Scale Soaring UK

From CAD to slope - mine is aiming to be ready for her maiden in April at our first meet

Looks very nice Andy.
Is the fuselage construction using foam blanks between the inner/outer former rings?

Hi Peter and thanks.

The tail section was white foam blocked, but most of the nose section up until just behind the windscreen is stringers and planking. Foam parts were then brown paper'ed, then everything glassed. I should mention that the fuselage splits just behind the TE of the wing, and the joiner consists of 3x 25mm carbon tubes.

You need to get that grass cut Andy. Poor old Brian will be having palpitations...(again)



BC

I'll get round to it once it's above the knees

That's all very well, but we have to think of Brian's sanity.☺

BC

Wow, that's a bit of a monster Andy...

Just wondering what it will be like to launch in high winds - 3-man job ??
Dave

Did I hear my name mentioned?
That's quite a beast Andy! Most impressive! I take that the engine pods break away on landing. By the way, let the grass grow and you can do a text launch over the traditional "long grass".
Brian.

Ha! Yes was before the first cut of the season I'm afraid. Still not flown it yet, waiting for Wales to be open again!
Probably just a two man launch - one on the centre and one on a wingtip just in case.
Oh, and missed the engine question. Yes the pods are all magnetised on.

Andy - a quick query,

I see that you're into CAD in a fairly big way but, do you go the extra step into CNC via 'G Code' as well ?

Reason for asking is that I'm currently looking into lathes, mill-drills and other potential CNC machines and wondering which way to jump...
Dave

Hi Dave,
I'm a Design Engineer in full time employment, so tend to be able to grab a few minutes designing my stuff at lunch times where necessary. I do have a small CNC laser at home as well, and have cut quite a few ribs that way - so much easier than the scroll saw.

I use Solidworks which is a fairly hefty thing for a hobbyist to use, but very easy if you can find a copy cheap somehow. I understand a lot of people use Fusion 360 as it's free for personal use, I think.

good luck!

Hi Andy

Thanks for the advice. My last engineering drawing was done in "MS Paint", so, anything's an improvement on that...!

Amazingly, the local machine shop were able to work with it. It would be nice to be more self-sufficient at home though, so I'll look at Fusion 360 and CNC laser cutters as you suggest.

Cheers for now,
Dave

The C17 (or Moose as the USAF airmen call them) is balanced and ready to fly this weekend at the Great Orme. Some big SW forecast, hoping for the best!

Good luck Andy - I trust your launch crew are in training?

Some big SW forecast, hoping for the best!
Some pretty big rain, too...! Looks magnificent, in-flight pics soon, I hope...

The launch crew have packed their girdles, and will be further reinforced by a bacon sarnie before the chuck. Yes a bit of rain both days, but it does tend to get forced around the rock rather than over it, mostly.

Thanks both for the comments - will get some on board vid-ee-oh as well as stills if it happens.

Did it fly????????



BC

It was about to be launched when smoke was seen coming out of the top hatch. I believe that the right hand flap servo decided to let all the magic smoke out. Hopefully Andy will let us know the results of his investigation.
Good thing it didn't happen after launch!

Martin G wrote: ↑12 Aug 2021, 19:56 It was about to be launched when smoke was seen coming out of the top hatch. I believe that the right hand flap servo decided to let all the magic smoke out. Hopefully Andy will let us know the results of his investigation.
Good thing it didn't happen after launch!

Nah, he's just taking PSS to the next level (again)

Has it flown yet???



BC

Hi Barry - nope, stripped of all parts and kicked into the corner of the shed in disgust! Waiting for an early spring bonfire to send her off.

Andy.Meade wrote: ↑04 Feb 2022, 09:38 Hi Barry - nope, stripped of all parts and kicked into the corner of the shed in disgust! Waiting for an early spring bonfire to send her off.

Why???



BC

Andy.Meade wrote: ↑04 Feb 2022, 09:38 Hi Barry - nope, stripped of all parts and kicked into the corner of the shed in disgust! Waiting for an early spring bonfire to send her off.

Why???

What a shame...I was looking forward to seeing the magnificent beast in action...

Cliff Evans wrote: ↑04 Feb 2022, 13:36

Andy.Meade wrote: ↑04 Feb 2022, 09:38 Hi Barry - nope, stripped of all parts and kicked into the corner of the shed in disgust! Waiting for an early spring bonfire to send her off.

Why???

It won't fit in the bin!

Not why is it in the corner of the shed, why did you scrap it at all. We need to know.


BC

Well, Uncle Simon (Cocker) had a word with me and told me to stop being so silly, so I've dragged the remains out of the shed and dusted her down. I've completed a fair few "quality of life" improvements, so she's easier to rig.

I've re-done the programming on the X20S with some insight from Mike Shellim's methodology of trimming with mixes, and added my sample RB-30 redundancy bus so I can get amperage readouts on the tx of the flap servos....just in case!

I've run everything back up again now and she's been back together since that day, so let's see what weather April brings us.

Well done Andy, I’m sure all will be well this time

Bravo, Andy...

Well we went, we saw, we didn't fly it A great event off the NW slope on the Orme, but launch zones have no real "margin of safety" here, so I declined to chuck her off. There's always another event I hope!

Here she is next to Bob's lovely new Nimrod.

Great models lads

Lovely stuff...

Last week Bob and I saw that there was an upcoming big SW wind, so a plan was hatched to get to the Orme as early as possible to get two maidens done. I got up at 5am and made the 3 hour trip with a car full of C17, to be greeted by a 55mph SW on the top of the rock. Wow! If she doesn't fly in this, she is definitely going in the bin.

All rigged and ready (extra insulating tape to hold the engines on!), the hardy lads we'd corralled into meeting us there lofted the airframe above their heads, and gave her the heave-ho. The first launch showed some tail-heavy attributes, but nothing that couldn't be handled on trim, thankfully. A slight runaway in the dive, but not something that made me panic too much - I didn't even make any changes for the second flight.

All in all, I'm very happy with her. Quite manoeuvrable, not too fast, fairly easy to land even without touching the throttle stick for the huge flaps.

(Even though Scale Soaring decides to watermark my images, they are in fact the property of Phil Cooke, our fearless leader and great togger)

Excellent, well done to you all...!

Great stuff!!

Very well done lads