Der Himmelsjäger

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burkefj

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Stanton Ewert Posted a really neat scratch build on facebook he did that was themed on a fokker red triplane but highly modified. I had a receiver and set of servos my family got me for christmas and I decided I wanted to do something themed like that as well, but also to call back to my first aileron plane, a Kraft Das Ugly Stik(mine was actually a hobby shack electric stik). This plane became a classic rc plane due to the easy box fuse, shoulder mounted symmetric wing and tricycle gear.

I decided that since it was a rocket plane, and since Stanton had done a futuristic design using a Canard I'd do the same but keep the tail and wing shape a-la ugly stik.

I used a doubled kf airfoil wing and non movable canard and elevon controls, 27" wingspan, 30.5" length, 2.6" diameter. Weight all up rtf is 11 oz.

I've gotten pretty good at doing indoor test glides to figure out max rearward CG, however in this case, even with a good canard cg calculator in hand, I was pretty tail heavy. The first flight I should have called it der Bodenjäger because it was hunting the ground, not the Sky......

It didn't help I was maidening in a 10 mph wind that was blowing downwind toward the launcher...Off the rail it pitched forward into the exhaust trail obscuring it, and I tried to react, but it wound up doing three nice 50 foot loops about 10' off the ground at the bottom with no control input, and settling into a perfect landing in the field. This was due in large part to my piloting prowess and the luck of the Irish....

Deciding that either I got some inadvertent canard incidence or tail heaviness I added .3 oz nose weight and gave it another try. This time it boosted much better, I moved the launcher and myself so I was down wind and it was boosting into the wind, and while still very pitch twitchy got a nice altitude and a very nice hang in the headwind, and a nice landing. It took, four more test flights to get the cg far enough forward, and reduced my elevon throws and it is pretty nice now, with a good glide.

Of course on the last trim flight, the igniter failed to light the motor, so I realized I had some q2g2 igniters in my box for deployment charges, I hooked one up, as it started to sprinkle, and found out the leads were too short to connect to my control wires, getting creative, I found my used fastfire juniors, pulled the wires, twisted them onto the q2g2 and gave it a go, no luck. One more attempt with a new q2g2 and she flew really well.

The good thing in all this was that using my starting CG I had to put the battery and receiver in the middle of the model using a hatch, now that I needed to move the CG an inch further forward, I was able to put the battery and receiver in the nose where it has easy access, and I was able to dump the useless nose weight!

So, since she had earned her stripes, I gave her some, painted up, with hand cut vinyl trim, added a few details, machine guns, nose art and I give you

Der Himmelsjäger

Sort of has a daddyisabar feel to it....or something you would see Dasterdley and Mutley flying in Wacky Races.....

IMG_20180216_171205411.jpg

IMG_20180216_164216629.jpg
 
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Very cool, Frank! Looking forward to some in-flight footage of this one.

James
 
Cool looking plane. Whats the canard incidence? The pic makes it look negative.


Richard
 
I drove over to George Rachors inbetween snow flurries today when we had a clear spot, even in 10mph gusty winds it flew great.

[video=youtube;vXcGy0CdGVM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXcGy0CdGVM&feature=youtu.be[/video]
 
Actually got a sun break in the afternoon and got out again.

[video=youtube_share;csfiSk07JHc]https://youtu.be/csfiSk07JHc[/video]
 
Yeah, you can't have too much drag:)

Might work, would have to move the wing forward to reduce tail heaviness...maybe...

I thought about a bi-plane but then my desire for success overcame that idea...The problem is tying in the foam wings into either the fuse or another wing, a biplane with top and bottom mounted wings might work, the third wing would need some heavy structure to make it strong enough under boost I think.....



Very nice. The nose spiral on the spinner gives the front end an ME 109 F-G-K look. Would it work as a triplane?
 
Hi, this is one that I just built using spare sheets of depron and didn't really design it so that I could fit it into a kit box and have proper strength, so not likely to be a kit.

Frank


Love the look of this RG! Will they be available anytime soon?
Keep up the excellent work.
Regards,
William
 
I'm considering doing a modified version of this, remove the canard and do a biplane with slightly shorter wingspan, tail would be the same, would be easier to kit and box and assemble. Basically the wing would go on top and bottom of the tube...any interest?
 
Cool! Though the thought of starting another hobby or a new branch in this one makes my wallet cry :( RCs will have to wait for now...
 
Flew it yesterday, glide was fine but got some wing flex on boost so put some inter wing struts to stiffen things, will be finished like the canard version. IMG_20180728_211203455.jpg
 
That's awesome.. maybe a SPAD or Sopwith Camel next?

When it launches and then goes from vertical to horizontal... is that from you flying it under power with the RC controls, or does the rocket do that on it's own?

Dimps III Sopwith Camel F1.jpg
 
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Oh mein Gott, der Boden ist hart

In 35 years of always doing pre flights, I found out today that my gliders land a little bit softer when the radio is actually turned on. fortunately it just damaged the front body tube, I was able to put a new one on repaint it and fly it in under an hour. for going in vertically I was pretty impressed that that was the only damage to it. Here it is after the repair
IMG_20180729_135355946.jpg
 
Frank

How do you like the biplane performance vs monoplane?

Specifically performance on both boost and glide?
 
Even though the biplane has more Wing area and a lower wing loading it seems like the drag of the two Wings sort of compensates and so flight times and boost are about the same, maybe a slight Advantage goes to the monoplane at the same weight. But neither of these are really long gliding models they're just sport planes so it's you know a minute versus a minute 10 seconds, more just a matter of what look you prefer

Frank

How do you like the biplane performance vs monoplane?

Specifically performance on both boost and glide?
 
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