(NOTE - as of this post my current number of posts has been multiplied by infinity)
Hi, all. I'm not actually a proper full scale pilot; I design, build, and fly (and crash) r/c model aircraft. Someday when I'm out of school and have steady income I want to get into hang gliding or something similar in spirit, but I'm limited to FPV flight at the most right now. (Except for 1/2 hr of glider training one time on vacation in a schweiser 233. I have the gliding bug now.) One day when browsing about I came across this video...
(sorry about timestamp, skip back to beginning)
...and I was positively flabbergasted. I immediately started designing a new r/c motorglider flying wing to use that information, but reading into the Horten brother's work later and found out about the Horten Ho. Xc, the craft that the test glider in the video is based on, and immediately knew I had to build one someday. I know I'm jumping the gun by a minimum of half a decade, but whenever I enter a new field in r/c I always meticulously (perhaps obsessively) research and plan out the new craft, and none of my designs planned out in that level of completeness have yet to fail to work on the first attempt. I know that if I'm going to build a machine in which I will entrust my life instead of just ~$100, I should get started on the research early.
So I want to start designing a plane based on the Ho. Xc as a foot launched sailplane, to be built out of wood. I am not as experienced in working with wood as I am with foam sheeting, but certainly more than aluminum or *shudder* molded composites. I obviously can't start building any time soon, but I can make a 3-4 meter mock-up out of balsa and poplar for r/c.
The requirements:
-must hold me up (I'm mostly done growing, currently 200cm tall and 95kg)
-must qualify as an ultralight in the USA (empty weight <70kg. If it turns out to be a little more, the FAA doesn't need to know
)
-must be straightforward to build (I am competent in this area but don't want to attempt something out of my depth)
-must break down for transport (whether this applies to the full scale or not remains to be seen, but the mock up must fit in a car)
-would be nice to be able to handle more aggressive maneuvers (highish speed dives, loops, maybe rolls), but can sacrifice if weight gain is prohibitive
I'm not worrying about L/D or sink rate right now, but more efficient is obviously better and I am willing to sacrifice some stability/post-stall handling to improve it.
I want it to be mainly wood, but composite or metal members in the main spar are not out of the question.
What I have:
-5 yrs r/c flight experience , 0.5hr full scale experience :depressed
-access to CAD software, w/ importable airfoil coordinates
-mathematics knowledge up to basic calculus
-tools and available materials to build said mock-up, and a good sized model field to fly in.
What I need to know:
-the construction methods needed to make something like this. From what I have seen so far in this forum, a box main spar and truss ribs (idk the name-when the outline of the airfoil is filled in by triangular bracing) seem like the kind of things I could do well. The more practice I can get with this material, the better.
-covering types, techniques. The Ho Xc linked above used a wooden LE with the rest covered in fabric, but I have read here that fabric and ply are antithetical when it comes to compressive stress. Also, reflex might be required but I don't know if fabric under tension can follow a negative curve.
-scale (the original is 15m span, 15m2 area. Would a guy my size need a bigger glider?)
-how to break the wing down, either by building it in segments or building it to disassemble completely. Which is a better idea?
Thanks for the help in advance, and please don't feel like you need to answer everything here. If there is some other thread or resource that covers something please just point me to it!
Hi, all. I'm not actually a proper full scale pilot; I design, build, and fly (and crash) r/c model aircraft. Someday when I'm out of school and have steady income I want to get into hang gliding or something similar in spirit, but I'm limited to FPV flight at the most right now. (Except for 1/2 hr of glider training one time on vacation in a schweiser 233. I have the gliding bug now.) One day when browsing about I came across this video...
(sorry about timestamp, skip back to beginning)
...and I was positively flabbergasted. I immediately started designing a new r/c motorglider flying wing to use that information, but reading into the Horten brother's work later and found out about the Horten Ho. Xc, the craft that the test glider in the video is based on, and immediately knew I had to build one someday. I know I'm jumping the gun by a minimum of half a decade, but whenever I enter a new field in r/c I always meticulously (perhaps obsessively) research and plan out the new craft, and none of my designs planned out in that level of completeness have yet to fail to work on the first attempt. I know that if I'm going to build a machine in which I will entrust my life instead of just ~$100, I should get started on the research early.
So I want to start designing a plane based on the Ho. Xc as a foot launched sailplane, to be built out of wood. I am not as experienced in working with wood as I am with foam sheeting, but certainly more than aluminum or *shudder* molded composites. I obviously can't start building any time soon, but I can make a 3-4 meter mock-up out of balsa and poplar for r/c.
The requirements:
-must hold me up (I'm mostly done growing, currently 200cm tall and 95kg)
-must qualify as an ultralight in the USA (empty weight <70kg. If it turns out to be a little more, the FAA doesn't need to know
)-must be straightforward to build (I am competent in this area but don't want to attempt something out of my depth)
-must break down for transport (whether this applies to the full scale or not remains to be seen, but the mock up must fit in a car)
-would be nice to be able to handle more aggressive maneuvers (highish speed dives, loops, maybe rolls), but can sacrifice if weight gain is prohibitive
I'm not worrying about L/D or sink rate right now, but more efficient is obviously better and I am willing to sacrifice some stability/post-stall handling to improve it.
I want it to be mainly wood, but composite or metal members in the main spar are not out of the question.
What I have:
-5 yrs r/c flight experience
, 0.5hr full scale experience :depressed-access to CAD software, w/ importable airfoil coordinates
-mathematics knowledge up to basic calculus
-tools and available materials to build said mock-up, and a good sized model field to fly in.
What I need to know:
-the construction methods needed to make something like this. From what I have seen so far in this forum, a box main spar and truss ribs (idk the name-when the outline of the airfoil is filled in by triangular bracing) seem like the kind of things I could do well. The more practice I can get with this material, the better.
-covering types, techniques. The Ho Xc linked above used a wooden LE with the rest covered in fabric, but I have read here that fabric and ply are antithetical when it comes to compressive stress. Also, reflex might be required but I don't know if fabric under tension can follow a negative curve.
-scale (the original is 15m span, 15m2 area. Would a guy my size need a bigger glider?)
-how to break the wing down, either by building it in segments or building it to disassemble completely. Which is a better idea?
Thanks for the help in advance, and please don't feel like you need to answer everything here. If there is some other thread or resource that covers something please just point me to it!
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