Hey guys, progress report......

I think the minimax line would be a good place to start too - plus a lot of the planes are vaguely similair in shape to the one your building (JDT Mini-MAX -- Light Sport Aircraft and Ultralight Flight Aviation Kit Building and Flying). Your obvious wood working skills and dedication should help a lot, and you'll get a plane to fly while your building your own design.

Don't give up on your dream of designing and building your own plane - all everybody is saying is you need more information before you can do it safely. Building something else first will help a lot - if you find yourself asking "why the hell did the designer do that?" you can then go and figure it out. Dont stop working on your design.

Don't be afraid of making waves either. Millpond flat is pretty un

Thank you NeedsWings, I really appreciate that. Its not my first design and I'm sure it wont be the last. I think I'll continue with building and use it as a prototype for static testing and other things. In the mean time I have been doing a lot of reading on the mini max planes. They are cute little planes without a doubt. But one design that continually catches my eye is the skypup. Is it a legit plane? safe? The two axis control seems questionable but not crazy. The low cost, fast build time, ease of construction and gentle flying characteristics are appealing. Does anyone have experience with the skypup?

Originally Posted by radioinred

It is NOT white foam between the spar webs it is dow extruded.

Feel free to be as SCARED as you feel like but my emotion is more along the lines of excitement.

Details differ obviously. But if my design is taking fire because of the fact that it is not perfect, then let me remind you that there is no such design as a perfect one.

I appreciate help always. But help and ridicule and two different things

1) Extruded foam won't add any strength either.
2) I must admit, "excitement" would be one thing I would feel too when hurtling towards the earth.
3) "Perfection" isn't the issue.
4) Not ridiculing, just trying to help. These are facts of life.

Check out this French site for a simple ply spar and some other really good tips ( use translator to view text )
quaetaers.club.fr/index.htm
And this excellent German website about building a PIK 26 ( its in good English and German )
www.pik-26.de/index.html
And this French site about building a 2 seat wooden aircraft
gazaile2.nmr7.free.fr/
A good Composite web site about building a KR@ look a like
krsuper2.com/
This good site about the Colombans Cri Cri metal aircraft
www.cricri.zoomshare.com/12.shtml
And the SD Minisport a wooden single seater
www.sdplanes.com/sd1specsa.htm

Lots of photos and good building ideas
Flyoz

Try www.ragwing.net

Steve

Very nice sites Flyoz! Tons of good information. Another good one is the French Souricette. I have always loved the look and feel of wood over aluminum or composite but perhaps one day that will change.

Check out the Pietenpol Aircamper for a light sport aircraft. It is all wood construction and has stood the test of time. If possible, you would like seeing one in person before covering to see how the fuselage, wings, etc, are built. Pietenpol did what you want to do in the 1930's but he followed engineering principles. If you can't see one in person, study the plans.

You should also not try the 2 piece fuselage. The gussets you show now still won't solve the issues there.

Unless the front part of the fuselage is skinned with plywood for shear loads it would also need diagonals with gusset plates sim. to what you are now showing at the aft fuse.

Originally Posted by radioinred

But one design that continually catches my eye is the skypup. Is it a legit plane? safe? The two axis control seems questionable but not crazy. The low cost, fast build time, ease of construction and gentle flying characteristics are appealing. Does anyone have experience with the skypup?

My friend, Dan Grunloe, owned one for quite awhile. He said it was a great little plane.

Skypup page: Home Sky Pup

BDD, your absolutely right about the fuse. I had this idea (not an original) that I could build a plane from materials bought at Lowes and save a fortune. Thinking back it wasn't one of my better ideas. The two piece fuse is definitely a poor choice structurally. I had planned to skin it in ply as well as add the diagonals but it still wouldn't be certifiable.

I knew that I couldn't skimp on construction. Everything is a compromise. The big idea was to over build everything and deal with the extra weight. I was definitely think strong...... and not necessarily light

After the good advice from all these patient, experienced gentlemen like yourself I really don't know what to do with the thing. I mean the obvious answer is scrap it I guess but man I just cant part with it yet. You know?

I don't know... maybe I'll turn it into a coffee table.

Hey Radioinred dont feel alone i think a lot of us have those sorts of coffee tables in our garages !
I have no doubt you will end up building a good , safe aeroplane .
Flyoz

thankyou flyoz, I appreciate your positve attude. Its definitely rubbing off on me. Maybe we can start a thread that focuses on all of our different coffee tables.... haha.

Originally Posted by radioinred

thankyou flyoz, I appreciate your positve attude. Its definitely rubbing off on me. Maybe we can start a thread that focuses on all of our different coffee tables.... haha.

I'll have to see if I can scare up some old photos of my 'mock-up' work...

Originally Posted by radioinred

After the good advice from all these patient, experienced gentlemen like yourself I really don't know what to do with the thing. I mean the obvious answer is scrap it I guess but man I just cant part with it yet. You know?

I don't know... maybe I'll turn it into a coffee table.

Consider it a learning experience, and a conversation piece. One thing you should do is get some good books on the subjects of aircraft structures and aircraft performance. Things geared towards light planes. Pazmany printed a good one on basic design and layout.

You should also study plans from successful, well designed planes, to see what parts there are, how they're connected, etc. Beware of not really designed or engineered ultralights they should not be studied.

You could also get into RC aircraft and build them something like the full scale versions. Twist the wings, note how they take loads and bending. This will help give you a physical feel for how these structures operate. Note how stiff the wing gets in bending when you add the shear webs of the spars (something you can't delete from a full scale plane). Note that the wing is much stiffer for loads from all directions when you add sheeting to the leading edge which ends at the spar caps. Note that the very curve of the wing sheeting gives it strength against buckling. Note if the leading edge skin can "oil can" or buckle betwee the ribs when the wing is twisted or bent for normal lift loads. This could be helped by closer spaced "false" nose ribs or a thicker skin (which is more difficult to apply).

Note how absolutely important it is to have your model properly balanced, etc. Note how easy it is to stall the plane and what happens when that occurs.

All of these things apply to a plane you would want to build too.

Keep in mind that it might seem to work for a model to just sheet a spar with no spar caps but that will never work for a full sized plane (solid wood spars are different). Even models though usually start with the spar caps (longerons or stringers) and may later sheet them.

With RC planes as a start you could also have fun without getting hurt and would get a sense of how stable or not different configurations are. You would also get a feeling for wing loading and it's affect on landing speeds, etc.