Here is my latest plane built to use the Wltoys F949 board, this is the non gyro stabilised version. I had hoped to use the F949S gyro stabilised board, but as I intended to fit the board under the pilot area, it had to go upside down so that I could fit or remove the control pushrods with the least amount of effort, the gyro stabilised board has to be fitted upright for the gyro to work and facing the correct direction as it has no transmitter provisions for servo reversing.
The non gyro F949 board works with my Flysky transmitter giving full mixing, servo reversing and travel adjustment, so it is more suited to this particular plane.
The plane uses the wing and motor units from my Snow Goose flying boat, and has the same wing and tail angles as well, so it should behave in a similar way, hopefully😁
The fuselage sides and top and bottom rear sections are made from 1mm Graupner Vector board, which is a bit misleading name, its not really a board at 1mm thick, it is pretty floppy stuff, but very light, even compared to depron.
I have used pieces of black 3mm depron to give enough strength where it needs it, and this has worked out quite well, with the plane weighing almost the same as the Snow Goose, to within half a gram!
The new plane features large, hollow depron wheels which weigh 3.5g each, the giant paperclip axle weighs the same as both wheels together. Snow Goose uses a 750mah 3.7 cell while the Skybike uses a 300mah 3.7v cell.
I haven't tested Skybike yet, but dont anticipate any problems.
I had hoped to try my superlight skydiver action man in the plane, but he looked kind of stuffed in when I tried him in it, I will probably make a depron dude to go in it instead.
As the 'cabin' is right under the centre of gravity, he shouldnt affect the handling too much, just need to keep him light. I was thinking a seated version of Flying Brian would be good, if my artistic skills can make him look as good as the original Brian. We will see, thats 2 different Brians I want to make now, if you have read my Flying Brian post.
Anyway, I wanted to try and use some of my Vector 'board' in a plane, my friend and I halved in for 3 boxes of it, in 1mm, 0.5mm and 0.2mm sizes, the 0.2mm stuff is kind of like a rubbery tissue paper, weighing only 6g for a 300mm x 1000mm sheet. Amazing stuff but it is not rigid like depron so building with it will require some ingenuity.
I have now tested the Skybike, it is an amazing model, maybe even nicer to fly than the Snow Goose, capable of really slow flight and doesnt seem to stall. The fact it isnt gyro stabilised doesnt seem to affect its smooth flying characteristics, it flies like its on rails. Steep descents are easy and landings can be made in really restricted spaces.
Take offs can be short too, but the lumpy snow I flew from wasnt the best for testing this ability.
All in all, a very nice 4 ounce RC aircraft!