Building My First Plane

It was a rushed decision I made to build my first plane. I just completed my first non buddy-boxed flight, and felt ready to have a plane to join my friends in the sky. So after browsing the internet for plans I stumbled upon the 'FT Bloody Wonder' by Flite Test. I chose the plane due to the simplicity, but little did I know it was a stunt plane. We drove out, picked up a $20 brushless motor, dug up some spare 8" props, servos, and an ESC, then began the build

My friend, Brent, was also building a plane at the time, although he drew up his own plans from scratch. You can see here the wing (the elongated Hexagon in the mid-right) before the spar was in place, and before it was folded over to give it a cambered airfoil. Somehow we were able to complete the builds in less than 24 hours. While it was fun, but I will never attempt to build a plane in one sitting again.

Regrettably, I didn't take too many pictures of it, as I was in such a hurry to complete the plane. Notice how far back the motor was, this was an error on my behalf. I set the fuselage way too far back, forgetting about the weight of the battery. This put the center of gravity (CG) at the trailing edge of the wing, instead of 1/4th the distance from the leading edge (the quarter chord).

Here are a few shots of the plane as it is today sitting in the bone-yard my closet. I stripped out the components for another plane (the P-733), and you can see the many signs of crashes. Upon the first launch (with the engine slid flush to the wings), the plane was thrown, It went forward a few feet, pitched straight up, and continued to loop around until it nose dived into the grass. minimal damage was taken, luckily. So we slid the inner components pod forward, and while it did help move the CG forward, it was not enough. The next flight allowed me to sustain a 15 second flight before I lost control. It crashed again, with a little more grace than before, but broke the prop. That was the last flight of the day and the last flight of the plane. I decided the design was not for me, it was too fast for my taste and too agile.

    What I was able to pull from this (Besides the parts from the wreckage) was experience. With this new found knowledge, I set off to build my next plane, the P-733. Only this time, I built it over the course of a week.

How I got roped into RC flying

     I should start of by saying I have always loved airplanes, rockets, and all things that fly since a child. In fact, my favorite memories from my childhood consisted of launching model Estes rockets in the park with my family and friends. But unfortunately as time moved on, I started to loose interest as more and more of that time was put into school, homework, and extra curricular. The magic wore off as I grew up.

     Fast forward to the start of my junior year at Virginia Tech. I was officially accepted by the department of aerospace and oceanic engineering (AOE), and I just completed my first introductory aerospace classes. At the same time, a friend and mentor of mine really picked up remote controlled flying over the summer. Wanting to share the joy of flying (and recruit friends to fly with), he built a R/C glider made out of foam board in all of an afternoon. Meanwhile, I was in my apartment next-door, when he bursts in asking for someone to help him test something. I knew he was working on a project that evening, but I was surprised when I saw a fully functioning glider sitting on his floor. Complete with ailerons and elevator, It was a fully functioning aircraft. We spent hours that night throwing this thing off the 3rd story balcony into the parking-lot below. Everything I learned in those aerospace classes was right there in front of me and at my control. The center of gravity placement, wing aspect ratio, the loss of control in a stall, it was a hands on experience that really opened my mind and solidified my understanding of aircraft design. I was immediately hooked, it was the spark that I needed to keep the inspiration going.

     A week later he had me on a "buddy box" training system. after two more weekends of trainer flights, I was flying solo. It wasn't fair that I constantly barrow, my friends' equipment, so I was somehow convinced to start building my own plane. I had no idea how much I would learn over these projects.

I would like to thank my friends Brent and Todd for their help, time, and patience during this endeavor.

Here's the glider after many flights and iterations of improvement. We wanted to further increase the glide range, so we simply attached the spare wings we made. Larger ailerons and elevator were also implemented for greater roll/pitch authority and wing area.