So some new
free flight rubber power toys then. What do you mean your an R/C flier
so your not interested ...
Latest news at the bottom
There are some nice design features here that turn another little Depron
rubber power kids plane into a proper indoor roof cruiser. They are very
educational toys too. So, all those new AeroNutz flying remote control
who keep running over saying what do I do to sort this out (you know who
you are! ... young people these days ...) learn about torque roll and incidence
with one of these little chaps.
The instructions say it can be flown outside on a still air day and
I am sure it will be OK. The ones I bought from Flitehook
have two sizes of rubber, thin one for indoor and thick one for outdoor.
Also included is a little tube of glue and a super little free wheeling
white plastic prop. We like white props because they react with the strobing
effect of the indoor lights and produce a lovely slow backwards cart wheeling
effect when they are power gliding down from the roof.
My Zero weighs 2.5g for the plane plus 1g for the prop. and 1g
for the rubber.
You need a bit of lubrication for the rubber (from indoor suppliers
or use a little castor oil or liquid soap) and a some sort of winder so
your finger don't drop off. Any kind of winder thingy will do, could make
a geared 1:10 job from Meccano or maybe invest in one when you buy your
lube. Heroes of indoor flight use the Mk32b
patented electric Aeronutz counter/winder, but they are a bit expensive
though.
I have made a little
restraint from bent wire, to hold the front of the plane while I wind
the rubber up at the back.
The main wing is a flat sheet of 1mm Depron which then bent downwards
at the leading edge to form an airfoil.
It is fixed to the profile fuselage through a slot so it generally
points upwards a little (incidence) The tail plane also fits into a slot
but horizontally, so now the incidence is fixed for you. You get a little
template for setting the amount of leading edge droop - the same as a 747
L.E. slats really!
The prop unit is heavy enough so you don't need any nose weight, making
the machine a efficient little slow flyer.
However, if you increase the weight of the motor ... well lets have
a look at
Flight trimming.
The huge prop and it's lump of wubber tries to turn the plane over
in a left hand rolling dive. The main thing is to get the left wing up
and have the plane flying in big left hand turns. To do this bend the left
aileron down a bit and maybe adjust the rudder some too. Try a little flight
with a flew turns on the motor and see what happens. You will find that
the more you increase the turns on the rubber the more you need to get
the left wing up.
Launch the plane horizontally and let it fly up to the roof, don't
throw it up there!
A good indoor flight has a slow smooth climb followed by a long slow
smooth decent. It is usual to land with just a few turns left of
the rubber motor. When you have a new motor it will be a bit hard and produce
lots of power and run down quickly. After a few flights the rubber motor
will stretch and go soft producing a smoother power delivery.
A longer length of rubber will have less power but you get more turns.
At the beginning of a flight the motor will be evenly spread along the
model. As it unwinds it tends to move backwards towards the tail. This
causes the plane to become tail heavy and stall gently. Quiet often this
stalling cause the rubber to unwind at the back and the weight becomes
evenly distributed again making for a nice smooth landing. Also when you
have a powerful rubber motor the model will turn left more, and the nose
will what to come up too. So you would have to use a little more left aileron
down to get the wing up and a little more down elevator.
The rubber motor's length is referred to a distance H in the
instructions. This distance is not easy to see on the drawing, it is the
distance between the prop. and the rear tether hook.
I can see there is some room for improvements here ... but wait!
I can't tell you lot about those as we have the AeroNutz Christmas
Fighter Sweep on Dec 29th.
Trim your plane to fly left turns and we will have a mass launch at
8 pm exactly. Last one down rules the rafters. If you are the last one
down and shot down three Zeros and flew a long strafing run back to land
in your flight box - all the better!
Dec 4th
Pres. Joe, Bill and Peter Frostick had lots of fun flying the Zero,
Me109 and P51d.
The rear tether hook is quite fragile
Check the prop until is glued on to the motor stick in a straight line
Make a little
restraint for holding the back of the plane while winding
Dec. 29th
Mark's P51d flew very well at our last Fun Fly. Uses a 11.5"
long loop of the smaller size rubber supplied with the kit. 1200 turns
and it climbs out nice a slow, with a long flat cruise just under the beams
before slowly making its way down again. The left turn is very big which
is good as it uses less power, and looks nicer. Mark uses the Aeronutz
rubber winder and the little restaint to hold the prop. end during winding,
all seems ok there. P51D weighs 4.5g with addidional wing tanks (0.5mm
Depron from FliteHook) and extra stiffening to attach the wing L.E. to
the fuselage - allways a good idea! Make sure you have about 10mm dihedral
under each wing tip.
Mark's model needs lots of up elevator, maybe because it has
more nose weight due to the wing tanks.
We should have some photos soon. The Zero had a little test fligth
and seems very promissing but we ran out of time, the Zero seems to have
the best paint scheme and slightly bigger wing area....
Modifications!
When you fix the main wing into the fuselage, use the dihdral brace
that is supplied to get the correct dihedral and generally hold the wing
in the correct position. Glue the trailing edge of the wing to the fuselage
and let it dry. Bend the leading edge down and make card templates to temporarily
hold them in the correct airfoil shape - check you have about 10mm dihedral
under the wing tips. Then use a new scalple to gently cut away the peice
of unused wing that is in the fuselage, the bit that is not bent down!
Add a new peice of Depron from the fuselage to the front half of the wing,
so you have extended the wing to the fuselage, Let this lot dry hard overnight.
Use a new scalple to cut the standard wing support away and replace
it with a rectangular peice of 0.5mm Depron about 20mm long, one for each
wing. These are glued to the fuseage lenght wise. The front end should
be about 12mm deep and the rear should be about 8mm deep. The 12mm end
is fixed just behind where to wing leading edge bends down.
Paint the new parts!
See little sketch here
Glue the tailplane into the fuselage unsuring it is nice a square,
no need for the standard brace.
If you break the circular prop restraint just replace to with a peice
of aluminium tube.
Advanced Modifications!
Gently sand down the prop. restraint so the prop points to the right
a little, one degree or so, be carefull you don't point the prop up or
down as well! The ideal it that the initail power of the rubber motor will
be off set, so the plane does not turn left as much at the beginning of
the flight. Then you can use the left wing aileron/rudder to steer the
plane when it is power gliding at the end of the flight. This will stop
the planes circle getting bigger through the flight. Or you can fit a control
system so you can just steer the thing! We're working on it ...
