people could build all sorts of planes. Almost like Legos for the Plane builder. There is the million dollar idea. Buy one kit and you can build a kite or a plane or who knows what all. I look forward to seeing some specs or plans.

MrScience101

My Feedback: (1)

Hey! That pole says 'danger keep off!'(wink) That has got to be the coolest biplane I have ever seen. Quite colorful too. What kind of motor does your son use for thrust? What gear ratio does he use? What size battery does he use?

Thanks!

k4rma

Hey guys thats my plane. I spent a good deal of time posting up a nice response to the questions here only to have the session time out when I hit post [:@] My wife called me away right in the middle. I knew I should of copied it first just in case, but I didnt think I took that long! I'll throw up a quick response again and If you have any specific questions just give me a holler.

As far as propulsion goes Im using the [link=http://www.hobby-lobby.com/brushless-skatty.htm]Esskay 400xt[/link] from hobby lobby. I basically robbed the hs 55 servos, Electron 6 reciever and castle creations phoenix 10 speed controller from that plane and planned this one around the weight of all its components. I was hoping for a 8 - 9 oz plane and ended up at just a touch over 10 oz. That is the weight with a 1.6 oz battery. This could of easily been lessened, the covering came from a walmart spinner kite and although it offered a lot of color it is also about twice as heavy as the covering I bought from balsa products. It was just hard to pass up the great quality stitching and the great colors for just 10 dollars. I didnt even use half of the kite material.
At the moment Im using a too small 3s400mah polyquest lipo with a 9x4.7 prop and at full throttle it will pull around 9 amps, but I basically never do that. It looks like 6-7 amps keeps it in a nice hover and it goes plenty fast in the front of the house! Anything much over half throttle in the basement is just wicked fast! I borrowed my dads 3s800mah polyquest and that would probably be about the ideal battery. It doesnt do to badly with a 2s pack and a 10x3.8 prop, but definetly the 3 cell is the way to go.

The plane seems to fly great. I was surprised that it didnt have the high speed dive tendency that my ifo has, that is at high speed the cg and trim just feel off all of a sudden at 25-30 mph. The BIFO (I just made that up) seems really stable at high speed although it is touchy with the huge control surfaces. I cant comment too much on the 3d ability as Im not the greatest pilot. It hovers pretty well, although I do like it better with a bigger prop, inverted it doesnt seem to require too much up on the stick to keep it level. The roll rate isnt super fast, but the snap rolls are real quick, loops are tight enough that I might be able to pull one off in the basement. It will do some crazy flat spins and as far as knife edge goes, Im not skilled enough to tell ya![&o] It pretty much goes where you aim it though and if you dont level the wings it just keeps going however you point it. Did I mention that it is tough as nails? Lots of wall and pole slams as well as multiple concrete slams and I havent had to repair anything yet. The only change I need at this point is a little bit stiffer rods for the control surfaces. I purposely tried to use small rods to act a natural servo saver and while I cant tell if they are flexing in flight it still bother me so Im going to be beefing them up a little.

LE=20 inches
TE=28 inches
chord=7.25 inches not including the large aielerons
ailerons bow= 15 inches
front bow=40 inches this could vary depending on how much clearance in front of prop you want
fuse height=5.75 inches
fuse length=17.5 inches not including tail surface


Anyways, I know I lost some things here in the second posting, but if you would like any more details just give me a shout.

Fisher

K4rma

Sorry all your typing vaporized on you.

I pretty much have all the flight gear that you listed so that seems to be taken care of. Unfortunately I have never even seen an IFO first hand and have no idea how they are constructed, how the control surfaces are hinged or how the carbon rods are connected. Not that you want to spend too much more time on the computer but it would be nice if you could post a sketch with dimensions and either some detailed photos or explanation of the construction methods. If you are proficient with Excel you can simply use the draw functions to make a sketch and add dimensions to it, then post the file on here.

Just tried to post an Excel file and found out it is not supported. Had to convert it to a jpg.

Ched

My sons computer crashed, so he may not look here for some time. There is a lot of info about IFOs out there. Do a search for IFO. I got my first IFO about eight years ago. It is not a beginner plane. It took me a long time to learn how to fly it. I like working with the carbon fiber rods. Its like the newest best material combined with the oldest building procedure ( lashing sticks together) I use dental floss to lash the rods together then soak it with super glue. The more you lash it , the stronger it is. There is one bad thing about carbon fiber rods. They don't like heat. My friend left his IFO in his car at work. It was a hot day and the rods broke in about six places. My son said his garage got so hot that his broke in one place. I have seen rods break when using super glue accelerator too. Super glue gets very hot when forced to dry in a few seconds.

Fisher

Ched,

Thanks for the background and tips on these planes. Sticks and glue I love it!

Ched

Because of my basement race track, I fly more than most people. I made the race track in march of 06. I looked at the score book and counted about 3000 races since then. There are many more races that didn't have a winner and were not marked. We have many races that end in all planes crashing and there is no winner. I fly about 5 hours a week just in my basement. Here is a picture of two IFOs and some of the broken props. I'm glad I saved all those props. I went from a 2 cell lipo to a 3 cell and I now use a smaller prop. I have been cutting the broken part off and making a useable smaller prop.

Fisher

Ched,

Are you flying a fairly stock IFO (which model)? If not what modifications from the original have you made? What are you using for covering?

Ched

I bought an IFO kit about 8 years ago. It had balsa flaps and rudder. I broke it every time I flew it. I have replaced every thing several times. I now use a brushless motor and lipo battery. I don't think an IFO is suppose to go as fast as mine. I made cabon fiber flaps and the servos were not strong enough at high speeds. That is why I have flaps with the hinge in the middle so that some of the air is helping the servo. It is real responsive. I heard that IFOs will not barrel roll, mine does. Mine is the purple one. I covered it with rip stop nylon, some of it came from a kite.

Fisher

Ched,

I am just beginning to appreciate the statement "So Many Toys and so little money to buy them all with." Guess I will simply have to put myself on a budget. Thanks for the info. Sounds like a lot of good fun.

k4rma

I finally got my computer back up and running the way it should be! I was also out of town for training for a few days so I really hadnt had a chance to respond, sorry for that. I would say if you wanted to build a mini-ifo clone that would be a smart start. The BIFO is quite a bit harder to throw together. As far as an Ifo you can get all the [link=http://www.bphobbies.com/view.asp?id=V628175]rods[/link] at balsa products as well as the [link=http://www.bphobbies.com/view.asp?id=V968690]covering.[/link] You have to look at what your goals on weight are depending on your current flight pack to really know whether a full size or a mini is more appropriate. Covering, rods, glue shouldnt even cost you 30 bucks. I lucked out when I put together my "stretched mini ifo" and caught a bunch of great sales. The whole plane ready to fly didnt even cost me a hundred.