Hi
The picture below is of the sunseeker powered glider that has been developed by a small team of glider enthusiasts
It has solar power all over its wings and the propeller is at the rear of the craft pushing the plane.
It is rather a different design and I was wondering if any one has seen a UAV design simlar?
This design has several advantages the main one being the prop is clear of any camera view and being a glider/sailplane it can go silent when needing to take images where silence is golden.
It is a design I would like to model on and try out one day and see if it can do what the full size version can do.
Powered take off and landing
The tips of the wings drop during taxiing to support the plane
The solar panels charge a series of batteries. but the designer says he gets 30 mins out of the battteries.
Can anyone see any problems with this design?
thanks
Peter
Replies
That's a good question. In my sleep dazed state when I wrote this I omited the site of the real craft.
http://www.solar-flight.com.
There is a series of videos of it on flight, the motor I was thinking is in the rear of the main body judging by the pictures. My first thought was that torque on the fuselage must be huge no matte where the motor is placed, but seeing it fly, they must have overcome that somehow.
But when I saw the motor, it could well be in the tail.
Now that I look at it again I think it is in the tail.So the torque on the fuselage must be quite a significant force to contend with?
P
Only thing I can see that could be a potential issue would be wing stiffness depending on weight and length of wing, any deformations in the wings during flight could obviously lead to a change in the lift curve of the wing. On top of that if the wing deforms differently on one side to another it could lead to rolling moments.
An off note is the prop in the back would either require a long "drive shaft" (added weight) or rear mounted motor that would throw off the CG. (Unless there are other methods?)
My .02$ :D
- Jeff