Colonial Viper RC RG

[burkefj]

This is another one I've been pondering and finally decided to take a crack at it. I'm using lightweight BMS bt-80 tubing and estes pnc-80bb.

A quick look at CG for glider flight and then yaw stability, looks like it just may work barely. I decided to do the wings through the main body tube, have it oversized and then use flat black paint to block out all but the standard wing outline. The wings won't have anhedral as that's troublesome. Right now a quick estimate looks like flight weight around 11.5 ounces, 29" long, 23" wingspan. Here are the tubes and nose cone angle cut, and the paper templates taped in place..the dashed line on the wing shows where the wing will be left white....

It's not going to be a floater, I'm at about 1.25 sq inches of wing area, not counting the area covered by the two motor tubes. I'm not sure how much the motor tubes will help or hinder lift.

The two side motor tubes will be slotted and slide over the wing, the servo will be mostly hidden by the bottom half of the motor tube...

 

[Salvage-1]

brought to you by "I can make anythign fly" Frank!

I love it...!!

Next... Gunstar from Last Starfighter!

 

[burkefj]

Gunstar aint got no flying surface thingies.......

Anywho.....This came together pretty quickly, was able to do some glide tests indoors with and without the side motor pods.....seems that I have a reasonable CG location, dry it is 11.2 with motor and components, less any nose weight needed. Empty airframe is 7.5 oz as you see it here, which is pretty good.

 

[burkefj]

More assembly....It was going so well I glued in the side motor pods without waiting for my servos to arrive, so I'll fit the servos after, a bit more work, but still should be able to hide the servos.

Frank

 

[burkefj]

Here is the completed airframe, I've drawn on the scale wing outlines which will remain white the rest of the wing will be flat black....I think it will work. The filler plates inbetween the engine pods are just angle cut foam glued in place....and I glued in a plate in the nose inset about 1/8". The skids I'll put on will protect the rail buttons and will get the model up off the ground, but I may put a doubler in the bottom front of each motor pod just to give them some strength in case they catch on some weeds or something if I have a bad landing.

 

[Crawf56]

Holy frak, you are moving right along, Frank!

 

[burkefj]

I did a bit of vinyl trim and I think that will do it till I fly it and make sure it is airworthy, then invest in some motor tube wraps from stickershock to finish it off after painting the outer wing flat black.

 

[kuririn]

That is fracking awesome Master Burke! And that's no feldercarb! Hoping it comes to kit form eventually along with the Klingon cruiser and the Dragon Ship 7. How about adding an electronics package for us newbies to RC with the transmitter/receiver, servos, batteries, etc. all included on your website? Cuz digging around for all those parts piecemeal is a big dampener on expanding from rockets to rocket boosted r/c gliders. ( I know, I know this is for "experienced" r/c fliers, but it looks like something I would like to try). Best wishes on your flight testing.

 

[burkefj]

Hi, I appreciate that. The klingon may be a kit if I can get the laser cut parts enabled at a reasonable price. I need at least 3-4 pre-order commits to make it worth my time to do instructions and templates before I do a kit. I've gotten no interest in the dragonship yet.

As for carrying the radio components, that's not likely to happen. Reason is two fold, partially by design, partially by reality. As you stated, if you have no RC flight experience, you really have no business trying to fly one of these. It's very easy now days to get a very inexpensive trainer/motor glider and get some stick time. The second reason is that most RC folks, have their preference of servos and radio they like to use, most RC folks already have a radio transmitter which will work anyway. So again, it goes back to a newby that really should not be starting out with one of these. I've put links in the general instruction page to everything needed so all you have to do is click on the links and it will take you to where they can be found. In reality, all you need are two servos, two 12" extensions for the servo wires to reach the receiver , a transmitter, and a 500mah 1s battery and charger for it. The battery and charger and two servos with wires are around $40-$60 depending on the type you choose, the receiver can be $10-$30 depending on brand, and the radio $150+ depending on type. When I went into this, it was to give back to folks and provide some easy to build realistic looking rocket glider kits for 24mm motors. I made a pact that I would not invest more into the business for components than I was going to use myself for my own projects. So, if nobody ordered anything, I would just use the same parts/components for my own projects and I'm not out any $$. It's worked out pretty well, but if I started trying to carry radios it would break my business plan

Frank

That is fracking awesome Master Burke! And that's no feldercarb! Hoping it comes to kit form eventually along with the Klingon cruiser and the Dragon Ship 7. How about adding an electronics package for us newbies to RC with the transmitter/receiver, servos, batteries, etc. all included on your website? Cuz digging around for all those parts piecemeal is a big dampener on expanding from rockets to rocket boosted r/c gliders. ( I know, I know this is for "experienced" r/c fliers, but it looks like something I would like to try). Best wishes on your flight testing.

 

[burkefj]

I got three very nice flights today on the Viper. Just need a fine tweak of down trim for boost, and a slight bit more up trim for glide than my initial settings. Given the small wing area and 11 oz glide weight, It flew much better than I was expecting, not a long glide, but very nice none-the-less and had plenty of pitch control down to flare on landing, very nice! Mark is working on my motor wraps today. Here are the three flights in order starting with the maiden flight.

[video=youtube_share;xsvr9LZH7xc]https://youtu.be/xsvr9LZH7xc[/video]

Frank

 

[burkefj]

Here she is painted, really makes the white wing pop

 

[Crawf56]

Can you get us a closeup of what you did with the nose cone?

The original Colonial Viper had an open nose. I had the old Estes Colonial Viper back in 1981, and it had an open nose, and flew well (as a rocket, not a rocket glider).

 

[burkefj]

I just angle ground the nose and sealed it with a piece of foam inset a bit, on the original model it had a shoulder that was sealed I think, I could have left it open to flow through since my shoulder is open but I thought it would be more draggy.

 

[burkefj]

Finally watched the new Battlestar mini series from 2003, I liked it and the characters, prefer the look of the original vipers and miss the turbo flame, the pilots look more like they are wearing hazmat suits than helmets, but I'll keep watching the series. I like baltars character.

 

[modeltrains]

Here she is painted, really makes the white wing pop

That was a good idea. will be interesting to see how the final detailing turns out.

 

[burkefj]

Plans are posted on my web page under the plans pulldown if anyone is interested.

Frank

 

[burkefj]

Got the markings from Stickershock and as usual they were fantastic, I made a mistake when making the side plate pieces, thinking they were the full length of the motor tubes, so when I scaled them, so the side plate markings did not line up with the motor markings, that was totally my fault so I turned them around so that it was less obvious and except for a nerd, I think no-one would notice

 

[XolveJohn]

Budget users should consider the Turnigy 5X radio system from Hobbyking. $25 gets you a full range, compact, xmtr and rcvr. Extra rcvr's are $7. I use it on backyard flier electric planes and rcBG. If you take the rcvr out of the case it is lighter, and you can hot melt glue where you want. I use Turnigy everything, radios, batteries, servos. Never disappointed.

Frank, you should make a competitive RC RG ship for FAI E competition. Our teams have not been doing well with the old style upscale balsa HLG's. Maybe a swingwing with high aspect ratio. I wish someone would make foam wings with carbon fiber rods embedded in them. Co like Great Planes are molding them, too expensive for the hobbyist. Airfoils are desired.

 

[burkefj]

I just looked and the 5x does not have flap/elevator mixing so you can't put the glide/boost settings on a switch, that's a big minus for me, it's single model, and does not have any electronic throw adjustment, it's just a low budget old style radio, but you are right, it is very inexpensive if you are on a budget and does have delta mixing, so as long as you can mechanically set everything you need and use the mechanical trim tabs for boost/glide it might work ok.



Frank

 

[XolveJohn]

Oh, I was not aware you changed the trim for boost and glide, doh. Those smart radios are expensive, there must

be a cheap one out there.

 

[burkefj]

Yeah for tail mounted gliders you have a cg shift so will have to adjust glide trim. Radios aren't terribly expensive and if you get a good one it's a one time purchase.

 

[burkefj]

Got another nice video today which has the painted wing and lt. starbuck markings Mark at stickershock made, I didn't realize that "galactica" was a font....

[video=youtube;sfbRKquQtNE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfbRKquQtNE&t=1s[/video]