You know you're gonna look

[dogbreathracing]

I guess this is where this needs to be posted .....it is a sort of frankenstien plane and all hand fitted.

A while back my son (15) had a flying experience at a friends house where his buddy had a 2 ch twin prop plane, small (about 16 in wing span) twin motor....anyways he had a blast and talked be into buying one off ebay for him. We both had a blast flying it but the flight time was pretty short (about 10 minutes with the 4.8v 180Mah 1/3AAA pack that came with it) and eventually he had a small accident and broke the wing. I repaired it for him but it just doesn't fly quite as well.

The last couple of weeks I have been collecting parts behind his back and tonight put together a new plane for him to fly, a little bigger and a lot longer fly time....

Started out with a 48 inch foam glider from the local hobby shop. Glued the wings in tight then dremel cut openings for the battery and control board in the top of the fuselage. I used a 6 cell 7.2V 1000Mah AAA battery pack and picked up a 2ch control board (non-propo) from an on-line hobby shop (they had it on clearance for $4 compared to the regular $18, so bought two. ) I had a couple of stock 180 size motors laying around so these will be mounted on a couple of scratch built mounts, slightly elevated and rear facing (this will keep the out of harms way when he puts it on the ground) The props are 3 1/2 inch #3 pitch. When holding this plane in your hand and hit the throttle it will almost jump out of your hand so I think it will have plenty of power....in fact if you turn it around and look from the rear it will blow your hair pretty good. After mounting everything I made some removable covers for the battery and elecs compartments. It also has 2mm CF rods for stiffeners in the wing bottoms.
Everything was mounted so that the plane maintained the same balance it had as a glider. The stock glider weighed in at 110g and with all the electronics, motors and battery it now weighs in at 250g...still a very light plane for it's size. Test glides all went well.

The best part is that I have less than $20 in the whole project...thats less than the cheapy little plane I bought him!!!

Tomorrow, weather permitting he will get to test fly this monster.







comments or suggestions?


Oh, and those black ring holding the motor on the mounts....they are old Mini-Z tires! they hold the motors real tight but are removable if we ever need to change motors to a couple of 39T's I have sitting in my pit box.

[Clint]

Thats like a full sized aero ace!

Very nicely done.

[dogbreathracing]

same flight principles Clint, torque steer and all.....but on a grand scale

An Areo-Ace on steroids!

[Wesley]

that looks sweeet man! are you gonna spray it and add decals, ect.. ?

[BilboBaggins]

that looks sweeet man! are you gonna spray it and add decals, ect.. ?

You don't use spray paint on foam, the foam will melt from the propellents.

[Wesley]

oh,yeah.. sorry, noobish error..

[betty.k]

oh,yeah.. sorry, noobish error..

don't be too hard on yourself, most of us found out the hard way

[ChemicalInDependency]

So how did the first flight go?

[dogbreathracing]

first flight didn't go to well....was a bit windy and did a noser into the ground so that long glider nose is a lot shorter now, back in the shop for a little weight bias work ....