Hi - Not sure if anyone has done this but I'm looking in the future to get a X-UAV Talon, however these are quite fast moving planes so im using an easystar for the moment - wjat I would like to do though is to cut away parts of the fuselage and add a new wider foam fuselage that can store more itmes in it
This looks inprinciple quite simle - create larger foam fuselage from foamboard and then glue on to current fuselage byt he wings (the rest of the fuseleage would be cut away)
Has anyone done this already and if so what were the results? I dont think aerodynamically this will make and ifference to the aircraft and if I find its down on power then I could simply add a bigger motor or two motors on the wings
any thoughts?
Mark B
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As a generic point I was wondering about making my own fuselage with foamboard but getting the wings from a shop - then just adding them to the fuselage - IM no expert on angle of attack etc but Ive seen some simple foam twins that do what I want and are not too complex to put together (famous last words)
That's not an unreasonable approach. The Aerosonde UAV started out that way (not using foamboard though!)... off-the-shelf wings from a competition F3B glider design, with a custom fuselage (and custom twin boom, A frame tail).
@Mark: Keep in mind thought that staying up in the air when you add more weight and drag is not a simple issue and the simple solution of "adding a bigger motor" isn't necessarily the only fix you'll need.
If you up the weight of the aircraft you'll increase the wing loading, requiring stiffer wings in general, but importantly during any manoeuvre in which you're accelerating (turns, pulling out of a dive, etc). Thus, unless you also strengthen the wing, you reduce the flight performance for the given wing. You'll need extra speed to generate extra lift to overcome the weight, but this comes at the cost of extra drag as well… which you also get if you redesign the shape of the fuselage. The short end of this is that you tend to reduce the useable range of angle of attack, meaning you lose high angle of attack flight.
Of course, much of this won't trouble you if you're just cruising around in straight and level flight and performing slow, simple turns (which you might be doing in many UAV applications). But at least keep it in mind, so when you pull a hard turn at high speed and see the wings fluttering away, you know why! ;)
HI - thanks very informative - yes actualyl all my flying is incredibly boring - slow turns and lvel flight for photos etc - the more predictabel and slow the better it is - in fact my real challenge has been to get a twin rc plane that is slow - mostly they seem to go at mad speeds which I simply dont need - thus modifying fuselages to get the space required for 2 pixhawks plus all the gear that goes with it
I have seen it done to a skywalker on rc groups
very doable. What sort of things do you need the extra space for?
Keep things near the CG!
You might also consider putting things under the fuselage and reinforcing them. Lowering the overall CG can help with stability, not that you need it with an easystar.
What I'm really looking for is a slow fly twin engined large fuselage plane - I cant find any like this really with wingspans of about 2m (not too bothered about size of wingspan but anything smaller than this and the fuselages seem to be very small._ Bormatec do one but hey seem to be difficult to order and sem very expensive for what they are
I can always bite the bullet and make my own plane with foamboard and reinforcement but it will be some trial and error to get flying lol
- and yes I did look at putting things below the fuselage but was worried that there is little protectin when belly landing