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Large Concorde project
The plane is all fiberglass and was made in Germany. It is an empty shell as it arrived in the shop and we are going to set about building it. As you can see below, it is larger than most planes and it will be all electric including engines and retracts.
It is 16 feet long and has the scale controls including the droop nose feature for landing and slow flight. It will be done up in the scheme you see above and will have lights that function.
This will be a big build that will be done slowly due to the need for a long list of parts and supplies that are not normal for us. The build notes start at the top and the latest entry is at the bottom of the file.
The initial meeting regarding the plane was had on 9/6/11 and it was decided that the build will be in five parts.
Phase one --build the support system that will hold the plane in an inverted position as that is how the plane will be built and how all the service work will be done. This system will take some designing and construction in order to support the plane properly and still be of a practical size
Phase two -- assemble the plane on the stand. This will be basic structure as the wings will need to be bolted to the fuse and the structure made sound.
Phase three -- This will be the time for the installation of all the equipment and testing. This will take time to complete
Phase four -- The plane will then be test flown to tune the installation of the equipment.
Phase five -- The paint and finish will then be applied and the plane will be delivered to the customer.
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Phase one
9/ 8 -16/11
Design work on the stand for the airplane is complete and the functions needed are included in the design. All the work done on the plane will be done while it is inverted so the rack has to hold the plane in all states of assembly.
When the plane is assembled, the short fuse will be put in the rack and the wings will be slid on the wing tubes and then bolted to the fuse sides. The rack must hold it and not be unstable. Because of these factors, I designed the system 2.5' wide at the base and 3' tall to minimize the bending over that will be done during the build and during the assembly of the plane. In order to fit the fuse, the rack will be 62" long at the base.
Once the nose is added to the fuse, there is a probability that the rack will become unstable, so I designed an extension to support the nose and reduce strain on the fuse structure while it is in the rack.
9/17 - 20
I used furniture grade 3/4 ply to build the rack. I cut out the parts and assembled the rough frame using nails and screws to be sure it will withstand moving it around. A coat of primer was then put on the frame.
Below is a shot of the plane in the rack with the nose attached. The final step was to adjust the cradle system to accommodate the shape of the fuse.
The cradle was adjusted using strapping to raise the fuse so that the rack will clear the wings when they are attached. This system has proven to prevent damage to the surface of the plane and still hold the airframe securely in place
9/20/11 Phase one of the build is complete and the project is ahead of the initial schedule.
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Begin phase two --- basic assembly of the airframe
9/21/11
The begining of the second phase of the project was to bolt on the nose section. The designers have this part figured out as there are locator pins in the formers that set the nose in position. I added bllind nuts and bolts to the ring to bring it up to strength. In the shot below you see that the fuse had no formers or internal structure as it arrived in the shop. This will all be added in phase three of the build. The idea in this phase is to get the airframe assembled so that futher study can tell me where we can add strength to the plane.
Next was to study the wing tubes and wing slots to see where the designers left this key part of the plane. The wings have phenolic tubes installed and the fuse has holes for the tubes but no phenolic is supplied. The phenolic for the fuse is a requirement and will be added later in the build. I adjusted the size of the holes and did the initial assembly of the wings. The wing tubes are slightly long for the plane and I adjusted them to allow the wings to fit up to the fuse.
9/22/11
I made pegs for the leading edge at the wing root and put them in place. They will be glued in later so that we will not have to keep track of them. The wings were then on the plane and two items remain in question.
FIRST - is the wing incidence set by the manufacturer. If we align the wings to the flanges on the fuse mold, will they be right. This is a key question that will change the way the plane flies. I contacted the manufacturer and rerieved confirmation that the wings are indexed at the factory. In additiion, I measured the wings and the incidence and everything was good.
Second - how to hold the wings tight to the fuse can be a serious matter. I do not care for the method the manufacturer used, so I will improve the system with bolts and wing nuts to be sure the wings are firmly in place. This step might be overkill and I believe it is warranted in a plane this size.
The wing root is 1/8" ply and that is not substantial enough to hold the 1/4" studs I intend to use for the wing bolts. I will design another approach that will solve the problem.
To complete the checks I rolled the plane over and put it in the rack.
9/23 - 24
As we await the equipment in the plane, some data was taken on the air frame
It is a 1:14 scale
The wing span is 72.1 inches and the length is 173.3 inches
The weight projection shows 44 lbs so we are planning on 47 max ready to fly
Wing loading is 48.89 oz / sq ft and that is a fair number for this plane. The problem is that the wing loading is not sensitive to the plane size and therefore I do not put much stock in it
The Cubic wing loading is a better scale to predict how the plane will react in the air. This one has a 12.47 oz / cu ft. In general, we like to see pylon racing planes at 13 or under and ducted fans are best at under a value of 24. These numbers look very good
The stall speed is calculated to be 34.6 mph and that should make the plane easy to land. The delta wing configuration will make it prone to showing roll instabillity when flaps are down and the landing configuration is attained. In order to combat this problem, I am planning to use a high quality transverse gyro that will be used when in landing mode. This should help make the plane easier to land.
9/26/11
The landing gears were in the shop for planning before they are rebuilt to run on electric. The mains fit into the wings with some modification of the surface of the wing. The gear doors are pre- cut but the hole is not large enough to mount the gears. We decided to make an additional hatch that will expose the wing root and serve several functions in the future. This hatch allows the main gears to be mounted and will expose the main conduit for cables to the center compartment of the fuse.
Below is a shot of the starting place for the mains.
The mains did not fit in the hatch area cut so I had to machine the inside formers to allow the landing gear to extend under the edge of the motor enclosure. This allowed the 3" wheels to fit in the fuse.
Once the hatch openings were cut in the wing, we could see that the wing root was 1/8 ply that will need to be strengthened to hold the wing bolts. The main gears were assembled and test fit onto the mounts. The height of the body of the gear includes the air fittings on the bottom and these air fittings made it not fit down on the gear mounts. This error in engineering may not be a problem since the gears are going to be converted to electric and the fitting would no longer be where it is today. For the purposes of testing the gear, I removed the air cylinder from the housing and continued to mount the gear.
With the offending air fitting out of the way, the gears were then positioned to where they looked like they would fit. Time has taught me to dry fit all the components before mounting anything down to the plane, so I cut out the belly pan doors and test fit them to the assembly
Above is the assembly with the gear down and the gear door off of the shaft ( the black thing to the right) It looked good with the gear down.
Below is the shot with the gear up. The belly pan door will be driven with servos and will open and close in sequence with the gear up or down command from the transmitter. The other gear door will be attached to the landing gear shaft.
There will be 4 wheels on each gear and the gears are shock mounted for landing at a steep angle of attack.
The assembly looked good so I then positioned the main gear mounts so that we can get to the screws and marked the hard wood mounts.
9/27/11
I first completed the main gear area. As you can see above, the mounts were moved as close to the motor intakes as I could get them. This will allow for mounting of the gears and for clearance between the wheels.
The belly pan was next up and it needed some thinking as it will be removed for any service done to the plane. The center of the main gear door area is the weak spot and I was concerned that the pan will not be strong enough to be removed and handled. After a lot of thought and experimentation, I decided to add strength to the pan and keep it in one piece if we can. It also needs structure the full length of the pan.
Below you see the first step to add 1/4 x 1/2 spruce stringers to the center and the edges of the pan. I use a 3M epoxy that works very well with fiberglass and wood. This is not a good place to use regular epoxy as it will not hold well.
Once it was set up, I added formers ahead and behind the gear door area. This will add sitffness to the area and allow me to attach the main gear doors and mount the servos needed to open and close the doors.
I added gussets to the frame as that will be how we will hold the rear belly pan down to the fuse.
Next the pan was test fitted to the fuse and it fits well. There will be some trimming to do and we will add the gear doors to the rear later. More structure will be needed in the front section of the pan later on.
9/28/11
The session began with the belly pan. In the shot above you can see the structure is blocking the path of the main gear. These problems were resolved and the pan fit properly. The front of the pan will be pinned to the fuse so blocks were added to support the pin.
The wings will be held to the fuse with studs and the locations are now understood so that they fit with the other equipment that will be in the plane. The locations were marked and the holes drilled for the studs. The studs were screwed into the wing root and epoxy was used to be sure they were secure.
The inside of the fuse has a track and that provided a place for some lite ply structure to reinforce the sides of the equipment bay where the wing nuts were located. The plates were glued in position and the wing assembled. the incidence was then confirmed to be 0 degrees to the datum line.
The wing tubes were then fitted with internal blocks and glued in place. This will make the plane easier to deal with and more secure in the air.
The mounts for the belly pan were made and glued in place in the required locations. All the epoxy was then allowed to dry before the next step.
I put the peg in the front of thebelly pan and added the four bolts to hold the landing gear section in place. I bolted it all up and checked the pan for stability
I found the rear part of the pan was stable and fine but the front part is sitll not where it ought to be.
End Phase two of the build
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9/30/11
The landing gears will be sent out to be converted to electric operation so it is important to have the mounts done. The main gears are all set so I mounted the nose gear to the former that will be positioned aft of the nose joint. Since the nose section will not be removable, I will set structure around the joint.
Note : the nose gear is slightly longer from the datum line than the main gears. This will have the plane sitting nose high by 1/2 inch. I indexed the gears to the datum line and adjusted the position of the nose gear mount to agree with the measurements. The frame of the nose gear was mounted 1 5/8" from the bottom of the former ( in flight orientation).
The mounts were done with blind nuts and bolts to be sure the connection is secure.
As you see above, the former was installed and the gear aligned square to the transverse datum line and with a 2 degree slope to the rear of the plane in flight position. This ensures the gear will work properly.
Next was the belly pan completion. The rear section of the belly pan will be removable but there will be very few occasions that will call for it to be taken off of the plane. This plane will remain assembled for a long time as it will be parked between flights. I sectioned the belly pan ahead of the main gear doors and the former I put in earlier. This will allow the front part of the pan to be easily removed for service and battery changes without disturbing the rear section with the gear doors and servo wires.
I glued a former into the front belly pan to begin to stiffen it up.
Once the glue was dry I made and glued in a second former and let the glue dry. This is outstanding glue for the fiberglass to wood joints and the only drawback is that the drying time is 3 hours.
I had discussions with the Boca bearing people regarding the diameter of the wheel shafts. The holes in the wheels are substantially larger than the shafts. Boca and Gotz Vogelsang at Team Aeroscale are working to help solve this problem by putting bearings in the wheel centers that will take up the space and make the wheels run with nearly zero friction. This is a nice solution to the engineering problem with the wheels
We have a plan with the people from Down and Locked to convert the landing gears from air to electric operation. I will show the operation of the system later on and you will be impressed with what they can do with landing gear systems including operation of all of the doors.
10/1 and 2
The issues of supply are slowing the build and so I continued to finish up some of the open issues on the plane. The belly pan fwd section had some additinal structure added to it and now it only needs to be mounted to the airframe in a way that will make it simple to remove for service
The nose section needed to be automated si I began that process by putting a control horn on the nose assembly. The issue with the nose droop is the long term servicability of the servo that must drive the nose section. I decided to use a long steel and c/f rod to allow the servo to be placed back far enough to be accessed from the nose gear wheel well. This should work fine and the rod was made long enough to reace and rails were epoxied in place for use later.
10/3
The servo for the nose droop was located and installed in the nose section as planned. The droop works fine and the whole system is servicable from the nose gear wheel well.
Next the mount for the nose wheel steering was made and mounted in the nose section below the landing gear. This will allow the gear to be retracted and when it is deployed, the pull - pull system will tighten up and the nose wheel will work just fine. Below you see photos of the gear in the up and down position.
wheel to one side
wheel to the other
Wheel retracted with the linkage loose
The belly pan continues to improve
10/4
The landing gears were removed and boxed up to be sent to Down and Locked to be converted to electric operation
The belly pan mounts were completed and it is securely mounted to the airframe. It will be easy to remove as it is held in place with a pin and 2 bolts.
Next I began cutting the hatches for the 7 surfaces that will be driven by servos. The two flap hatches were cut and one extra for running service wires to the main equipment area.
1//6/11
After communication with Team Aeroscale, we better understand the hinging system for the plane and so the rudder will be the first surface hinged. I began with a hatch in the rudder opposite one of the farings that will conceal the linkage.
next I cut a board that would support the servo and aligned it to fit in the faring with linkage. I then made a board at 90 degrees to the servo board and used hysol to glue them both in position. This will make a strong base for the powerful servo.
The rudder was then cut and drilled for the hinges and the control horn was embedded in the rudder with hysol to hold it in place. The position of the control horn is key so that it lines up with the linkage and runs smoothly.
10/7 and 8
I continued with the rudder system by lining the sides of the hatch hole with bass wood.
The hard wood was used to mount inserts for the 6-32 button head screws that hold the hatch in place. The hatch was then test mounted in position. Once it is finished and painted the hatch will be hard to find on the surface of the plane.
Since I did not have the rest of the hardware I needed, I moved on the the under side of the wings.
Each wing got three hatches and each hatch got mounting boards similar to the ones used in the rudder area. Everything was constructed and prepared for glue.
The servo mounting boards were made to fit between the formers at each end of the compartment. When glued in place, this will give a secure mount for the powerful servos that will drive the elevons.
Since I could not complete the hatches and hinge the surfaces without the additional hardware, I moved on the begin structural improvement of the doors. I started with the main landing gear doors and added structure to them. This is needed so that as the doors are opened or closed in the wind of flight speed they do not flex or shake.
10/10/11
The session began with the completion of the 6 hatches and mounting system. The hatches are all bolted down and all the servo boards are built and ready to be glued in position.
Next I assembled the light system and tested it for operation with the receiver. There were no directions with the system so it took time to get it in full operation. Once the entire system was working on the bench. I set it aside for installation once we know all the proper light locations on the plane.
10/12
The servos for the 7 surfaces continue to be a focus of the work. I made wiring harness for the left and right side. I left a plug at the servos in case they need to be replaced and then the three wires were run to a central point and then run through the wing and into the fuse. There is a plug in the fuse to wing joint so that the wings can be removed.
Below you can see the three servos in the hatches with the wires run to them. The servo arms are on them and there are push rods facing aft to the surfaces. It is hard to know how much throw is needed on the servo before the surfaces are hooked up so I decided to hinge up the center bay to test it out for operation. I set the hinges and the control horn was glued in place and allowed to dry.
The other side of the plane was then brought up to the same level while the Hysol glue dried. This is the best glue for this application, but it takes 4 to 6 hours to cure and that will require one to work on several things at once.
Once the other side was set up I positioned the surface and hooked up the servos to the receiver with power. The elevon came to life and I used the Travel Adjust settings to produce the elevator and aileron throws that were sent to me from the maker in Germany. The operation of the elevon is different from the normal surfaces in that the throw on the aileron and on the elevators can be added together if you order full up elevator and full aileron. This means the throw on the surface has the potential to be extreme and the linkage as well as the hinges have to be cleared to take the additive throws. Below you see the surface centered and adjusted as noted above.
I then ordered full up elevator and full aileron at the same time (stick in the corner) and the shot below shows the result.
Below you see the full down elevator plus full aileron plus full down flaps. This gives a 3D style throw on the surfaces. Many people do not realize the way the elevon system works and they end up damaging the linkage or even disabling the surface due to over-travel.
With this one surface in operation, I could then understand how to construct the other surfaces to make the movement work properly.
10/13 and 14
Work continued on the surfaces while I wait for the parts I need to continue. The other two surfaces on the left side of the plane were hinged without glue and the arms and links were all assembled for all 6 servos.
Next I began to hinge the gear doors. I started with the large main gear doors and after consideration I decided that the forces on the door will be considerable in flight and the hinge needed to be a continuous brass hinge. I mounted the hinge to the door and the belly pan with small screws to test the operation of the door.
Once the doors were tested, I secured the parts with glue.
10 /16 - 18
Parts arrived so I returned to the flying surfaces and began the process of mounting down the servo boards. I lined up the servo board and the linkage with the control horn on the surface and then set the board with CA glue. Once I was sure things were correct, the joints were double glued with hysol. This secured the servo to the wing structure as this 680 oz inch servo will tear itself out of the plane if you do not take care with the structure.
The servo hatch was then set in place with a cut out for the servo arm. I got 5 of the 6 wing servos mounted and the hatches on. The linkage was adjusted in rough terms as the hinges were not secured to the plane or the surfaces.
Next I glued the hinges into the surfaces for all 6 and allowed the glue to dry. I then inspected the joints to be sure they were secure and could stand the flight load they will be seeing in the air. The trailing edge of the wing was soft balsa that would surely fail in the air so I lined the balsa with 1/4 ply and drilled the holes for the hinges.
The surfaces were then tested by plugging up to the receiver and checking the movement of the surfaces for directions and the degree of throw.
Next I returned to the topic of the landing gears. The retracts came with wheels, axles, and brake drums. The problem is that the shaft is not the same size as the wheel bearings or the hole in the brake drums. In addition, the system will not work unless each wheel is blocked into position and the brake drums must be located within .001" of the wheel face. None of these things were allowed for in the landing gears as sent to us. I contacted Down and Locked, the source for converting the landing gears from air power to electric, and discussed the problem with Mitch. After agreeing that the gears will not work at all as they are today, he accepted the job of machining 75 parts that will be required to make the gears work properly. I sent the wheels and brakes to him so that he can make the assembly.
The Concorde has farrings over the linkage and those were next to be added to the wings. The hatch is shown below with the farring for the wing section attached to the hatch cover.
When the hatch cover is bolted to the plane, the farring is in position and will withstand the forces of flight speed. Once the assembly is primed and painted, it will look very nice. Two of these farings were put in place before I ran out of glue.
The gear doors were next on the list and I started with the largest doors in the rear belly pan. The hinges were in place so I began to decide how to actuate the doors and design the linkage that will make the doors open properly. I am waiting for the servos to complete the install
10/19/11
After some conversation, it was decided that we will hing on all the surfaces prior to paint. The surface improvment and paint can happen around the hinged surfaces. This will allow me to finish the control system for the entire plane prior to paint.
I began with the inboard most surfaces ( would be flaps in an normal plane) and lined them both up and glued the hinges in place. Once the glue was dry I did the center surfaces in the same way and they were tested and aligned to match each other.
The tip surfaces are much more complicated because of the droop of the wing. I worked out the issues with the hinging and glued them in place as well.
The final wiring was run to the elevons and tested. Every plug was heat shrunk to be sure they will not work loose with time.
10/20/11
This session saw the completion of all the flying surfaces. All hinges are on along with the hatches and farrings on the wings and the rudder. All the wiring is run and all the surfaces are working and adjusted to the throws suggested from the maker of the plane.
The radio gear was then centralized and decisions made on the location of the gear to make the plane easy to service. I began construction of the mounts for the batteries and the other equipment needed to operate the plane. There will be a landing gear controller and a possibility of some gyro equipment.
Since there needs to be a place for switches and services on the outside of the plane, I decided to use the passenger door and began the equipment installation by cutting out the door. This is a slow process since the cut must be neat in order to look right when the door is hinged back on the plane.
The structure must be designed to stiffen the area of the door and to give a place for the switch, the air fill for the brakes and some battery checking plugs. I began the design of the structure for the inside of the main compartment.
10/21/11
The center section of the fuse became unstable when the door was cut out so there is a need for structure. I began by making 2 formers to fit on the sides of the door opening and tied the main batteries to the formers. The panel that will hold the switches and plugs in front of the door was bolted to the formers so that it can be removed for service. This unit is the start of the mounting for all the equipment in the plane.
The air canister was added to the structure as we will need air for the main gear brakes. Once this was done, the formers were painted.
The board to hold the services to the door was then constructed. It will hold the main switch, the air input, the air gage, and plugs to check the main batteries. The items were mounted through the board and then the board was painted prior to assembly
In order to make the hinging of the door easier, it needed to be done before the structure was put in place. I taped the door to the proper position to be sure it would line up after the hinges were glued on.
I then glued the hinges in place and used hysol to be sure it would hold. The hinges were on the upwind side of the door to ensure it would not fly open in flight
I tested the door after 6 hours of dry time on the hysol and realized the curve of the door and the spacing of the hinges meant the door would not open properly. I removed the hinges from the door while the glue could still be worked. I reset the hinges on the bottom line of the door as it is a straight line and the hinges will work there. The door will open down and, while this is not as good as the first option, it will work and that ruled the situation. The hysol was left to dry overnight along with the paint on the structure.
10/24/11
The hinges were checked and the door operation works well in the vertical format. Rare earth magnets were set in place to hold the door closed and to open it for service.
The internal structure was finished and the shot below shows the equipment board that was mounted in front of the door opening. The structure was set in place with hysol glue and allowed to set up overnight.
The board holds the main on off switch for the receiver, plugs to check the two main batteries, air fill and air pressure gage. It is constructed so that the board can be removed if need be.
next the air canister was added in a ring on the former and with a short former glued to the top of the fuse. This will hold the air canister and will allow it to be under the equipment board.
Below is a shot of the equipment behind the door and you get an idea of the easy of operation the equipment will afford the user of the plane.
In the closed position, the door looks good
10/25/11
The main batteries were installed ont he structure and connections made to the system.
The equipment board was made and bolted to the inside of the equipment space. The receiver was mounted down on the edge of the board so that the battery leads and switch could be attached. The light controller was mounted down and hooked up to the receiver. The air lines to the brake controller were run and the leads to the elevons were put in place. The rest of the work on the board will have to wait for more equipment to arrive at the shop.
The landing gear system will have a controller that will go on the board and there is room for the two ESCs to be mounted as well. I do know anything about the size of those units prior to their arrival.
11/1/11
The main landing gear will have two main doors in the belly pan. After a lot of time in prototype, the doors are working on the plane and they are ready to be hooked up to the controller. Below you see a shot of them open.
The nose gear will have 4 doors -- the two front doors will open while the gear is moving down and then will close when the gear is down and locked. I began prototyping the doors by setting one door to see if the hinging system would work to my satisfaction. Next was a frame for the servo that operates the door and I glued the frame into the nose understanding that it might come back out depending on the way the gear door works. The door operated on one servo very well and the next session will include the second servo and some further testing.
11/2/11
The forward gear door on the right had one servo hooked up and with the speeds the door will see, I added a second servo. I also added some structure in the nose to support both flight loads and the servos that will be in the nose. There will be a total of 6 servos ahead of the nose former and that will necessitate the addition of the structure to hold everything together.
I began with the testing of the second servo and the addition of the linkage to make it work.
11/26 - 30/11
The landing gear system arrived from Down and Locked where the conversion to electric was made. I inspected the gear and began the install process by testing the nose gear and then mounting it in the plane.
The mains were tested and then mounted onto the mounts in the wings. All three of the wire leads were extended so that they could reach the equipment board without any plugs.
After the gears were all bolted in place, I followed the directions from Down and Locked as to powering up the gears for the first time. The three gears worked well and cycled just fine.
Next I plugged in the programmer to the gear system board and set the limits of the main gear hatch doors. They were tested with the gear and final adjustments were made.
The nose doors were then addressed. The first set of doors open to allow the gear to move and then close for flight much like the main doors. After installing the doors they were adjusted to close properly and the two servos on each door were bolted to a frame that was glued in place.
The doors were adjusted and were sequenced with the gears. After tuning the gears everyting worked just fine. Due to the size of the gear, they put a larger motor in the case to drive the huge gears. These motors take 7.2 volt to 9 volts and the main batteries could not make that much power. I put in a larger battery and one switch in the panel behind the working door. This will satisify the need to power up the landing gear system seperately from the main equipment system.
12/6/11 ----------GYRO DAY IN THE SHOP
Parts arrived for the plane so work could commence. The first item was the horizontal stability of the plane when in landing mode. I have observed a lot of wing walking as the planes are in landing configuration and this could be a serious problem for the pilot.
In order to address this I received gyros to attempt to put in the roll mode. I built a mockup of the system as seen below. It was a box that had elevons on the back and the receiver and battery mounted so that the box could be moved to observe what the gyro would do. I first set up with the gyro on a normal aileron circuit to confirm the gyros worked as I thought and that the gain was adjustable. As I rotated the box the ailerons moved to correct the rolling action. I could lift the nose up and down like the elevator or rotate like the rudder and the gyro did not react at all.
The gyro worked fine and so I hooked up the elevons from the Concorde program in my JR 11x. With elevons, The system did not react with the aileron movement of the elevons. One side worked but the other was not moving.
After a lot of thought I discovered that one gyro on the left elevon and one on the right did the trick just fine.
This is the JR Airplane gyro and it is an nice working thing. I mounted two gyros in the vertical plane and they were easy to adjust and reverse so that the system worked well. Once I got it adjusted I could roll the box and the elevons would correct the movement. The gyros have gain control that I plugged into another channel on the transmitter so the gain can be adjusted in the air.
While this complicated the transmitter, I believe it will be needed once the owner begins to fly the plane a lot and encounters some adverse conditions. These gyros should keep the wings flat while the landing is accomplished.
I made a board to mount these gyros on and painted it in preparation for mounting it in the belly of the plane. Mounting is key because if one came loose and began flopping around in the plane, the results would be very exciting for the pilot.
12/7/11
The gyro equipment board was completed and tested to be sure the gyros will not move around. They were installed with the sticky two sided tape that came with the units, and then velcro to be sure they were in position
The board was installed in the plane and the wiring completed. The plane was then tested to be sure the elevons worked as expected. Everything took time to get working but at last the elevons worked like I wanted.
There is a lingering problem with the program in the 11x that is causing the flaps to take up 2 channels that are not hooked to anything. The flap action is done by the elevons and the flap plug positions are not used on the receiver. I am working on the problem as I need one more channel for the gain controls to the gyros.
12/13/11
The plane was put on its feet for the first time. I checked that the wings were flat to the floor and they were. This indicates the mounts were done correctly.
I also checked to see if the center line fo the fuse was flat to the floor from front to back. I designed a plus angle of attack of one degree and that is what it measured on the floor. The full scale plane had a 2 degree nose high position on the ground and I decided to use one degree to minimize the tendency of the plane to skip on the runway as it lands.
