Stage 1 of mold production for UAV fuse

John, the idea is to make a nice large area for every thing that will allow space for strengthing bulkheads and the ability to move the batteries around to adjust CG for differing payloads and fligth durations.

Its going to be a 2500mm wing twin boom pusher with tricycle gear. so the pictures shows the layout of the engine and approx position of the rear main wheels.

The idea of the mold is to allow me to build the fuse in 2 halfs and then cut the raw edge of the mold clean and glue the two halfs together and make the full fuse. The shape of hte fuse will let me adjust the height of the sides so I can make differing capacity fuses.

The wing is going to be bolted onto the top of the fuse and have adjustment to allow for changes to CG, as this will change between short and long flight times.

At this stage I am just making them for myself and will make 1 to start with and see if any adjustments are required.

I plan to initially do a positive mold only at this stage and see what the finish is like, if it is still a bit rough then i might make a negative and layup into the mold.

the fuse will be vacuum bagged twin layer carbon with a spacer/filler between the layers to provide rigidity, I have tried this for wings and they have come out super stiff and should hold the weight in the box design, at worst I may have to add a couple of carbon rods to act as length stringer/stiffeners.

Why carbon - because i have a heap left over from a wing build, otherwise it would be glass.

richie

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Richard Unwin September 21, 2011 at 6:36pm

John, the idea is to make a nice large area for every thing that will allow space for strengthing bulkheads and the ability to move the batteries around to adjust CG for differing payloads and fligth durations.

Its going to be a 2500mm wing twin boom pusher with tricycle gear. so the pictures shows the layout of the engine and approx position of the rear main wheels.

The idea of the mold is to allow me to build the fuse in 2 halfs and then cut the raw edge of the mold clean and glue the two halfs together and make the full fuse. The shape of hte fuse will let me adjust the height of the sides so I can make differing capacity fuses.

The wing is going to be bolted onto the top of the fuse and have adjustment to allow for changes to CG, as this will change between short and long flight times.

At this stage I am just making them for myself and will make 1 to start with and see if any adjustments are required.

I plan to initially do a positive mold only at this stage and see what the finish is like, if it is still a bit rough then i might make a negative and layup into the mold.

the fuse will be vacuum bagged twin layer carbon with a spacer/filler between the layers to provide rigidity, I have tried this for wings and they have come out super stiff and should hold the weight in the box design, at worst I may have to add a couple of carbon rods to act as length stringer/stiffeners.

Why carbon - because i have a heap left over from a wing build, otherwise it would be glass.

richie
John Hestness September 21, 2011 at 6:12pm

It looks like it will have a lot of easy to access space arranged wider and lower so it will be easy to install electroniics in a large, flat, open area. Is this the idea? I wish more planes came that way. How many are you thinking of making? Is it pusher or puller?

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