STOL Flying Wing Test - 30mm EDF
#1

Not a VTOL but I hope to get pretty close with this STOL concept. For a long time I have been somewhat "annoyed" with the additional energy that is needed for hovering. So, decided to try how slow I can go with one motor, some added flaps and thrust vectoring, without bumping up the throttle from the cruise levels.
The idea is to open large flaps in the front to slow down the unit and create additional lift and while doing that push down the elevons and direct the thrust downwards at the back to balance... To start with, I kept the surface area of the flaps double the surface area of the elevons to balance the additional lift that the thrust vectoring generate. The small thrust vectoring wings at the back are designed to also support the navigation at slow speed. The large vertical surface areas are also intentional to keep the wing aerodynamics active when slowing down.
Below is the videos of the maiden. The good news is that the wing still flies after all the additions and I didn't destroy it during the maiden
But it needs to be tuned to reduce the elevon range as the unit tends to lose altitude into the transition, showing me that the lift from the front flaps is not quite balancing the additional lift generated at the back with the combination of elevons+thrust vectoring. Another good news is that I could feel the significant speed reduction from the flaps and was able to recover back even though the balance is not there... Will make the necessary adjustments and get back to the field
The idea is to open large flaps in the front to slow down the unit and create additional lift and while doing that push down the elevons and direct the thrust downwards at the back to balance... To start with, I kept the surface area of the flaps double the surface area of the elevons to balance the additional lift that the thrust vectoring generate. The small thrust vectoring wings at the back are designed to also support the navigation at slow speed. The large vertical surface areas are also intentional to keep the wing aerodynamics active when slowing down.
Below is the videos of the maiden. The good news is that the wing still flies after all the additions and I didn't destroy it during the maiden

