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Small single seat 3 surface concept

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Wild Bill

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 11, 2013
Messages
111
Location
Vidalia, GA
About 15 years ago I had this idea for a small twin engine single seater. I sketched it out on a piece of paper and made a very small hand toss glider. Afterward, I bought a flying airplane and was busy with work and flying XC’s on the weekends.
Some years later I started building the RC test model at around 28% scale. Uncertainty about the design and various other things going on at the time caused it to go on the back burner again.
During this covid thing I started back on it and made a flying test model.
I anticipated a bunch of issues with it, but it actually turned out to fly well.

I know 3 surface designs don’t get a lot of love here on the forums. But to me the benefit of this configuration is that the pilot is in a ideal position. Not directly over the wing. If you build something around the size of the cri cri for example you pretty much have to sit directly over the wing.
This configuration lets you place the pilots center of mass on the CG of the plane, and between the main wing and canard. Heavily reclined seating keeps the canopy small.
The general proportions are similar to the piaggio avanti.
I went back and forth on what sort of controls it should have. And then I thought about Bruce Bohannons modified Miller JM 2 design. In its final configuration it had a small lifting canard with no control. (I’m assuming this was added because of pilot weight gain or making it go around pylons better.)
So for the model I kept it simple and the only control it has is a conventional elevator on the T tail and ailerons.
This really worked much better than I expected. Control was very good at all speeds.
I don’t know how it would scale up. I guess surfaces could be added to the canard. They could possibly work separate from the elevator... Flaps if you will... Not sure
Would make things much more complicated.
My thinking for the full scale would be electric power or a couple of 200-300 cc two strokes.
Retractable nose gear and a sailplane style main gear. Maybe with small retractable gears in the engine pods to keep it from tipping side to side.

At this point it’s a pipe dream for me.
After how well the model flew I just had to share.
 

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