Homemade R/C Flying Wing

Heres my quick and dirty flying wing slope soarer.

Detailed notes to come.

$11.00 sheet of styrofaom insulation, Home Depot usually has the stuff

..and cut to shape. How I came up with the aspect ratio of the sweep was a little detailed - I'll add in the math and theory later.

A nice quick cutout with a sabre saw.

Ah the Sureform, not shop should be without one. Be carefull while working with stuff - some nasty gas is used to convert the plastic to its foam state and boy, does it give off some fumes when you shape/sand it! Seems benign but I've almost passed out while working with the stuff.

You can see that the leading edge profile is top to bottom symetrical. Given the massive surface area, the actual airfoil profile isnt that significant. The evelvons that will be added will produce the control and lift we need so for pure flight I could have left this wing completly flat. I shaped the wing for the primary fear of a up and down oscillaiton in flight.

The thing is pretty big and I was worried about a weakend structure from all the servo and battery cutouts so I added a reinforcement spar from a large paint stir stick.

..all happily expoyed in place

This stuff it cool, its called CoreFlute. Its yet another expensive 3M product but come election time, you can just rip out campaign signs around your neighborhood. For best karma, grab the ones of the politicians that you hate. I crack myself up.

Heres a ol trick, tape hinges. I wont go into detail but you can see I have tape on both sides of the wing and elevons ("elevons" are a funtional merge of ailerons and the elevator) with the actual tapes touching towards the top surface of the wing. Its easy, run a strip of tape down the length of the wing on the top side first, and onto the elevon with a very small gap. 1/8" should do it, just jam another paint stirrer in between to give a nice even spacing. Now run your tape across the bottom suirface of the wing with the elevon bent 90 degrees upward. Use another stir stick to push the tape into contact with the upper later of tape to stick them together. Voilla! Insta-hinge!

Finished hinge

Pack em' in boys! Balence and trim will make or break your wing - more notes to follow.

Finshed control assembly

Ugh, why use valuble ballast when you can use a digital video camera!

You can cut in all your harness grooves with a hot soldering iron. Mind the fumes!

Trim check. This was a great eastcoast day - super windy and a nice empty parking lot. This was a great place to do a first toss test because the parking lot had good laminar flow...

Small had releases into the wind were fine to do balance tests. With a small push foward you can get flight up to 30seconds without even moving, depending on the wind. Off to the hills...more later