flyer for work
 

OK, so I work in a room that is about 24 *35 with 14 foot ceilings. I want to biuld a micro flyer to fly in this space, but I am new to this and dont know what kind of system I need. The plane will be scratch made. I think the plane will have a wingspan of 10-14 inches and wiegh barebones of about 9-14 grams. Is this to big of a plane to fly in this space? I want it to be as slow as possible. Should I use servos or actuators? A plane with elevator,rudder would be ok but ailerons,elevator would be great! Is this possible? I am going to try to make the plane acrobatic as possible. I NEED SOME HELP PLEASE!!!!

RE: flyer for work
 

you could go the quick and easy way with this: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=548956

it looks pretty nice, and all you'll need is the parts from an AA donar. he just made a new one with an 18x4 inch wings, his AUW is 15.3 grams and his wing loading is only .63oz/sq ft, so its a nice slow flyer. i'd imagine that could easily fly in your area (i've flown a bare stock aero ace inside the main room of our house and its smaller than yours).

if you get your own equipment, you've got some options. servo's will be overkill though, as actuators will work even in one ounce models. the main thing you'll need to go slow is wing area, the more wing, the slow the speed. you can use this flight speed calculator to get a rough idea of how big of a wing you'll need to get the desired wingloading and speed for the weight you'll end up at: http://www.geocities.com/billy_stilt...planecalc.html

for these slower, lighter models, ailerons dont work as well as a normal rudder. plus, ailerons work best when there is little dihedral in the wings, and dihedral is needed for good stability when going slow and taking turns. an elevator can be nice to have, but a lot of time they arent needed, as the throttle usually does a good job of adjusting altitude. plus, getting aileron linkages to work well can be a major pain in the butt!

you can get pretty much everything from this site: http://bsdmicrorc.com if you want it semi aerobatic, thats certainly possible, but to get to the point of doing hovers and knife edges, you'll need to shell out some hard money for a brushless system to really get it going. you can get a good idea of how much thrust you can get, for how much amp draw, from this site: http://home.comcast.net/~gordon-johnson/home.htm

if you go towards the heavy side, using a JMP RX, 130mah lipo, and two 1 gram actuators, you could use the 7mm gearbox to get over a 1:1 thrust ratio if you can build the plane light enough. the equipment i just listed, including the 7mm motor and gearbox should come in at less than 15 grams. if you can build the plane to around 10 grams to get a total weight of 25 grams, you could use the blue SS motor and get a little over 29 grams of thrust. if you use that motor, you could go to the smaller atomic workshop 90mah cell and loose even more weight, but your flight times will be shorter.

nick

edit: just read your question about actuators being proportional. short answer, yes they are. any and all actuators can be proportional, it just needs to be connected to an RX that has proportional outputs. its just a coil of wire, so if the power being fed to it is controllable, the actuator will be as well.

RE: flyer for work
 

I am more worried about the actuators ot being powerful enough for the control surfaces. Is this normaly a problem? Thinking about it-I will probably build two planes one slow one with rudder and elevator and one "hot rod" with ailerons and elevator. I have flown several aero ace type planes and definantly want an elevator involved. OK so assuming money is not a problem what systems would you recomend? I am more worried about the radios than anything--can 72 mhz be used? I have tons of standard 72 mhz transmitters, but can I use them? Will they work with the micro receivers? What about constuction-balsa possible? I would hate to use foam but I guess I can if it's a must.

RE: flyer for work
 

the actuators should work pleanty well if you're under an ounce. the only time actuators have a hard time working is if the control surface is too large, or if the plane is fast. the 1 gram actuators put out enough power to handle just about any plane around an ounce in weight. the only plane i ever had it be an issue with was a 9.5" IFO i built, it was very quick, but i was using .6 gram actuators and they just didnt have quite enough power to control it well enough.

if you can go with any system, i'd say the Plantraco or the Micro Invent systems would be the way to go. the JMPs work great, but they're heavier. the plantraco system is on a 900mhz frequency so there's really no glitches, but you have to use their TX with it unless you buy the buddy box cable to use your own TX. right now there's only 3 radio channels for the plantraco system, but they're working on a 6 radio channels right now so more people can fly at the same time.

the micro invent system is as light as the plantraco system, but its on the normal 72mhz frequency, so if your TXs are negative shift, you can use your own TX. it can also run either 2 actuators with a brushed motor, or 4 servos (from what i understand). it will also auto detect a brushless ESC if you plug one in. i know BSD is out of stock right now, but i'll dig up the micro invent web page, they should have them. i'd say they're probably the best way to go.

if you plan on doing larger models, the Falcon systems are really nice. the BreezeBlock has the RX and two of the lightest servos on the market all on one PCB for easy mounting and installation. only "problem" with it is it doesnt have an internal ESC so you'd have to get a seperate one (i could be wrong on that though, i'm not as familiar with them). the entire system weighs less than 5 grams, the servos are tiny, but fully proportional like normal servos. these are also on the normal 72mhz frequency.

as for construction, balsa is more than possible. i think i've only built 2 or 3 foam models ever, everything else has been done with balsa. i think its easier to work with than foam, but thats just a personal opinion.

nick

RE: flyer for work
 

I looked up the falcon equipment. Very nice. Is there anywhere in the USA that sells this equipment?

RE: flyer for work
 

yep, BSD has them. they dont have the individual servos listed, and some of the other parts, but they might still have them. you could shoot them an email and ask though, they're always happy to help. http://www.bsdmicrorc.com/products.cfm?catID=10002

nick