Truly an amazing project. I commend those few with the foresight and desire to pursue such project. My hat's off to you!

Hey Guys,

If you want to see more info about the Raven and power plants you can check out.

www.airasys.com

Take Care

David.

PS here is a picture of Wayne Hadley pilot of the Full size Raven and Bob Francis disigner of the Raven Kit prototype.

i thought i keep you guys posted

here are a couple of video,s of the turbine

1 full run (11mb)http://209.15.85.5/neelix/turbines/turbowren.mpg

start cycle

http://209.15.85.5/neelix/turbines/startturbo.mpg

these where recorded in december 02
while testing the turbine on the teststand
maximum setting was a 100000 rpm,s on the turbine
with a 21x10 wooden 3-blade

if you here anyone talk and wonder what the h...???
its dutch brable (in dialect) like canadian only wurse

i will post this week movies of the raven in flight
and you can see the raven fly while the prop is hitting the soundbarrier!

can someone help me or give me a tip to compress video,s and make them small but still good for internet?
i just hate those low quality video,s

what is the weight? in total incl paint covering engine etc etc?
it is really nice made

This is stated by Dave over on the Scale Aerobatics.com Forum

"The Turbo Raven has a 102 inch wing span and is 87 inches in length. The current flying prototype comes in a 24 lbs but we could come in at around 20 if we made a serious effort. This model is currently powered by a MacMinarelli 85 Twin but most similar power plant designs will work. Currently we are also working on a Turbo prop version of the kit with JD Enterprises. It will be turning a 3 blade 28 /10 at about 30-35 pounds of static thrust. which will give an incredible power to weight ratio. We are working on a couple of designs for a variable prop but they are in the early stages."

a well the 28x10 is impossible
the turbine will not take it it will exeed more then 800 degrees on the temp resulting in shutting off
or need to set the rpm,s of the turbine less then 130000 rpm,s
ours is set at 150000 rpm,s
then it will have about 35 punds of thrust yes
we tryed a 22x11 3 blade carbon from fuchs
the plane went of the runway lifted off, but turbine then switched off because of over temperature +800 C and had no responce.
it was flying totaly underpowered
believe me i am testing this model since december and tryed plenty props
the best one yet is the 22x10 mentz wooden prop
this way the turbine responces nice and is fast on maximum thrust
prop speed is about 9500 rpm,s and while in air
it hits the sound barrier (prop)
however we want now to test a 24x8 mentz


about the weight

well they say wood is always lighter however i could be wrong
ours is made of wood
total weight 14.4 kilo,s
incl:
2 x 5cells sanyo 3300
1 x 6 cells sanyo 3300
fuel 2 liters dubro tank
8 digital jr servos
1 fuelpump
1 oilpump
1 50cc oiltank
1 x mcu for the turbine




here is a video
of the start , taking off etc
http://209.15.85.5/neelix/turbines/raven.wmv

if you hear brabble yes it is in dutch
discussing how nice kerosine smelled ;-)
and how fast it went with the spinner mounted

last you see the landing wich was on a very windy day 5-6
the model flice very nice and has no "surprises"like leaning to left or right or break out it will fly strait
you can hear on final reving up the turbine a little
to make shure we made it to the field

this is the turboraven from www.atimanufacturing.co.uk
turboprop by wren turbines

regards

Sandor

How big is your Raven? it should be considerably larger to weigh in at 31lbs. I have never built a plane yet of similar scale where wood was lighter than my fiberglass and composites.

i now i must admit in fiber it would look even better
but for the cost to build it is very cheap

Span : 2.70 Meters
Lenght: 2.60 Meters

Hello Sandor,

Nice video of the Raven. Again congratulations on putting everything together and getting her up in the air; I know that this is no easy task. What kind of flight times are you getting? Also have you done any acro experimentation?

As far as the 28/10 prop size goes this a target that we hope to achieve. I am always pushing to try to have scale props. on my aircraft. I did have a friend in southern CA. that was successful in turning a 28/10 but this was on the bench and not in the airframe.

Again congrats on the Raven flights

Take care

David

thanks for the compliment
yes sometimes i wish for a simple gas engine

well for now we have a small problem
we are getting about 7 minutes out of 2 liters of fuel wich is to much , we suspect we have a fuel leak in the turbine or somewhere else , i have send the turbine to wren to be inspected

about the scale
yes i totaly agree it looks nicer with a true scale prop
i have for display shows mounted a 26x12 3blade fuchs
i wished we could use that

on the bench it runs everything
but as soon you go up in revs above 130000 watch the temp
it will rise and rise.
it is not because of the turbine being inside of the model,
actualy now it is very quiet and no difference in temperature
we get on the bench about 7500 rpm,s with 150000 on the turbine , believe me you need this speed to fly this big plane.
infact we flew her without the spinner and temperature was even higher! that with the spinner
not to mention the airspeed
i think honnestly as you can see on the video
that it "suddenly"goes very fast when in upper rpm,s
so i would suggest you run the turbine between 140000 and 150000 to get the best results.
but then you will see that the prop speed will stay low and resulting in high temperature
like i sayd our first flight resulted in a flame out,
it hardly came of the runway not picking up at all
at about 20 meters up , the temperature exeeded i think at 800c
we had a hard landing downwind resulting in a landing gear fracture , because of the raven it kept strait and did not fall out of the sky
this was with a 3 blade 22x11 fuchs

our next test we will try to use a 26 x 8 or 26x7

maybe we need to exchange the gearbox
i was thinking to get a different setting on that
so we can get the maximum out of it with a bigger prop
again like you said
it is a lot of work
but as soon you see her fly you forget immidiatly!
and just its a pleasure to listen
as for arobatics
we toulk it easy on the first run
we did some loops . wing overs , cuban,s ,tryed to hover
exept it keeps on climbing , so you have to play a lot with the stick
we want to try to get the turbine more agressive on the pickup
i am shure it can be done
again the raven is VERY easy to fly it has no intention to break to one side
is very easy to handle even in lower speeds
and because of the nice work of wren turbine picks up very fast on lower rpm,s
so you can bring her in just like the real thing
as you can hear on the video
that day was very windy still you can see how easy she come,s in
anyway keep us also posted about your testing
rember until now there are only 2 ravens on this planet that actualy fly with a turbine
it would be cool to see more of them
as you can also hear on the video everyone was just talking and talking and loved the smell of the kerosine

reg Sandor

I've been reading the various threads on RCU related to turbo prop models for the last year. I noticed that both sandor and shockwave have mentioned the performance / technical challenges of going with a constast speed / adjustable pitch solution.

If you have a spare hour, check out this thread if you haven't already seen it.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/showthread...ght=turbo+prop

This guy has built a variable pitch prop mechanism of his own design. He's been working on it for over a year. The thread captures the development process complete with all the failures in between. The control unit in the turbine maintains a specified RPM (say 150000). As pitch of the prop is increased, EGT increases to a point where the turbine will shutdown. He explains how he had to learn some new flying skills to get used to the prop-pitch on the throttle control.

He's posted several videos which may still be available.

Jasonn

yes i followed mec last year also with this great work
it is very nice , but still indeed difficult to do
we will see what this year doess

now why dont he write?

well i now it has been a long time
since the post a lot happened
i was just looking at all the post i had made since februari
and i must admit i was wrong about lots of things
this weekend we had a show in belgium "Jets over Pampa"
there where 3 turboprops there ( i dont think this was ever seen anywhere in the world)

i brought a extra 300s ( with wren turboprop)
and the raven

changes we made since then where

replaced all tanks
had the engine send back for inspection
added a U.A.T from BVM
tryed various props
currently we fly with a mentz 26x8
i will capture a video this week to show

Crashes :

4 in total until now (all due to flame out (air in system)
on saturday on the show we had a flame out while being downwind and only 30 feet of the ground
result: wing broken , landing gear off , nose broke of,elevator and servo broken.
Mike from Wren helped us whilst we changed the pickup for rpm and the fuelpump , after this we had no more flame outs
(after the U.A.T we never had a air bubble in our system

however we fixed her back in 6 hours to still be seen on the show on sunday

and yes it is possible to hold her vertical and stop her
rev up and down to hold her in position
so no need for a pitch control
the engine pickup is so fast now that it runs alm ost like a petrol
since the power peak we have is between 140000 and 160000

Regards

Sandor

Sorry to hear about the crash Sandor, Glad to hear you got her back in the air later the same day.

Do you have any pictures or video of the event?

Take Care

yes i do

i will post a few reply,s with pictures
and video material

start of raven

please download here the codec for your windows media player

http://download.divx.com/divx/DivX505Bundle.exe


after this see the video

on http://209.15.85.5/neelix/turbines/startraven.avi


here the first pic with our team ( me taking the picture)
in the middle is Mike Murphy from Wren Turbines

after the crash fixing her

did the plane crashed here?

no its our usual mess we make while fixing her

i tryed to capture the full event on the pc however the battery is empty from my camcorder:stupid:
i will do that later

heres a picture of our team incl the extra 300s

OUCH...

This is the real thing of course...

Mooi project Sandor

hey shockwave, do ya think ya might be able to bring the raven with turboprop to the Bomber Field big bird fly in monoville TX in september, its one of the biggest events for modeling in TX

Sorry,

I don't think I will be able to make the show; I have Baby number 2 on the way and I think my wife would have a fit If I proposed to leave for a week during the last part of her pregnancy.


Hopefully I will get the oportunity to attend next year.

You guys take care and let me know if you get out in the SFO area.

Hello...We had an R/C Fly-In at our club last weekend, and there was a fellow with a 44% Raven, powered by a 3W-150. Does anybody know anything about this aircraft? I would like to know who makes it, and the specs on it. thanks...

I believe it probably was an FMG Raven distributed through Planes Plus.

Sorry to upset anyone, but ATI manufacturing's Raven, is certainly not designed by them. They may be building this kit but the original was built and designed by IAD designs a long time before it ever came on there website. I have seen both. The design is a complete copy of the one from IAD. The version I saw at ATI weighed a ton.
In my oppinion, I would not deal with a company as unscrupulous as ATI, they have been in court a couple of times recently for non payment, and have lost on both occasions.
Check them for youself.... www.iadmodeldesigns.co.uk

regards

Be honest, how does this thing really fly?? The turbine on the front is intresting but if it only produces 35lbs of static thrust is it really worth the money when I can slap a ZDZ 80 on the front that produces >50 lbs of static thrust.