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Hello from NZ!

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RCBinChicken

Active Member
Joined
May 19, 2019
Messages
29
Hi all! I've hurriedly joined this forum, after Google found me a good discussion you guys had on the subject of Scott Winton's Facet Opal.

I'm an engineering student from New Zealand, studying electrical presently but trying to pick up whatever I can in terms of mechanical and other disciplines, with the goal of one day building and flying a homemade, electrically-powered ultralight (and making myself more employable along the way, though I'll freely admit that's a secondary consideration. :p )

My only aviation experience thus far comes from building and flying RC model aircraft, which I'm aware is no substitute for the real thing but will hopefully give me some overlaps of skill/knowledge areas if I persevere with it diligently.

I have never been a wealthy individual and I see that as unlikely to change drastically throughout my life as I'm a naive, whimsical soul and tend to value time higher than money, so my ultimate goal is to get myself in the air, very, very cheaply; secondary goal, a plane that's easy/cheap to transport and store, so minimal overall dimensions, especially wingspan. I'm really not too concerned with pushing the far edges of the performance envelope - in fact, I'd ideally be flying slowly enough that I'd be unlikely to be crippled/killed in the unfortunate event of a CFIT! I'm also aware of the horrible energy density tradeoffs between lithium-polymer and gas, so range and endurance is also (relatively) out the window.

I'm inspired/made hopeful by the work of Mike Sandlin and his paramotor-powered, 40km/h-cruise Bloop-series "motorfloaters" - http://m-sandlin.info/bloop/bloop.htm - and people like the above Scott Winton and Peter Sripol, just in terms of demonstrating what's achievable with moderate-to-small wingspans and low-output power systems respectively, and overall (with the exception of Mr Winton, obviously) low-tech build materials/methods.

(I feel like from what I've stated goal-wise, a fair few people are going to read it and say "kid, what you want is a paramotor", and while they would be objectively correct in that, paras just don't excite me. I'm a strict fixed-winger at heart.)

I'm not really sure where to start, I have a million billion questions (and an uncomfortable awareness of my own lack of expertise and that accordingly a pretty good majority of them will probably be stupid questions) but if there's anybody on here with an interest in similar craft, or knowledge of similar projects, I'd love to hear from you. Or even if not! :)
 
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