Hi, my name is Justas, i am from Lithuania (a small country near Baltic sea), i am 19 years old, i am studying Informatics in Mykolas Romeris university. So, after a few years of flying in flight simulators i decided that i need to go to something more serious, and i found myself in RC. I have been flying with helicopters, gliders and planes. I never had one, so i decided to make one by myself. I could buy it, but for me, building something is even more interesting than using it! I didn't need long to decide what should it look like, for sure it's predator! I decided it because i am in Lithuanian volunteers army (not professional army, more for young people who associate their future with military), so it took my eye from first shot.Firstly it should be controlled manually (because of lack of money, hard time for non working student...), and in a few months after that it should be upgraded with ArduPilot, CoPilot and GPS to become a real UAV!For a while i am not going to annoy you with questions about ArduPilot, CoPilot and GPS (i'm a newbie in that).The first thing i am going to do is to build the main Predator, it's wingspan should be about 160cm or less. (what i want is to be enough to cary about 1kg, it would be a high resolution photo camera and a video camera).After long searches all i found that could be useful was this (didn't found a good quality scheme with V tail up):
So what i need is help from people who already did this, i'd have some questions like:1. What the material should be?2. What about measurements?3. What about wings construction?4. How to attach wings?Ant i would be wery hapy if someone who did this could share theyr experience, any photos and sketches(most important to me).I'm not very good sketcher, but i tried to show the construction of the main body that i'm thinking about, what do you think about that(just a sample, form isn't very similar to predators):
Impatiently waiting for any help! Thanks and see you soon ;)
Hi again, I'm very sorry that I didn't see that there was already a page 2 with comments.
I don't quite understand why you changed your mind from the predator to the flying flounder?
Hi Justas, the payload of a "normal" plane is usually not more than 20%, so if you need to carry a 1kg load you should start calculations with a TOW of around 5kg. On the other hand I would guess that your chosen model (and why not?) probably will come out nearer to 2kg TOW. Your chosen building method and material is certainly well suited for the project. You can use the 3-view to draw a side view of your plane and the top view of the fuselage. That, I feel, is always a good starting point. Don't set the frames (bulkheads) too tight (as in your sample), 60 -75 mm is normal at that size. I could not read on your drawing the description of the tube which runs the length of the fuselage. Is that a strutural member or just a building support? For the latter it is well placed but as a structural part of the fuselage it is not really suiteable and also unnecessary. For the frames I would use 3mm lightply, and for longerons four pine stringers of 3x5mm would be sufficient. The skin is best made from 2mm light balsa.
Don't worry about the weight of the motor at the end of the fuselage (yet), the original has the same problem or even worse because of the variable fuel load.
Come on, get cracking - let's see who finishes first, you or me.
Im stil thinking how to make a frame for the part marked in red, body gets thinner, so im still thinking i two ways:
1. make a wooden frame like for main body (because behind red marker i need to connect wings, so it should be really strong construction), and to get nice form using fibreglass.
2. to change construction of the wings connection. to connect wings not in the middle of the body, but in the top (upper from original). i tried to Photoshop this way fast(i hope you will understand what i had in mind):
We can see the improvement in interior space over the Predator plans.
Great start!
We have seen quite a few members interested in a kit or ARF form of a twin boom pusher config aircraft, and few if any exist. (under the million dollar mark)
Comments
I don't quite understand why you changed your mind from the predator to the flying flounder?
W.
Hi Justas, the payload of a "normal" plane is usually not more than 20%, so if you need to carry a 1kg load you should start calculations with a TOW of around 5kg. On the other hand I would guess that your chosen model (and why not?) probably will come out nearer to 2kg TOW. Your chosen building method and material is certainly well suited for the project. You can use the 3-view to draw a side view of your plane and the top view of the fuselage. That, I feel, is always a good starting point. Don't set the frames (bulkheads) too tight (as in your sample), 60 -75 mm is normal at that size. I could not read on your drawing the description of the tube which runs the length of the fuselage. Is that a strutural member or just a building support? For the latter it is well placed but as a structural part of the fuselage it is not really suiteable and also unnecessary. For the frames I would use 3mm lightply, and for longerons four pine stringers of 3x5mm would be sufficient. The skin is best made from 2mm light balsa.Don't worry about the weight of the motor at the end of the fuselage (yet), the original has the same problem or even worse because of the variable fuel load.
Come on, get cracking - let's see who finishes first, you or me.
Have fun...
W.
Am sure u have checked out this site, but just in case:
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_8005932/mpage_4/key_/tm.htm
All the better for stability.
Im stil thinking how to make a frame for the part marked in red, body gets thinner, so im still thinking i two ways:
1. make a wooden frame like for main body (because behind red marker i need to connect wings, so it should be really strong construction), and to get nice form using fibreglass.2. to change construction of the wings connection. to connect wings not in the middle of the body, but in the top (upper from original). i tried to Photoshop this way fast(i hope you will understand what i had in mind):
Great start!
We have seen quite a few members interested in a kit or ARF form of a twin boom pusher config aircraft, and few if any exist. (under the million dollar mark)
Its just a beginning, so it will be some changes in progress, allready know where.Got any ideas, tell me, lets do this together! :)
-
1
-
2
-
3
of 3 Next