Model Boat Mayhem

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length.
Pages: [1] 2   Go Down

Author Topic: Skybike  (Read 2293 times)

Andy M

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,504
Skybike
« on: January 15, 2021, 02:10:06 pm »

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!
Logged

Andy M

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,504
Re: Skybike
« Reply #1 on: January 19, 2021, 02:55:38 pm »

Here is a video of Skybike in action. Due to a lack of volunteers for video duties, I had to fly it with one hand while holding my phone with the other hand, apologies for shaky footage.
https://youtu.be/PlgQ76L0kaA
Logged

derekwarner

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Online Online
  • Posts: 9,464
  • Location: Wollongong Australia
Re: Skybike
« Reply #2 on: January 19, 2021, 07:28:53 pm »

Zero experience with model flight, however the speed shown here would appear great as a training craft......I have seen a few youngsters take off at a great rate of knots simply to loos control within less than a minute & resulting in disaster....to the craft & the Fathers $ pocket, but not so the aspirations of the young Pilot  :-X


Derek
Logged
Derek Warner

Honorary Secretary [Retired]
Illawarra Live Steamers Co-op
Australia
www.ils.org.au

Andy M

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,504
Re: Skybike
« Reply #3 on: January 19, 2021, 08:24:04 pm »

Hi Derek, I do think it would make a great trainer, it was on about half throttle on the video but full throttle isn't much faster. The stall is very gentle, I dont know if it is sorting itself out or whether I am unknowingly automatically correcting it. There are quite a few of my planes suitable for learning on, the combination of light weight, 108g in Skybikes case, and a large undercambered wing help to slow things up a bit allowing more time for corrections, or even just to let you actually see what you did wrong. I used to be in a flying club, all glow engined planes back then, and one of the junior members was 5 years old and could manage better flights than some of the older guys, no doubt he had training from Dad, but still impressive, if a bit scary for the rest of us. 😁
Logged

JimG

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Online Online
  • Posts: 1,269
  • Model Boat Mayhem is Great!
  • Location: Dundee
Re: Skybike
« Reply #4 on: January 20, 2021, 12:11:49 pm »

Zero experience with model flight, however the speed shown here would appear great as a training craft......I have seen a few youngsters take off at a great rate of knots simply to loos control within less than a minute & resulting in disaster....to the craft & the Fathers $ pocket, but not so the aspirations of the young Pilot  :-X


Derek
It's why clubs provide instructors to new pilots especially using a buddy box system where they can take control instantly if there is a risk of a crash. It's thought that the average flight time of a beginner without an instructor is 20 seconds before destruction of the model, trainer or not. A very slow model is not recommended as it reduces the chance of flying to completely flat calm weather conditions and the beginner never learns to cope with any wind.
Jim
Logged
Dundee Model Boat club

Andy M

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,504
Re: Skybike
« Reply #5 on: January 20, 2021, 02:13:10 pm »

Hi Jim, you are perfectly correct about the wind, I flew skybike the other day in windy conditions, it was a challenge to regain control after gusts of wind had turned it on its side.
 In contrast, my straight out of the box Wltoys F949S, being a good bit smaller and faster, was less affected by the gusts, and it has gyro stabilisation which helps a lot too. The main difference was that it could penetrate into the wind far better than the Skybike. Still a wee handful in the windy conditions but it coped well. It is made from epp, which means it can take a bad landing without destruction.
 I managed a good few flights with it, in 15 to 20 mph wind. I flew the Skybike when the wind dropped to 5 to 10mph and it was still getting blown all over the place, a bit nerve wracking as it is of a more delicate nature than epp aircraft. It did survive tho, but I will be keeping it for calm days from now on.
 I learned to fly by myself, and it cost me a couple of airframes, a buddy box system would have saved me quite a bit of money and disappointment but I didnt have that option at the time.
 I imagine that there are aspiring pilots out there that cant get to a club, or dont want to, a slow flying plane would let them learn basic control before moving on to something that can cope with wind?
 One of my friends went out and bought a balsa spitfire model while he was still learning with a zagi slope soarer, he never asked my advice before buying it, it never got in the air due to his building skills not being at that stage, he superglued the formers together without trimming for a good fit and nothing else would fit on it after that. It ended up being donated to me and I used the balsa to make the rather nice motor glider shown below. Some people arent the 'ask for advice' type, preferring to go it alone.
Logged

radiojoe

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2,376
  • Location: Gosport , Hampshire , England
Re: Skybike
« Reply #6 on: January 22, 2021, 10:40:16 am »

Hi Andy,  I love to watch all your projects I find them fascinating I like the way skybike flies almost slowmo I think even I could fly that with some practice, I did try to build and fly a Hirobo helly some years ago (well actually 20 odd years ago) with lets say less than favourable results enough to say they didn't have gyros back then, it was like trying to balance a marble on top of a soapy balloon, {:-{


do keep the projects coming,




Joe
Logged

Andy M

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,504
Re: Skybike
« Reply #7 on: January 22, 2021, 05:24:24 pm »

Many thanks for the comments, very much appreciated.
I had an £80 JR gyro in my Morley MX Ranger 20 odd years ago, must have helped a bit but the Heli, engine and radio gear was so much of an investment that I was kind of scared to fly it. I did fly it, up to about 150 feet but I was very nervous. It tipped over once as the blades were winding down and it cost me £40 + to repair it. Now you can get a gyro equiped micro helicopter (that flies better and for much longer) for less than £40. And it doesnt destroy itself if you crash, well not every time! Lol.
Logged

Andy M

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,504
Re: Skybike
« Reply #8 on: January 22, 2021, 05:29:01 pm »

I couldnt help making the comparison between my MX Ranger's 4 foot rotor span and a four foot saw blade coming backwards towards my shins!
While lying underneath it adjusting the glow engine, I decided I would calculate the rotor tip speed when I got home.... Mmmm, turned out the rotor tips were doing 200+mph!! And they had nice spruce leading edges too.


Logged

Andy M

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,504
Re: Skybike
« Reply #9 on: January 23, 2021, 12:55:05 am »

Skybike cruising about during a beautiful sunset
https://youtu.be/qP29HW51E2o
Logged

radiojoe

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2,376
  • Location: Gosport , Hampshire , England
Re: Skybike
« Reply #10 on: January 23, 2021, 01:32:55 pm »

Love the way that thing flies, to me it looks like about the right scale speed for that type of plane, the wheels must be very light are they some sort of foam.


Joe
Logged

Andy M

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,504
Re: Skybike
« Reply #11 on: January 23, 2021, 02:01:27 pm »

Hi Joe, the wheels are hollow with 6mm black depron sidewalls, 3mm black depron around the 'tread' 3mm white depron hubs and ice cream tub plastic bearing washers glued to hubs. They weigh 3.5g each, they are 3.5 inch diameter and have a 7g axle made from a jumbo paper clip. They roll really well. And cost very little to make. (one of my favourite types of build😁)
The entire plane with radio board, motors and battery cost me under £30, minus transmitter, which was about £45 but it controls all my planes that use the Wltoys F949 board (over 10 of them now!)
I still need to make a pilot for the Skybike, he needs to be as light as I can manage, I was also hoping to use the F949 board's extra servo capability to have his head moving or maybe a waving arm.
Logged

radiojoe

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2,376
  • Location: Gosport , Hampshire , England
Re: Skybike
« Reply #12 on: January 23, 2021, 03:06:36 pm »

Hi Andy Wow 3.5" wheels that planes bigger than I though, It's hard to tell the from a photo, A pilot waving his arm  {-)  that would be so cool,
My first try at model plane flying was back in 1968 I spent many weeks carefully building a control line plane with a ED Bee engine I was so proud of it and then me and my wife of two years took it out to "fly",  I set up the control lines went back to the plane and eventually started the engine and asked my wife to hold the tail of the plane and went to the control handle and told my wife to let her go, what happened next I doubt a Circus could match enough to say I was on my hands and knees with lines wrapped around me, head tucked in wondering where the darned thing was going to hit the ground, which of course it did in a pile of balsa splinters wrapped in tissue and the engine 2" in the dirt and my wife in stitches, laughing so much she could hardly stand, I eventually saw the funny side of it all, so you can see why I find your Depron models fascinating.




Joe
Logged

Andy M

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,504
Re: Skybike
« Reply #13 on: January 23, 2021, 04:00:38 pm »

Hi Joe, Skybike is 36 inch wingspan, it uses the wing and motors from my Snow Goose flying boat.
 Your control line experience is similar to mine when I was in my teens.
 I saved up my pocket money and bought a plastic Cox PT19? Trainer, fuel, glow head clip and battery. Went to local park, my brother said he had a shot of one of my uncles control line planes, so I nominated him for the first flight as I was worried about crashing it.....
 About 2 seconds later it was piled into the ground, snapping off the prop and the plastic fixing pegs on the engine mount and compressing red ash into the engine fins and exhaust ports. I had tried glueing the engine mount back together, but with oil everywhete, that never worked. That was the first and last flight, all 2 seconds of it. I moved onto boatbuilding after that. The urge to fly something remained though, so I much later I bought a Veron Impala slope soarer, built it, then compressed it into a hillside at a fair rate of knots.
Logged

Andy M

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,504
Re: Skybike
« Reply #14 on: January 23, 2021, 05:26:32 pm »

Here is the full size type of plane I took inspiration from to build my skybike, although it is totally different to what Skybike ended up looking like.
 I couldnt afford the cost of the (relatively heavy) carbon rods it would take to reproduce the open frame look.
 I saw one more similar to Skybike years ago but couldnt find it again online so I decided to do my own version of it from memory anyway.
 I worried that the big wheels would be so draggy as to prevent it flying but this has proved not to be the case, it flies even better than I anticipated.
Logged

Andy M

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,504
Re: Skybike
« Reply #15 on: January 23, 2021, 05:56:22 pm »

After a lot of searching, I found something really close to what I saw many years ago
Logged

Andy M

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,504
Re: Skybike
« Reply #16 on: January 28, 2021, 01:47:32 pm »

I decided that I am going to have a go at making a trailer for my jeep rock crawler, with a nice set of wheels and tyres I swapped for 2 different sized ones. Now that I have them, I am on the planning stage for the trailer. While I was looking at the wheels, they are about the same size as my Skybike ones, I thought they would look really nice on it , wonder what they weigh?
 I knew they would be heavier, but they are 22 times heavier! Hard to believe. Skybike ones turned out really light at 3.5g each.
Logged

Andy M

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,504
Re: Skybike
« Reply #17 on: January 29, 2021, 11:26:27 pm »

After looking at the Aeromax kitplane above, I decided my Skybike should be able to carry the extra weight of a paintjob, it was looking a bit too white.
 I didnt want to just copy the Aeromax paintjob, I wanted to follow the nose shape and have a curve rather than a straight line.
 I needed to glue a skin of 1mm vector board over the grey depron nose to give a uniform white for painting the red onto. Once the glue had dried I drew the curve I wanted on thick paper and made a template to mark the sides of the plane.
 I also wanted to improve my landing gear, it was just a straight axle which didnt look very plane-like, I bent it to required shape and made a brace from another large paper clip. These were taped to a new ice cream tub plastic base with fibreglass tape. The ends of the brace were bound to the axle(s) with thread and superglued.  2mm depron triangles were glued in between the axle and brace. The assembly was glued in position. Its a bit heavier than original straight one but much stronger. The extra paperclip brace is over 4g extra added onto the plane.
 Once that was done, I marked up using my template and painted the red on, also painted the tailwheel tyre and repainted the front frame uprights(straws)
 I also wanted a windscreen, preferably screwed on to save having glue visible, I reckoned that the 1mm carbon rod for the front of the wing bands could pass through it and fix that bit in place.
 I made a trial paper template then refined the shape and made a more accurate one and then cut out the windscreen from fairly stiff plastic, creased it in required places and did a trial fit. I trimmed it where it was needed and screwed it to the front frame tubes (straws)
 It turned out pretty good, 4 tiny screws and the wing band rod hold it tight to the soft vector foam without squashing it on the top edges. Spending a while refining the template  was worth it.
 I think it has been worth the extra effort as I think it looks pretty good.
 It will also help with visibility, although this has not been an issue, it moves slow enough to keep in view easily.
 It really needs a pilot now. I have sketched one ready for project pilot, I can draw technical stuff pretty well, but figures aren't my strong point.
 Ah well, here goes. Lining up a ping pong ball with my drawing, I decided it would make a goodish open face helmet, 5 minutes of carefull scalpelling and sanding resulted in a passable crash helmet. Now I just have to work out the lightest way of building the pilot, and having his arm waving if possible. I decided this is a feature I really want to try and use my extra channel for.
 Weight has now increased to just under 120g but it still feels really light so I dont see the extra weight affecting things too much.
 
Logged

radiojoe

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2,376
  • Location: Gosport , Hampshire , England
Re: Skybike
« Reply #18 on: January 30, 2021, 10:03:31 am »

Nice job Andy it looks kind of finished now, love the way it flies.


Joe.
Logged

Andy M

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,504
Re: Skybike
« Reply #19 on: January 30, 2021, 02:47:19 pm »

Thanks very much, I dont really like plain white depron planes. A bit of colour helps.
I have flown it and the extra weight was noticeable. It has ended up a touch nose heavy due to the beefed up undercarriage and the windscreen, so I removed the windscreen as it isnt essential. Not flown it yet to see if that makes a difference, its pretty windy and snow flurries so it can wait
Logged

Andy M

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,504
Re: Skybike
« Reply #20 on: January 30, 2021, 03:02:54 pm »

Taking the windscreen off saved 4g, not a lot but about half my battery weight so well worth doing. I think a pilot would push the weight back up into the noticeably heavy zone. Maybe a 3mm depron profile pilot would look ok, and be light enough. When I flew it 'heavy' it was a bit breezy, which it doesnt like very much. Once I get a calm day I will give it another go.
Painting it added about 3-4g.
I did think about making a slightly longer set of wings, if I have enough 2mm depron left. This would help bring the wing loading back down to where it was before I started my improvements.
This is a big plane for the radio board I am using, these tiny servos are driving big control surfaces, I am sure the slow speed it flies at is saving the servo gears and electronics.
Logged

JimG

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Online Online
  • Posts: 1,269
  • Model Boat Mayhem is Great!
  • Location: Dundee
Re: Skybike
« Reply #21 on: January 30, 2021, 07:40:22 pm »

You've still a long way to go in making larger models from foam sheet. Here's a video of a half scale Sopwith Triplane built for indoor flying, still no motor but pushing it at a fast walk makes it fly.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUPNj3si8Ww&fbclid=IwAR1BUvfcmn_JO2gvg49Ci5K0SSBw2jwEUQ6N_dd0XgxrtPdu4BiCqFvhyew
Jim
Logged
Dundee Model Boat club

Andy M

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,504
Re: Skybike
« Reply #22 on: January 30, 2021, 08:33:30 pm »

Thanks for the link Jim, its an amazing plane. Thats more depron than I have ever had.
Logged

Andy M

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,504
Re: Skybike
« Reply #23 on: January 30, 2021, 08:37:27 pm »

Wish I could read russian to see how much it weighs. 😁
I would love a nice hall like that to fly in. I asked at our local school but they said it would be a fire hazard if one landed on the lights.
Logged

Andy M

  • Full Mayhemer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1,504
Re: Skybike
« Reply #24 on: January 30, 2021, 08:49:41 pm »

Its a whole lot of depron. I would get 100 planes out of that amount. Its funny, I was looking at a triplane plan the other[/size] day, only the one I was looking at was a little Fokker. Lol
Logged
Pages: [1] 2   Go Up
 

Page created in 0.124 seconds with 22 queries.