MF-Eclipse Takes Flight and Build Video

by MESA RC | April 6, 2016 | (8) Posted in Projects

Build Video:

To the Flite Test Community;

8th grade MESArc student Stormy is proud to present her new plane to add to the MESArc fleet. It is called the MF-Eclipse!

After months of development using the FT STEM Engineering Design Model and Brief, she produced a great flyer that we deemed appropriate for our fundraising store and as a plan download off our website. See links below for purchasing and.or download. Stormy wanted to first leave her mark on MESArc forever, typically a plane creation will do that! She wanted to create a new concept plane that was a jet, and was considered floaty. That was her problem, she spent a couple weeks building and flying some of our jets as research, and the best one she deemed "floaty" was the MF-Typhoon.

So she used Ashton's design as her foundation in creating a new plane, one that required less foam, smaller motor, yet bigger wingspan and surface area to create the floaty affect.  Below is her path to getting to her final through CAD, prototyping, and testing.

Design#1

From the above she cleaned it up to the following, still not to her liking. It still felt like Ashton's, she got a new design idea from the latest Flite Test Sparrow, which helped her create the final below.

Third time is a charm, more streamlined, less belly pan weight, easier canopy assembly, we are ready for production.

The last CAD drawing here is the final, and the final result was awesome, placing it through a series of tests, we found that it was capable of more then just being a floaty!

  1. It can do a nice slow roll
  2. It can perform a tight loop
  3. It can fly super slow for a pusher
  4. Endless vertical flight
  5. Easy landings
  6. And it can fly inverted!

Stormy spent a week of lunches creating a build video and that will air this Friday, so stay tuned for that, look it over, and try out her design.  It is a great easy build and fun to fly! Below is the links for purchase and download.

FREE PLANS: 

Tiled: MF-Eclipse Tiled Plans

Full Size: MF-Eclipse Full Size Plans

PURCHASE BUILD KITS:

MF-Eclipse Build Kit

Stormy seen here talking about her plane to the Marshall and the viewers.

Building the MF-Typhoon first to see how it all fit together and looked for ways of improving her design.

Not quite he says, more work for the belly pan and underwing.

The FT-Sparrow stabilizer idea worked out great and gave the plane a cool look.

Same concept with the fuselage coming out along with battery for easy charging and maintainance as well as for future nose cone replacement if ever damaged.

Stormy's build video comes out this Friday!

Ahh, much better, see how her belly pan is now cut out, making for more room and breathing room for the motor.  Plus the underwing came together real nice.

Cool design, Stormy made little cut outs for our motor mounts to go into.

Practice practice for the big day when she flies solo and attempts to get the Top Ace award.

It is floaty!

However, it has endless vertical with 2212-6 suppo motor.

What! It flies inverted with ease.

Getting some stick time with your creation! Awesome.

All smiles, great plane Stormy!

COMMENTS

The-One-Who-Never-Crashes on April 6, 2016
Looks very nice! I love the nose. It'd be cool if you could design a Space Shuttle model based off of this design :).
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MESA RC on April 7, 2016
Not a bad idea, will share with the students and see if one wants to take it on. Thank you!
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westbows on April 7, 2016
Very good design. You should be proud!!
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MESA RC on April 7, 2016
Thank you!
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danallen82 on April 7, 2016
Awesome design! I would have killed to get into an aero engineering club at a school. All I had back around year 2k were book clubs, community service clubs, and chess clubs.
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MESA RC on April 7, 2016
Haha I hear ya, thank you!

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gowen on April 11, 2016
I've got a 70mm EDF that I just have to mount on one of these.
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MF-Eclipse Takes Flight and Build Video