hey guys thought i would share my latest project with you. im building it out of foam board. sorry the pics were taken so far into the build already, i kinda wish i had gotten some sooner. but it started by soaking foam board in hot water in the tub until the paper was loose enough to peel right off. from there i sat around for awhile and got a idea of what i wanted it to look like in my head. once i knew how i wanted it to look i thought about how to put it into a plane i could hold. my idea was to cut the fuse into piece rather than one solid piece so that i could form it more easily. to form the pieces i simply drew them out on thick construction type paper that i could use to trace onto the foam board. i included pics of the templates used for the fuse. the 2 on the left are the top of the fuse, and the on the right is the bottom back half of the fuse. i do not have a template for the wing or where the wing mounts to the fuse as i just drew those free hand onto the foam board because i wasnt sure what i was going to do with it, but it worked out great. for the wings mounting spot on the fuse i drew and cut out a strip of fom that would have a curve that i could use to give the wing an airfoil. and when i cut the wing i used my fingers to slowly and repeatedly bend foam board until it had a airfoil shape. i also soaked the foam board in hot water before trying to form it to help prevent it from cracking or tearing. i used this same method when shaping the fuse pieces too. when i had all the pieces formed the way i wanted them i used tape to hold them in that position and set them in front of the air conditioner to help dry them and to cool them down so that they would hold there shape. when forming i also had to dip the pieces into hot water several times to keep them warm enough to shape. all the progress sofar was done yesterday alone. hopefully by later today i will have more pics and templates up for the top wing, wing mounts and struts, and rudder. im thinking im going to leave the bottom open and the cockpit open for now until i get the electronics installed. as of now im going to use the electronics for a flyzone playmate in it with the outdoor prop for the erc micro mustang. the only thing im having trouble figuring out is what i am going to use to make/form the canopy. but i have plenty of time for that. enjoy and let me know what you think

heres some more pics. i got the center wing struts drawn and cut and pre painted them before installing them to save the trouble of working in a tight spot. i also drew the top wing and got it cut and formed and mounted. im about to start working on the outter wing struts and the rudder.

heres the top wing mounted, the pics are to large to upload all at once, sorry

i got the outter wing struts cut out and again pre painted them to save the trouble of doing it while they are installed. i also got the rudder cut and mounted on the tail. as of right now thats just about all i can do to it. i could however go ahead and make and instal the battery mounting area. but for the rest of the work like the canopy area and the nose i need to instal the electronics and make a motor mount. so that may be upwards of a week til its done. i still have landing gear to instal which im using the gear from my erc micro mustang as i dont use the landing gear on. now i just need to decide on a color scheme. im thinking yellow and white with black high lights lol. i also gotta figure out what to call it. any ideas for name? heres some more pics, enjoy and let me know what you think so far.

well here is the final version for the most part. i still need to make the motor mount and finish the nose and cockpit. its amazing what a paint job does for things. i took a pic of it next to a can of mountain dew to show the scale. just tossing it across the room now it will deffinately have more than enough lift for flight. its gonna need some nose weight but hopefully the motor assembly and battery being up from will be enough weight to compensate for that. if not i can always trim in some down elevator. once i get the gear in it and fly it i will be sure to give you all a flight report.

Looking very sweet bro.
I'm still lurking

it kinda reminds me of a crop duster so im thinking of naming it the diabolic duster. lol

Lookin good so far You're right, a bit of color goes a long way for micros!

Nick

tommorrow should be the day, if all goes well im getting the electronics from my buddy that are from his suhkoi. so if i get them ill have the gear installed and ready for some thursday afternoon flight testing. just out of curiousity does anyone knowhow many grams of thrust the suhkoi gear produces in its stock form. and can someone recommend a good aftermarket prop to use with it to give it more thrust. i think the bipe is going to need a decent amount of thrust as it has more weight than my playmate and my mustangs. also he was telling me that the suhkoi gear has a optional brushless upgrade. can anyone confirm this? if thts the case i migt set it up as a brushless 4 channel bipe instead of a brushed 3 channel. yeah i said it, im only making it to use elevato rudder and throttle right now. but if it flies well and has decent thrust i may add ailerons. and if i could go brushless with the suhkoi gear then i might even have a stunt flier!!!!

hey guys ,i got the electronics from my buddys suhkoi last night. it took about 4 hours the get them all in the plane but they are in and ready for flight testing. i set the motor in so that it has a slight downward and right angle. i ended up putting the micro control unit up near the nose instead of in the canopy area that i was originally hoping to put it. reason being is that it needed the nose weight. once i got everything in i put the battery in it so that it would be fully loaded and gave it a toss across the living room. it glided nice and level and slowly fell towards the floor. after doing several tosses like that with the same effect i decided to power up the electronics and give it a half power toss. at half throttle i tossed it and it dropped a bit then started to climb, and it stayed level. so today when i get back from work which is only 2 hours, im going to see how the weather is and possibly go to the park and get a short video of it in the air. ill let you guys know how it goes. if i am unable to get a video and flight test ill get some more pics up for you, and i might even work on putting the landing gear on it and making the cockpit/canopy.

well as of now my camera is missing. but i got the landing gear on it and the tail wheel on and im heading to the field to give it a go. cross your fingers for me, ill post the flight report when i get back!

FLIGHT REPORT IS IN

the first thing i did was attempt to ROG. it seemed to lack the power to want to take off so i simply removed the landing gear by pulling it off. i made it so that i could easily remove it in the event that it didnt work with it or if i needed to move it around. so with the landing gear removed i throttled it up nd gave it a hand launch, off it went but went into a vertical nose climb then stalled and fell tail first to the ground. so i picked it up, looked it over for any damage, there was no damage so i moved the battery forward about an inch, i made the battery area large enough to move forward and back alot for the sake of adjusting the center of gravity. so with the battery now completly forward i throttled up again and gave it another toss, off it went again, this time it was porposing and each time it came out of it it lost a little altitude until coming to the ground. so i picked it up gain, looked it over for damage. still no damage so i used the digital trim on the radio and gave it some dlight down elevator. i throttled up for the third time and tossed it. this time it went out nice and level but wasnt gaining any altitude. it slowly went down then abruptly lost power and crashed. this time in the crash the top wing popped off. not completely but 3 of the 4 top wing mounts came loose from the lower wing. it was a clean break, no serious damage. so i brought it over to the van and scratched my head over what the power lose issue was. while thinking i did the usual stuff, looking the plane over. i started turning the prop with my finger and noticed it was moving rather difficultly. it actually requires a good amount of pressure to turn it. im not familiar with the suhkoi in its stock form so im not sure if the prop shoud spin easily or if some pressure is needed to spin it but im guessing it should move freely. after much looking it over i cannot for the life of me determine why it is so hard to spin. i powered it up and watched the prop shaft spin and it is straight, its not bent at all. and i also gave it full power with the prop blowing on me and it does not seem to have much thrust at all. compared to my flyzone playmate and my erc mustang it has much less thrust. the bipe itself has more than enough lift for flight so im thinking my issue with it not gaining altitude is because there is something wrong with the motor assembly. im going to contact my local hobby shop and see if they have a replacement in stock, hopefully they do so i can get this back together and make a official maiden flight. so when i find out about the replacement i will let you all know, thanks for reading

Hey I was just wondering what type of bype were you trying to model your little micro flyer after?<div>-austin</div><div>
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honestly it is'nt supposed to be modeled after anything. i just wanted to build a bipe and started building. why do you ask rc6?

so hows the moter serch going will this plane fly agin?

well right now im thinking of scraping the project and building it over. this one i think is going to be used as a display model. i think it just a bit too heavy to get it airbourne, if i end up getting a brushless motor and esc for the suhkoi gear then i could easily get it flying. the main issue with weight is that i did not have any CA glue so i used hot glue to hold it together. even though i did use it in smll amounts i think it was still enough to over weigh the little bird. for the re design though im going to make my templates so that there is less seams on the plane which will allow for less glue to be used. i will post some results in this thread though once i get something going, either with this bipe or the new one

well i decided not to scrap it after all. i recently had a change of heart for another of my planes and after doing some work on it, it turned out flying well. that being said i decided to give this bipe 1 more chance to prove its worth keeping. i pulled it apart and scraped the original fuse. one of the main issues is that i dont have any CA glue so ive been using hot glue on my builds. as you all are aware hot glue adds weight. but on the first fuse build i made the tail portion in 2 pieces, a top half and bottom half which i glued together. the 2 halfs being hot glued together added a considerable amount of weight. so on the second build i made it so that the tail portion only has one seam. it took more work forming it but i did manage to get it shaped, and was able to use much less hot glue on the 1 seam alone. as for the front portion of the fuse, the original was the same as the tail, i made that 1 with 2 seams. so the second time around i made it all as one piece, so the only hot glue on it was where i joined it to the tail portion, which didnt require alot of glue.

the second thing i did with the fuse this time around was i split the thickness of the foam board so that now its 1/3 as thick as it originally was. it took some work to do but i pulled it off rather nicely i think. but splitting the thickness drop alot of weight. i also split the thickness on the whole lower wing and 90% of the upper wing, leaving only the leading edge of the top wings thickness alone. the reason i did this on the top wing is with the airfoil shape i have formed in the top wing, with the foam being the thickness that it is it helps reduce the wings upward flex. im not concerned with the lowwer wing flexing as it is glued to the fuse on its center plus with the braces that attach the top and bottom wings in place it will further reinforce the lower wing. with the trimming of thickness both wings are pretty flexible now, ill get some pics up tommorrow for you guys showing the thickness and also how flexible they are.

as it sits right now if i had to try making a accurate guess i would say that overall compared to the original build the new bipe is about 60%, maybe 70% lighter than it was before. im confident it will fly for me this time around. im also going to take the time to instal the ailerons on it aswell and trim it as a aerobatic flyer. with the stock suhkoi motor setup i think the aerobatics will be limited, but i do plan on getting a brushless esc and motor for it in the future. but thats the update on the bipe, ill try getting some pics up tomorrow for you guys

sorry guys ive been a bit lazy on the picture taking. ive been working on the bipe little by little each day. once i ge it finished ill deffinately get some pics up of it.

i got it finished up today, the rudder and elevator seem a bit small but im going to go out and test fly it today. it seems to have to much lift as it is right now so i angled the motor way down. but once i get it in the air ill let you guys know how it goes.

FLIGHT REPORT:

IT FLIES!!!!! to my surprise it flew. taking all the extra time to reduce weight and rebuild the fuse payed off. it has way to much lift as it wants to go nose up alot, but i added as much down elevator as i could and i was able to fly it a full lap around the field without a crash. i did crash it a few time just starting out and it took minor damage but she did fly. its a bit of work keeping it airborne though. im thinking i might need to make larger elevator at rudder surfaces though as its a bit sluggish with control inputs. still no pics guys sorry, my girlfriend has the mem card in the camera full and i have her copying her pics over to her laptop tonight then once its free of pics i should be able to get some videos, and ill post them on youtube.

sorry guys no video yet, it was a bit windy today so i didnt want to risk destroying the bipe trying to fly it in the wind. once i get some calm winds though ill take it out for a video