Klingon Battle cruiser RC RG

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I wish I could get over to the east coast. I do have quite a few customers that have bought kits that are in your area so maybe one will show up. I may try to drive to colorado for naram next year just to do some flights for folks.

We don't get a lot of (maybe no) RC/RG flights at MDRA, so this is so cool to me. I am very impressed. Thanks for sharing!
 
Mine D7 was a Seafoam Blue, that showed up remarkably well.

OK, the burning question: Are you going to make a D7 kit?
 
I'm going to talk to Mike Springer at MPF to see if he could help draw the parts and have them cut, it's a lot of little pieces for me to template and cut by hand.
I'd still need to do some hinging/spar mounting for the kit, but it would be much easier to put together. Also, the 24mm tubes/couplers I don't use for anything else, so I'd need to have some idea of solid interest to buy enough to not have shipping cost for a few parts kill the price.

As long as the area is consistent, I'm sure you could do double rudders, but personally I don't like the look, especially angled in like the kit you have. I prefer a single rudder as it is simple and takes away the least from the shape especially if you hide it with black...but that's just me.

Frank


Also, do you think it would be possible to have two smaller rudders instead of one big one?
 
Frank, this is off-topic but I thought you might like to see this photo. How about some retro-RC action? https://www.flickr.com/photos/my_public_domain_photos/38992678132/in/feed
Now, back to the Klingon Empire...

Wow, that picture is still one of my favorites of all time, that would be Dale Reed's crowd at Dryden - from the book "Wingless Flight -The lifting Body Story".
Here's another close up view of the test models.
Wingless Dale Reed 2.jpg
One of those models on the ground, the Hyper III - I stumbled across an old B&W picture in the VA TECH university library back in 1975....I was kind of obsessed with it.
The thing is just so weird, and angular.
I must have sketched it a dozen times , inc. how to get the swing wings to come out.
But back then - we only had access to a lowly "D" motor, so I gave up that idea.
Bet Frank can do it.

hyper III.jpg

Wingless dale reed.jpg

NASA still doing it with the RC airplanes........Wingless - radio-controlled model carries aloft a model of the X-33..jpg
 
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That's a great book. BTW I've got the kit for the modern one almost:) Just attach to airplane and drop as needed...

BTW, I've pondered swing wings, but every time I do, the tradeoff between the mechanism and release weight versus the drag reduction at the speeds and motors I use, just isn't a win....you'd get higher and come down faster.....

IMG_20171206_171227709_BURST000_COVER_TOP.jpg
 
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Here are four flights from this afternoon, it started with about 5mph winds and got up to about 8-9 at times, I kept working on reducing the up trim on each flight as it tended to porpoise just a bit with the headwind that I did not see as much in dead air, but at the rediculously slow ground speed I was flying at, it had absolutely zero bad tendencies, just rocked the wings a bit.

[video=youtube;BClup17MyAU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BClup17MyAU&feature=youtu.be[/video]
 
Friggin' awesome.

Frank, I hate to bring this up, but I heard a nasty rumor that you are selling copies of your Battlecruiser to the ........ ROMULANS.

Say it isn't so!!! :eek:
 
Here are four flights from this afternoon, it started with about 5mph winds and got up to about 8-9 at times, I kept working on reducing the up trim on each flight as it tended to porpoise just a bit with the headwind that I did not see as much in dead air, but at the rediculously slow ground speed I was flying at, it had absolutely zero bad tendencies, just rocked the wings a bit.

[video=youtube;BClup17MyAU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BClup17MyAU&feature=youtu.be[/video]


Sweet!!
 
I have a laser cutter who can cut the Klingon battlecruiser parts for me to make kits, however the cost and commit is 6 kits up front, I was wondering if any of you seriously wanted a kit of that model so I can get an idea if it is worth pursuing instructions/kitting and parts. Cost for the kit should be close to my other kits around $65 including priority shipping.
 
I have a laser cutter who can cut the Klingon battlecruiser parts for me to make kits, however the cost and commit is 6 kits up front, I was wondering if any of you seriously wanted a kit of that model so I can get an idea if it is worth pursuing instructions/kitting and parts. Cost for the kit should be close to my other kits around $65 including priority shipping.

I am in.
 
Pretty nice. Can you post some info on the light you are using, and how you set it up?

I have toyed with the idea of smoke and laser pointers on mine.

I have also considered adding lights to my Pegasus RC rocket glider. There is a company called Aurora RC that makes small and large RC airplane lights. This is rather tempting, since night rocket launches look so cool.

Here is a link: https://www.aurorarc.com/home
 
Basically I just soldered a diode to the red/black wires of a 24" servo extension I had laying around. You could use any two wires that are next to each other. The diode I used was speced for direct 4-5v operation, it comes with resistors and a zener if you want to use 12v for some reason. I then clipped off the square female plastic portion of the other end to expose the pins, then clip off the extra pin so I'm just left with a plastic plug with two pins, I then plug that into the balance plug on the aircraft 3s battery. As long as you get the ground pin in the lower voltage side you can use any two plugs in the balance plug since any two pins will always have only once cell accross them. If you wanted to use a 1s for rocket flight you could use the other end of the servo extension and then just plug the female into one of the unused ports in the receiver, only risk is if the diode were to ever fail shorted it would short your rx voltage. I'll put a pic of the package to show the brand my hobby shop had.....
 
Here is the package, along with the two different ends of the servo extension modified so you can see what I mean, I have not tested this on 1s plus powering the receiver, it says 50ma max current, so you want to be sure your battery can handle that for as long as pad setup and flight would be without sufficient droop should be ok with a 500mah 1s I would think.

IMG_20180126_102558190.jpg
 
Wow, that flies and glides GREAT!

I tried this, opened the video below, but left it at the start (orchestral version of the klingon theme near the beginning of ST:TMP, includes some V-Ger theme). Also had your video open but turned the sound off on it. Started this video for the music, then immediately began yours.

[video=youtube;58wJRrvVgZI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58wJRrvVgZI[/video]
 
I thought about adding music but anytime YouTube finds licensed music they start putting ads...

I flew my second prototype today and it flew great with identical settings. I also flew my first version with a pusher propeller today and the green LED on the nose. It flew great but it was too bright outside you couldn't really see the LED until you're on Final Approach about 50 feet away.
 
Very cool. All your gliders have been a treat, this one definitely has a different “look” from the jet fighter template that many of your previous models have shown. Does the forward surface area on this give any effective canard or other lift?
Tom
 
Thanks, yes the bridge does add forward lift, and shifts the required cg forward, I don't remember how much my estimate was, I relied on glide tests once I had a good starting point but it isn't like a standard canard where you have the CG between the wing and forward lifting surface. I have plenty of pitch control with the elevons and did not have to resort to forward control surfaces which is good since my CG came out pretty perfect with component placement.

It's not as easy as people may think to design these. The problem comes when you are trying optimize weight for a given motor, with standard components placed in a reasonable location so that the CG comes out on average just slightly tail heavy so that you can fine tune with a small amount of nose weight. And, then design it to be as large as possible but still fit into standard shipping box so that it can be assembled without too many pieces and without cuts that sacrifice strength in the assembled model, and have the right look. I originally had the neck a tad longer, but the body tube length would not fit into the box crossways and I didn't want to splice it, it turned out this length was pretty optimum as longer would have meant it was nose heavy and in a model with the CG as far back as this is, adding tail weight requires twice as much as adding nose weight due to the moment arm.



Very cool. All your gliders have been a treat, this one definitely has a different “look” from the jet fighter template that many of your previous models have shown. Does the forward surface area on this give any effective canard or other lift?
Tom
 
Yeah, my D7 arrived! :cool: :cool: :cool:

Frank, is the D7 made from the same material as your other kits? I ask because the Model Master enamel paints worked good on my Pegasus.

What paint did you use on your D7?
 
The Pegasus was using depron, this uses model plane foam, theoretically it is all the same fundamental material, I've used the testors flat dark aircraft gray with no problems. There is a slight skin on the surface of the foam, so you want to avoid taping to the top of the wing with anything agressive or when you pull the tape off the bare foam it takes a bit of the surface skin with it and it shows up when you paint it. Depron did the same thing to a lesser extent. For this model you only really need to mask for the vertical stab, and when spraying the 3m-77 on the bottom for the doublers, and that is on the bottom where you mount the rx/battery so it's less critical.

Frank




Yeah, my D7 arrived! :cool: :cool: :cool:

Frank, is the D7 made from the same material as your other kits? I ask because the Model Master enamel paints worked good on my Pegasus.

What paint did you use on your D7?
 
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I decided today after flying it again after a long time, to cut the tail off, and make a new clear tail out of 0.035" polycarbonate, slightly smaller than the original, and I simply used a razor saw to slot the rear bridge/engineering area and use some foam safe CA once it was pressed in place. It was a bit floppy but turned out not to be an issue. It added 10 grams to the rear but not very far from the CG so other than moving the receiver forward about 4" I didn't need to add any more nose weight and my rtf weight was right at 11 oz. Test flights were great. Video coming soon.

IMG_20220807_170136217.jpg
 
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Really looks good. :wos_love:

Is this a modified (rudder) 2nd generation kit?
I don't even remember the differences between first and second generation kits I think it had more to do with the body tube than anything else, the vertical stabilizer is more or less the same shape, just out of very thin polycarbonate.
 
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