Aeronutz News letter No 16 April 2003
Latest News ........
Sorry no fun fly this month, next one will be in the autumnYep, - it's gotta be big John Mack again ...........
He said this little chap is a scale model of something but I forgot what? It flew a few feet ok and I am sure John will have it up in the roof next time out. I think it is made of Ray's super thin "airline foam" because john got this out as Mark was playing about with his 2" span flying wing which is made of airline foam.
John sent us this pic. of a mini flapper, not too sure its made by him but then who else would make such a thing!! Note the rubber motor at the back of the body (fuselage) His big butterfly furry body flapper had a couple of nice flights while his Japanese biplane flapper with quills for spars was regularly up in the beams.
Geoff's new remote control plane using a R/C car control system, alas a little underpowered but looked very nice and a change of motor/prop will get it climbing I am sure.
Four Jigglet’s
to the ounce !
Mark’s new 10” span, remote control Jigglet flew very well on Saturday - 7 years since the original 12” rubber power was published in the fourth issue of Aviation Modeller International.
In those days indoor models where rarely seen in magazines, thanks then to Dave Boddington for being so far sighted back in March 1996. Dave was at our fun fly on Saturday and saw the mini foamie fly and even had-a-go at driving it himself. Who would have thought we could make a remote controlled Jigglet fly for several minutes using proportional throttle and rudder let alone flying it 17 per cent smaller? Thanks also to Sergio at Z Tron in New Jersey and Matt in CA for their efforts to develop Muscle Wire actuators and infra red control systems which make this 7.1g cabin model a super flier.
Mark was hoping to use a super light carbon fibre prop. but got super glue in the prop shaft hole at the last minute. The only other light weight prop. about was an Ikara rubber power one so this was reamed out accordingly. Fortunately the plane is so light that it can be flown throttled well back, which seemed to suit the rubber power prop. as its only turning very slowly with a coarse pitch prop. Also the prop is flexible and cheap to buy - much easier than using a carbon one ! The motor’s gearbox was a bit rough and made quiet a bit of noise unlike its predecessor. When the gearbox was new it used a whooping 45mA at 3.3v WITHOUT the prop attached!
Other features for the mini Jigglet plane:
APPA Muscle Wire actuator.
All 2mm wall foam construction including tail and fin.
Plane without prop weighed 6.2g.
40mA poly. cell
Voltage switch.
Control system uses two sensors.
Motor has suppression cap. And the chip has two anti “surge” caps.
No voltage booster.
The APPA rudder actuator used a smaller size needle which made it move quicker and further than previous actuators.
The plane was made ship-in-a-bottle style. The rudder and tailplane was made first and then attached to the fuselage so the wiring could be done easier.
The plane balanced a little nose heavy so a small blob of blu tak is on the tail.Another new features on the 10” Jigglet was Mark’s voltage switch. Sure enough at 3.1 volts the red LED on the underside of the model came on. We are pleased to report that the plane was still flying well at this voltage, Simon (showing off again Ed.) Could turn the voltage switch on and off by adjusting the throttle position in flight! The plane was stable (most of the time) and flew for several minutes. Mark regularly handed over the Tx in flight, Simon, Another John, , Dave Boddington and Andrew H all had a go. More details and picture to come ……
Ray's Gladiator, looking a little battered but flew well. It is now a R/C on 35 Mhz. I assume it uses one of Andy's Pic chip conversions to drive the coi actuators?New Roof Cruisers
Mark’s new 10” span Jigglet flew well at our last fun fly of the winter. It was not fitted with elevator as suggested in our last newsletter. Little planes on the horizon. The 40mA cell only just fits inside the fuselage of the 10” span Jigglet so Mark has tried gently rolling the cell round a bar. This does not seem to have damaged the cell (at the moment!) which is excellent news because we can now build planes with smaller fuselage. To celebrate this good news Mark immediately started work on a new FU4 Corsair ! As usual the new plane is based on the previous ones. So it will be about 7 to 8g weigh and 10” span using a 40mA cell and geared 4mm Dia pager. To keep the weight down it will need to be made entirely from 2mm wall foam. The cranked wing design will not be strong enough so a carbon fibre leading edge is being designed. The LE will go through the fuselage - so where will the cell go? The cell position is critical to get the centre of gravity right. How do you make a 10” remote control Corsair “ship in a bottle style” to get the cell, control system and motor in the fuselage? (with great difficulty Ed) The fuselage shape is roundish not square like the Jigglet so it will be more difficult. The APPA Muscle Wire actuator is easier to make separately from the plane and add the ruuder/fin/tail assembly to the fuselage, how do you do that with a tiny oval fuselage? Tricky! Mark had a very successful rubber powered 9” span Corsair many years ago. That and other 10” span planes also used 100mm dia. props but with rubber motors.Did anyone else notice that the Ikara Zero conversion to IR remote control weighs more than the Jigglet despite them both begin about the same size and the Jigglet has a 3 D fuselage? Just shows that the Depron must be much denser than the wall foam.
Swarms of little planes on the horizon.
Making the new 10” Corsair's micro leading edge requires a little mould to be made.
Mark got bored waiting for the paint on the mould to dry and consequently started making another 10” IR, MW plane!! This on is the Focke Wolf A17, a 1930’s airliner, the first to be made from metal. This model is a simple square shaped fuselage with high wing. The plane was quiet larger so when scaled down to 10” span the fuselage is not big enough to get the 40mA cell in. Careful inspection of the 40mA cell reveals that the battery terminals seem to stick out a few millimetres from the main body of the cell. So Mark careful bent the cell through 90 degrees which just reduced the height of the cell enough to be abel to fit in the fuselage just under the wing. As this is the only place it can go,the location of other parts must be considered to get the plane to balance properly.Lots of folks have been buying 5 Farad super caps. Mark and Bernard have successfully flown planes using them so if the new folks cant get their planes flying that would make M and B geniuses then?
Andy had his little video camera again and filmed lots of planes so when he has finished decorating his kitchen he will upload them onto his web site.
Gordon's new Bearcat looks like being a parkflier ........
Multi. Mystery
The big problem with making a multi engine micro plane is the size of the props. One way of getting round this might be to use small dia props for a very light plane? Maybe we could use 50 or 60mm dia. props
On a 12” span twin if with weighed 10g? We could steer with the Z Tron twin steer system using the motors. This would require about 6g of thrust, 3g per motor. The 40mA cell should be abel to handle a max. of 120mA for a reasonable period of time which would give 60mA per motor. Can we get a pager to produce 3g of thrust at 3.5v and 60mA with a weight of 2.5g including the prop? No undercarriage so the props will have to be tough. 5g for the props and motors, 2g for the cell, 1g for the IR Rx, = 2g for the wall foam plane.QFI and Electric Flight magazine has some photos of Graham Stanley’s DC3 Dakota, which he did not seem to fly at our last fun fly because he was playing with his new super delta’s.
Ray had a delta that was powered by one of his one inch diameter electric ducted fans. It flew but did not climb too good ....... certainly the start of something big for next season .......
Delta Delights
Both of Graham's "old" deltas flew well but this month we saw a super new one which was made of 2mm wall foam and weighed just 12.5g with a span of about 18" - really slow!
It was Z Tron IR controlled. A Didel geared pager drives one of Gordon's carbon props which the controls are two coil actuators being used a elevons. Stunning to watch as is silently crept about the hall and literally turned by stopping a wing tip and pivoting!
No picture of it yet, check web site home page in the near future .......Above and below, Graham's olde delta's from last month ......
Ray had a new Z Tron infra red controlled biplane. A yellow and blue American bipe, is this a Stearman? He had it trimmed very well this month and it flew reliably all night.
A-plane-a-day-Ray's new ducted fan,14" span D.H. Venom. flew very well all night long
Graham Stabler has a new micro milling machine - so he can build a one inch gas turbine, about time someone did too!
So, end of this years indoor season flying semi scale 7.1g planes - maybe next year we will have to ban the free flight boys because their planes are too heavy??
Met vriendelijke groeten / Best regards / Mit freunlichen Grüssen / Salutations / Saluti cordiali