Exian's composite planes

[Richard Roller]

Lovely airplanes. Your technics have my brain working overtime, so many interesting ideas.

 

[Jsample40]

Look into the Twin Power series of Lithium Iron Phosphate light weight batterys.... I went from standard motorcycle batterys (lead acid) to Absorbent Glass Matt (AGM) to the Twin Power version of Lipo batterys after repeated battery failures in short lifespan issues.
Very pleased in the reserve power, starting power, ability to hold charge, and rapid charge.

 

[howardyin]

do you have a blog or website , or FB page?

 

[Jsample40]

None of the above .... sorry... nor do I have any of these specialized low weight/ high power batteries for sale... Just another fellow passing on some of my actual empirical / experience based knowledge learned the hard way (ie: trial & error...LOL).
JWS

 

[howardyin]

I will talk about my composite planes in this dedicated thread.

First project : EXIA, completed and flying well for almost 2 years (70h)
- single seat, under french UL regulation
- wing span 8,2 m
- lenght 5,15 m
- empty weight 130 kg
- MTOW 210 kg
- engine AIXRO XF 40, wankel type, 35hp, consumption 9l/h at 70% power
- tanks in the wings 36l total (wet wings)
- glass sandwich skins with some carbon parts (spars), made in typical composite molds
- special equipements : ballistic parachute (GRS)

Current performance (to be improved with adapted prop that I built but cannot test due to flight bans with COVID19 in France...) :
- Stall speed 65km/h (tested)
- Cruise 180 km/h (real, tested in long cross country flights)
- Top speed 205 km/h

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fatanstic

 

[dlkjrice]

fatanstic

Very nice design. Do you sell plans?

 

[wanttobuild]

Thanks for the very helpful information, Exian.

Regarding:

For their three VW derived engines, they give the following specs (all at 8:1 compression ratio)
1600cc: 60 hp (continuous) at 3200 rpm
1914cc: 75 hp (continuous) at 3100 rpm
2275cc: 90 hp (continuous) at 3000 rpm

With or without fuel injection, these power outputs for a VW engine (2 valve pushrod) of the displacements shown are "incredible" (literally-- not credible). They are at least 10% higher than people actually get with these engines, especially at those (relatively low) RPMs. If they used the same "helpful" dyno to get the advertised power output for their V-2 engines, well, there could be some disappointment.
Just my opinion.

Maybe you should read on the same website about how that power is attained. The CAMSHAFT. The info is there, just read it.

 

[Vigilant1]

Maybe you should read on the same website about how that power is attained. The CAMSHAFT. The info is there, just read it.

Maybe you can be a little less snarky, or maybe you can tell me how the camshaft cools those heads. I missed that part.
It is no trick to make the HP they claim for a short time. Street racers do it with RPM, CR, tailoring the camshaft, etc. It is another thing to make that HP continuously (as they claim) and have the engine provide reliable service in an aircraft. In the case of the VW Type 1, the limits are already well understood, and no magic cam will change them.
Looking forward to the flight reports.

 

[wanttobuild]

Cooling VW heads has long ago be solved. If your little Sonex gets hot, thats on you. Your continual rejection of the various solutions, well that speaks volumes, so continue to fly with a hot engine, I would suggest keeping the airport close by.
I have a notion that this cam might be of interest to some of the 1/2 VW guys.

 

[Vigilant1]

Cooling VW heads has long ago be solved.

Absolutely correct, we agree. Solved long ago. Proper baffling (according to conditions) and a respect for the limitations of the VW Type 1 head's ability to reject heat are the biggest factors that we've found to be critical.
If there is an example of anyone actually flying a Type 1 and getting 90 HP continuous (as Vaxell claims theirs can do) for more than a couple of hundred hours between overhauls, the whole world would be interested. Decades of experience with direct drive and PSRU Type 1 engines indicate otherwise. I'm not talking about sales literature or a "helpful" dynamometer report, but real-world flying.
Their "incredible"claims and inconsistent graph-vs-text specs for the VW-based engines casts doubt on their claims for their V-twins (why it was mentioned in this thread). Let's see them actually fly and produce those numbers.

 

[kubark42]

(@Exian, pinging you here because I believe you have turned off your DMs.) Several of us here and from all around (RAS, Grasshopper, French DuckHawk e-conversion, etc...) have a Slack group for real-time discussion of eGliders. We're all moving in the same direction and it's been very helpful to swap experience and knowledge, esp. vis-a-vis vendors and other COTS parts. If you'd like to join, DM me I will send you an invite.

 

[TLAR]

I glue a piece of rounded Aluminium at the end of the carbon tube
Then I do manual winding of carbon roving around it : longitudinaly, and circularly to compact and hold together the firts layers.
The part with the pikes it a tooling that enables me to attach the longitudinal roving.
Of course I lay a thin layer of glass over the aluminium before doing the winding.

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Building notes, in french with horrible wrinting...
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Of course this takes longer than making the classic riveted end with a lathe, but I don't like the idea of the concentrated load of the rivets in the carbon tube.

Here the rovings transfer the load to the tube in shear on a broad area.

Exian
The push pull tubes are beautiful, well executed.

 

[EzyBuildWing]

Like the electric motor in the KYRIOS. Maybe installed in Mike Arnold's AR-5, it would set some records?