• CAD and hot glue.

    Sam Ferguson • 01/08/2021 at 04:02 • 0 comments

    As it turns out everything can be solved by excessive quantities of hot glue.

    This current CAD design is out of date, as i rearranged the wing configuration on the fly. In order to improve flow over the rear wing i displaced it downwards, hopefully it will now take advantage of the downwash from the forward wing, which will take advantage of the boundary layer ingestion of the ducted fan.




    I also ended up changing how the vertical stabilizers are set up so that they have more yaw authority.

    in the spirit of the low cost nature of this build i reused a piece of styrofoam packaging for the fuselage. I used some more of the half inch thick foam to make the base of it and the sides of the nose.

    Its turning out pretty well, and next step is 3d printing some parts for the motor mounting and landing gear. I also need to figure out battery placement to help stability.

  • Making wings

    Sam Ferguson • 01/08/2021 at 03:52 • 0 comments

    I based my design around these, with a modification to have a stronger main spar that also helps produce the curvature needed. One of the pieces of foam i purchased for the project was a half inch thick foamboard, and i used 2 inch wide cuts for the structure of each wing:

    It turned out I had to trim a chamfer along the top edge of the spar to lower the overall camber of the wing (it was way to aggressive before). Using hot glue I glued the spar to the top panel of the wing, bent the upper surface down, and glued it to the trailing edge, similar to the tutorial.

    Each wing had its respective modifications needed. The forward wing had the flaps trimmed on the inside to accommodate the fuselage, and the rear wing had the entire midsection removed to allow it to snugly fit along the bottom of the fuselage.

    As it turns out hot glue and the water repellent coating on the foam dont mix well, so for mounting the servos, which need strong adhesion to counteract the reaction forces when moving the flaps, i cut out the coating around there.


  • Design is Complete

    Sam Ferguson • 12/04/2020 at 21:16 • 0 comments

    Currently conceptual design has been finished, and stability analysis has been run. All is looking good as parts i've ordered have started to arrive in the mail. Some CAD work will need to be done for mounting the ducted fan, and ill work out a full CAD of the plane soon.