Sunday, March 28, 2010

Micro-Wing 1-4th flight and Death

First flight, I had the Micro-Wing on high rates- I was worried about not have enough control throw to keep everything under control during the big unknown after the first launch. So, on a gusty spring day I pushed the throttle forward to full throttle and tossed it skyward. And immediately into a nice, over-correcting spiral into the ground. Luckily no visible damage. I immediately followed it up with several other flights after reducing the control rates. John took video so there may be a youtube video posted later.

It seemed to fly really well- and much faster than I expected. Unfortunately between the gusty wings and one of the elevon clevises coming loose, I had multiple hard impacts straight into the ground. The foam eventually tore right at one of the 90 degree corners in the propeller pocket. I kept on flying it after repairing the tear with tape. But, by this point it was pretty dented up from multiple hard impacts and wasn't flying very well. So I kept on flying it until the motor mount tore out and wasn't repairable with packing tape. I suppose that is the big advantage of really cheap, easy to make airplanes.

I'm definitely going to build another, but with some slight changes:
  • curved corners in the propeller pocket to eliminate that stress concentration / tear point
  • Sand / cut the trailing edge thinner before I fold it over, to make the completed, folded wing trailing edge  thinner and closer to the thickness of the elevon
  • Make a more durable motor mount
  • mount the ESC / receiver in the wing before folding to reduce the amount of cutting required to the outside skin & foam main spar

2 comments:

  1. No pics of the T28? I will get the video of the wing up this week...

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  2. I actually have the camera here at work, if I have a chance I'll post some photos later this afternoon.

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