Here is the Maiden Flight:
Specifications:
WIngspan: 75" w/ 12" chord & 3"x18" Ailerons
Fuselage length: 52"
Horizontal stabilizer: 26"x9" w/ 3" elevator
Motors: (2) Turnigy Park 480 850kv
ESC: (2) Turnigy 40A Plush
BEC: Turnigy DLUX 10A
Reciever: OrangeRX R800 8-Channel
Servos: (6) Corona DS238MG Metal Gear
Batteries: 2 Turnigy 2200mAh 3S LiPos
Background
Ever since I started scratch building my own planes I have wanted to do a twin engine cargo plane. When I finnally began to draw up plans for it I was just thinking of a plane with a 50-55" wingspan. For the electronics, I wanted to stay with my current power setup which is a Park 480 Motor and 2 1800mAh batteries. After doing a few calculations, I decided that it would be far too heavy with only a 55" wingspan. I figured out the maximum single wing I could get to fit in my car, which was around 75." I decided to make it much larger. With a 75" wingspan I was expecting it to weigh less than 1800g and have a very light wing loading. In the end it came out a little heavier, at 2300g, but it still flies great.
Here is a video on my initial designs:
As you can see in the video, I changed a lot of the dimensions before coming to the final design, But here is the last one I drew, and the picture I used while building the plane:
Build
Before I even ordered the parts I built a full size mockup to see how it would all fit together.
Once all the parts arrived I had to solder all of the connectors. There was a total of 34 Solder joints for this plane.
After soldering I started with the tail section. Then, I built the middle of the fuselage and finally the nose. Then glued them all together.
Next, I put in the ESCs, BEC and the Reciever. I also put in some velcro to hold down the batteries.
Next, I cut out and glued on the vertical stabilizer and put in the rudder servo and wires.
After that, I cut out the horizontal stabilizer, which is two pieces of foam thick, and also cut out the motor pods and glued them together. The horizontal stabilizer and the motor pods will both be removable and held on with rubber bands.
Next came the task of building the wing. I first layed out 3 pieces of foamboard, and trimmed the 2 outer pieces so they would all equal 75". I Built up 5 pieces of foamboard for the main spar and to give the wing an airfoil. Then I put in 2 wooden spars on each side of the foam spar. This was all glued in with gorilla glue and hot glue. Later on after the maiden flight, I added one more wooden spar to keep the wing extra strong. I also put in the 2 aileron and 2 flap servos and glued in all the extension wire. I put in the extensions for the motor wires as well.
I hooked up all of the servo pushrod, and put in the 2 wooden dowels that the rubber bands that hold the wing on are attached to.
I gave it a paint job with some duck tape that was inspired by the US Coast Guard Plane's paint scheme. I also changed from tricycle landing gear to taildragger because it was to wobbly and not sturdy. Here it is all put together.
Post Maiden Flight
It flew remarkably well the first time, all that was needed is to angle the motors down and move the cg back a bit. Later on I cut a hole in the side so I could put one of my old cell phones onboard and get some aerial footage. Here are a couple videos of that:
If you have any questions or want further info on the plane, please leave a message and I will reply as soon as possible.
Thanks for reading and Watching!
-Brock
www.youtube.com/aplanerc
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