Of course weight isn't the only problem, the company will need to have their aircraft approved by each country it plans to sell in and will then of course have to convince actual paying customers that they need a flying car in their lives.
Convince? Everyone needs a flying car. I just wish I could afford to meet that need, but whoa would it be cool to have a flying car.
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Chained out, like a sitting duck just waiting for the fall _Cage the Elephant
As much as I want a flying car, I'm p certain that it's actually a terrible idea. I mean, think about it. Do you see how terrible people are at managing two dimensions? Their puny minds would melt out their ears if they had to conceive of a third!
I posted about my new tricopter in the 'make something every week' thread, but I thought I'd also put a link to in in this one - even though a tricopter is not really a plane.
No. I use the Gemfan 5030 props which are only 55 cents each from Banggood.
My printer can print a very rough prop - but even after extensive hand-finishing it still wouldn't be as efficient as commercial injection-moulded props.
Incidentally, a couple of other guys in the club wanted to build one of my tricopters, so I priced up all the parts - I'll give them the printed parts, of course, but the motors, speed controllers, props, flight controller, fasteners, connectors and so on come to about $80 US. That doesn't include the radio receiver (varies depending on what brand of radio you use but maybe $20) and battery (about $9.50 each).
I mentioned this transmitter I built in the 'make something every week' thread - it mimics the transmitters of olden days where you issued left/right steering controls to your plane by pressing a single button in a sort of Morse code manner.
I wanted a plane to test it with, so I dragged my old Veron Cardinal out of the loft. It was in a sorry state - I built it about 20 years ago to try to get my nephew interested in toy planes. It had a model diesel engine for power and no control at all - you just threw it and then chased after it to pick it up wherever it landed after the motor stopped.
(the AA battery is to give an idea of scale)
I sawed the front off the plane, fitted a small electric motor and battery and some small radio control gear. Biggest job was stripping off all the old fuel-soaked and blistered covering so I could recover it and make it look smart again.
I'm going to test fly it tomorrow morning. Wish me luck as I've never flown a plane with just a button for control before.
The Veron Cardinal was designed back in 1950 or 1951 by Phil Smith. It was a very popular free flight model as it was relatively quick and easy to build, looked cute and flew well. I don't know how well it will work as a radio control model. I made a few changes that I think will improve it for radio work - less dihedral, smaller horizontal tail and bigger fin - and I moved the centre of gravity a long way forward to a more normal 1/3 wing chord. For free flight work it had a big 'lifting' tailplane with the c.g. about 75% back from the wing leading edge!
The test flights were all successful. I made a mess of controlling it the first flight and it landed in a cornfield, but without any damage. Then I did half a dozen more flights and managed to land on the runway one time, but fairly close by on the other attempts. It's definitely a calm weather only plane though - it flies so slowly that, even with accurate controlling, it would be blown away downwind by more than the slightest breeze.
A friend has given me a gas turbine powered plane. It's a Dassault Rafale with a JetCat P60 powerplant. I've never owned nor flown such a model before. They are ridiculously expensive, and compared to 'normal' models they tend to be larger, heavier, and fly faster. I've been given the complete thing, ready to fly complete with all the necessary monitoring and control gear for the engine, a couple of gallons of fuel, turbine oil, a fuel pump, a fire extinguisher, wing bags for the removable outer wing panels and so on.
Now I have to find somewhere to fly it. Most model plane clubs in the UK don't allow jet operation - it's not really a noise thing as there are conventional models that make more noise - but the jets do pose more of a fire risk, and because of their usually higher flying speeds they tend to fly a bit further away from the runway and attract the attention of any non-model-flyers in the vicinity (usually a bad thing).
Been flying a solar powered model plane today. No batteries at all. Performance is surprisingly good - it has just about enough power to stay up when the sun is behind thin clouds, but climbs away and goes pretty fast when the sun is out.
It's capable of continuous loops - there is still enough power to operate the radio control gear even when the solar panels are facing the ground. I programmed and fitted an Arduino that modifies the signal going to the speed controller (motor power). The Arduino monitors the throttle demand signal from the receiver and the voltage from the solar cells. It automatically decreases the speed controller signal when necessary so as to maintain the optimum power transfer from the solar cells and always keep enough power back for working the radio control receiver and servos.
My friend Mike designed and built the plane from depron sheet, balsa, and glass cloth, using solar cells I bought from AliExpress. He'd already made a similar one for himself - but that only has eight solar cells instead of the ten mine has.
The fins on the wing tips go downwards rather than up so as not to cast shadows on the solar cells. If you get a shadow on just one of the cells it reduces the current available from the combination as though the whole lot were in shadow. It has to land on the tip fins and the motor in the nose - but that's okay as you can slow it right down as it approaches the ground so on a grassy field it sustains no damage.
I attended a model flying event at Pontefract on Sunday. It was an event for the flying of vintage-style model planes using vintage radio control - or more often modern replicas of vintage radio control systems, but using modern components and radio frequencies for greater reliability. Every year, there is a 'build this specified model in the weeks prior to the event' theme and this year's model was the Pulstar, designed by Vic Smeed.
You can see a few models built more-or-less to plan, but there is also a V-tail, a ducted fan version, one with a vectored thrust system and the giant one, built by Shaun who was the organizer of the event.
Mine is the plain colored one near the centre of the group with a pinkish purple propeller. It was unusual in that I fitted it with a retro design 'galloping ghost' control, where the rudder constantly oscillates back and forth but is biased by the radio control system to spend more time to the left or the right, for steering.
We had a mass launch of the models, and a famous British model enthusiast, Pete Christy, awarded a prize to one lucky Pulstar flyer...
,,,Which was me! I was awarded this lovely 'Scooter' model, new in box, and complete with radio control system and engine.
Should only take a couple of hours to get it built up and ready for flight!
My jet flew yesterday, but I wasn't the one flying it. An expert took it up to demonstrate and trim it and the plan was for me to have a go afterwards. But the landing was a bit heavy and one of the undercarriage legs collapsed, so I never got to have a go myself.
I'm repairing it today and will attempt to fly it myself over the next few days. I'll try to arrange some photos and video,
He was an expert I watched him fly his own jet in tricky crosswind conditions and I asked him to fly mine so I could learn the best way to handle it. I think if I'd said I wanted to try myself the group would have let me - even though I was just a guest freeloading on their airstrip.
It wasn't really the expert's fault that the undercarriage collapsed: the wire leg that fitted into the retract mechanism had been filed too much in an attempt to prevent it rotating on heavy landings, and it cracked and sheared off at the stress point caused by the filing. So it was really bad building / maintenance by one of the jet's previous owners that caused the problem. I've replaced both the main legs now as the one that didn't collapse was just as bad.
I'm part way through repairing the wing tip that got damaged when the undercarriage collapsed. I must finish that off tonight as I'm taking the jet to Aberystwyth tomorrow to attempt to fly it there.
Some other people have managed to see it godfry (most of the comments have been about the "poor sheep"). I don't know what's wrong. Perhaps there's something wrong with the linking / embedding on although I can see it fine.
And that's what sheep get for not putting enough R&D into building jet technology of their own or buying jets from the Russians or French like everyone else.