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Albion 5m Electric soarer

All non-scale topis should go in here for discussion.
Chris Bowles
Posts: 92
Joined: 18 Mar 2015, 16:12
Location: South Devon

Re: Albion 5m Electric soarer

Post by Chris Bowles »

Peter, that is looking very good, might be tempted to dig my Albion fuz out, as for weights, I know its not the finished yet, but it is going to be a lot lighter than my Thermik XXL 5mtr electric glider, that flies very well with AUW of 6.7kg, so the Albion is going to be a floater, might have to put some ballast in
Chris
SP250

Re: Albion 5m Electric soarer

Post by SP250 »

Thanks for the weights Peter much appreciated.

My old Albion Fuz is 933g (without powertrain) but that is with some bulkheads and stuff glued in.
Each wing is 1390g (lead in the light one to make then the same), with 1980's barn door brakes.
Tailplanes and two back to back 15mm deep steel blade joiners are 340g.
So with a powertrain (motor & esc) of 372g, a 4s 4500mAh LiPo battery 550g and 8 servos, Rx and GPS gear at say 350g the total looks around 5.3kg to 5.4kg. But there will be another 100g or so of repairs/strengthening to the wings and vac-bagging glass on the tailplanes to add.

Significantly lighter than my overweight & repaired 5m Thermik XXXL at 6.9kg and the wing loadings work out the Albion at 25% less than the Thermik.
Albion is about 10% greater area as well.

Question is - will it move round the GPS triangle as fast as the Thermik and will it signal & go up in lift better?
Decisions, decisions!
John M
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Peter Balcombe
Posts: 1399
Joined: 18 Mar 2015, 10:13
Location: Clevedon, North Somerset, U.K.

Re: Albion 5m Electric soarer

Post by Peter Balcombe »

Thanks John/Chris,
I probably could have sacrificed a little more weight, but tried to make the first build strong but light, as it’s usually easier to add weight than remove it ;)
The full I-beam main spar assembly should be plenty strong enough & the wing design would allow a 2nd fuselage joiner to be added with minor changes if required.
I have used a Balsa LE & flap hinge spar doubler for lightness, but both could be uprated to spruce on the inner panel. The wings could also be glassed for additional stiffness if desired,
It will be interesting to see if the model can be balanced without the addition of nose weight due to the longish nose moment. The planned 5S battery should fit through the slightly widened forward hatch & fuselage behind the joiner.

Ballast could be fitted around the fuselage joiner, although no doubt tubes could easily be added to the wings immediately behind the joiner box. - the tube being bonded to the rear of the joiner area ply web.
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Peter Balcombe
Posts: 1399
Joined: 18 Mar 2015, 10:13
Location: Clevedon, North Somerset, U.K.

Re: Albion 5m Electric soarer

Post by Peter Balcombe »

Both wings are now completed with control surfaces hinged (although pin hinges not yet fixed into the wing) ready to apply a sealing coat to the balsa surfaces prior to covering.
Pics below show LH outer panel with aileron fitted & root end of RH inner panel it’s flap fitted.

I fitted five 1/8” diameter Robert pin hinges on each control surface & this job was greatly eased by making up one of the simple drill jigs recently shown by Brian Sharp on his MU28 rebuild. The jig allowed the fitting holes to be accurately & repeatedly drilled to achieve a straight hinge line which is just about in line with the wing upper surface.

Meanwhile, the MPX wing servo connector mating halves have been fixed in the fuselage. I fitted the connectors into Cliff Evan’s 3D printed holders (after removing the normal screw fixing ‘ears’) and then epoxied the holders into rectangular holes made through fuselage and internal 1/8” ply root reinforcement rib.

TE tailplane construction is also nearly complete with just the LE profiling outstanding prior to tidy-up & covering.

Attention now moves to fixing the AMT elevator & C/L rudder servos just forward of the rear incidence tube, plus installation of the AMT crank in the fin.
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Peter Balcombe
Posts: 1399
Joined: 18 Mar 2015, 10:13
Location: Clevedon, North Somerset, U.K.

Re: Albion 5m Electric soarer

Post by Peter Balcombe »

Decided to get the 2 hatch covers sorted today, so added small 1/16” ply spacers on the inside of each cover plus 1/16” ply tongues onto each spacer.
The position of spacers & length of tongues allows the front tongues to be engaged initially, then the hatch slid forward until the rear drops into place. Then slide the hatch back to engage the rear tongue.
The hatch is then retained, even if it moves back to the rear tongue spacer, which acts as a stop.
As it has to be slid forward to disengage the tongues, the hatch should only come off in flight if the tongues break off ;)
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B Sharp

Re: Albion 5m Electric soarer

Post by B Sharp »

Sorry, I missed your last but one post Peter. It looks as though the little drilling jig did its job. Your hinge lines look nice and neat. I think my tubes are a little lower in the jig as my hinge knuckles are not quite so prominant.
Brian. :)
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Peter Balcombe
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Joined: 18 Mar 2015, 10:13
Location: Clevedon, North Somerset, U.K.

Re: Albion 5m Electric soarer

Post by Peter Balcombe »

B Sharp wrote: 14 Dec 2020, 17:03 I think my tubes are a little lower in the jig as my hinge knuckles are not quite so prominant.
Brian. :)
Perhaps I should remove the strip of 1/16” ply I added on the inside upper face of the jig then!
That would drop the hinge line a little :)
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Peter Balcombe
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Joined: 18 Mar 2015, 10:13
Location: Clevedon, North Somerset, U.K.

Re: Albion 5m Electric soarer

Post by Peter Balcombe »

Latest tasks were to fit a small servo plate between ply fuselage root rib doublers just forward of the rear incidence tube, positioned in height so that the servo horns are just above the incidence tube.

The 3D printed AMT crank is mounted in the fin with the pivot at the points marked by moulded dimples on the fuselage.
The crank is fitted with a 5mm OD bearing tube to rotate nicely on a 4mm OD tube through the fin. The tailplane halves mount onto 3mm rods passing through the pivot tube and crank rear hole. The crank is designed to fit in the fin when running in 1/16” ply spacers fitted on each side. The spacers are fixed to the inside of the fin to provide additional gluing area for the 4mm tube, whilst trying to ensure that the pivot remains free after the resin has cured.

The elevator pushrod was made from 6mm/3mm carbon tube & fitted with short threaded rods each end to fit metal clevises.
Once everything is installed, the pushrod clears both incidence tube and rear fuselage so a pleasing result.
Just need to check that the rudder C/L wires will clear everything now ;)
The fin post has been cut from 3/8” Balsa, so this will be fitted once the C/L wire exits have been cut.
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Peter Balcombe
Posts: 1399
Joined: 18 Mar 2015, 10:13
Location: Clevedon, North Somerset, U.K.

Re: Albion 5m Electric soarer

Post by Peter Balcombe »

Having decided to fit pin hinges in the rudder, the LE has been rounded off & the C/L horn fitted.
So, with pin hinges installed & dry fitted to the fin post, an overall fit can be checked before the fin post is fixed in place using polyester resin.

Apart from fitting the wing Unilocs, this more or less completes the structure prior to covering.
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John Treble
Posts: 14
Joined: 13 Jan 2021, 11:08
Location: Lyme Regis

Re: Albion 5m Electric soarer

Post by John Treble »

I bought an Albion fuselage a couple of years ago, and I've been working on it from time to time. The model you discuss above doesn't seem to be quite the same as the one described in the documents that came with my fus, and I wondered why there are differences. My fuselage looks the same as the one pictured above, except I hadn't thought of the sides as particularly 'flat'. The documents I've got appear to be Neil Sleight's plans for an XC1 (never built) and an XC2 version, a set of notes about some of the feats he achieved with the XC2 - including US style cross-country events in California (for which the model was designed), the BARCS out and back annual slope record, 3rd place in a Belgian International F3J event. etc. There are also two photographs of Sleight with his plane in California.
The plans show a 3.8m RES model. I wanted something a bit bigger and with ailerons. So far, I've built a rudder and a post. I've also built a gravity feed foam cutting machine, learned a bit about using it, and cut four usable foam tailplane cores which are awaiting vacuum bagging. I've also had some foam inner panels cut. I shall probably make two sets of tips, one from foam cut by me (now I know how) for a 4.2m version and the other built up for a 5m version.
I decided to go for Drela sections. The inner panels are A4/A3. The tailplane is HT14/HT12. Who knows what the rudder is?
I'm building this to go for walks with, so I'm not too fussed about performance in competition.
Rudder.jpeg
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