Having gotten to grips with my Tipsy, I felt it might be fun to construct my own plane from scratch. I also thought it could be interesting to try flying a plane with aeilerons, rather than just a rudder.

Construction

I decided to make a biplane, as it’d be easier to keep in the air at lower speeds, and I bought a single A1 sheet of paper-backed foam mounting board. I soaked it in the bath and scrubbed the paper off to give me a nice sheet of light foam. Then I just started improvising the wings, covering them with a shrinkwrap covering to keep them stiff.

The fuselage was also built out of foam, and the undercarriage out of carbon fibre rods.

First Session

The first flight was underpowered, and it couldn’t keep up in the air. I had a couple of nice controlled glides though.

Second Session

After I put a more powerful motor and a larger propeller on, I went out to Wormwood Scrubs again and had another go:

Oops.
With a little application of sellotape, it flew after both of these crashes…

October 26th, 2006 at 11:52 pm ()