Boomer

[technoid]

I started playing around with an idea so I thought I'd start a build thread and see if anyone was interested. What I plan to do is take a trainer I modeled about 3 years ago and covert it to a STOL with extra large tires and large control surfaces. Here's a picture of what I'm starting with. If you look close at the ailerons and flaps you'll see the flaps aren't the same as the ailerons, they're flat against the wing and are hinged from the bottom. So the one thing I've done so far is rework the flaps so they're the same as the ailerons and hinged from the middle. The plane will have a switch setting for full width ailerons or ailerons and flaps. And I might add crow if someone wants it.

There's plenty of room for the new horizontal four I created so I plan to cut-out more openings in the front so you can see it. And of course the wheel pants will go and I'll put the tires from the Fly Baby on it and resize them so it has extra-large tires. I'll be increasing the chord of the ailerons 33 to 40 percent and reworking the hstab and vstab so the control surfaces are much larger. So it will go through a fair number of changes before I'm finished. And the width of the landing gear will get larger too to give them a beefier look.

 

[technoid]

I made the ailerons and flaps 33% wider so take a look and let me know if they're a little too wide.

Here's a before and after. Should I make them 25% wider instead of 33%?

 

[Bill Stuntz]

I think they look fine. Would it make sense to increase rudder & elevator area, too? I don't know much about them, but what about leading edge slats?

 

[technoid]

I think they look fine. Would it make sense to increase rudder & elevator area, too? I don't know much about them, but what about leading edge slats?

I talked about making the hstab and vstab control surfaces larger in my first post. I'm just starting so the ailerons were first. I'm thinking about making the ailerons 25% to see what they look like. I saved a copy of the plane when I had everything setup to resize them so it would be easy to try it. They don't look that bad but for some reason they look a little too large for the rest of the wing. I'll post pictures so you can see all three sizes.

 

[technoid]

Okay here's three pictures, original, 25% larger, and 33% larger.

 

[Bill Stuntz]

I talked about making the hstab and vstab control surfaces larger in my first post.

Sorry, I guess I must have read right over that. My gut says 33% will be better for STOL. This may be a stupid idea, but if you're going to do full span ailerons, could they also act as full span flaps when full span mode is selected? Again, my gut says the extra flap area might be good for STOL.

 

[technoid]

Sorry, I guess I must have read right over that. My gut says 33% will be better for STOL. This may be a stupid idea, but if you're going to do full span ailerons, could they also act as full span flaps when full span mode is selected? Again, my gut says the extra flap area might be good for STOL.

I'm starting to think the same thing. At first the 33% larger ailerons and flaps seemed to look a little too wide but after looking at them at 25% and 33% the 33% looks pretty good. And like you said for STOL the extra width would probably be better. So I'll stick with 33%. I'll keep the full width flaperon thing in mind.

I played around with the physics for the trainer tonight adding the full with aileron switch. It made alot of difference. At first it wouldn't really hover but after I added the full width aileron switch it hovered fine. I also added some width to the ailerons in the physics and that helped a lot too.

 

[rcdoski]

Very much Looking forward to this one. I think this one is going to be a lot of fun. Can't wait.

 

[technoid]

Very much Looking forward to this one. I think this one is going to be a lot of fun. Can't wait.

Thanks I thought you might like it. I thought about doing the Carbon Cub but I didn't want to start a whole new plane so I thought I'd modify something I already did.

 

[rcdoski]

No, I'm glad you are doing an original. That makes it even better!!! It in a way it kinda reminds me of a KITFOX but different enough to make it yours.

 

[technoid]

I'm wondering if this should be an electric version instead of the horizontal four. Everything is EP now days. I really don't want to do two versions, so what do you think?

 

[rcdoski]

That's up to you. But most of your last planes have been non electric. I could go either way. It's a flip of the coin.

 

[technoid]

That's up to you. But most of your last planes have been non electric. I could go either way. It's a flip of the coin.

Yeah that's why I'm thinking about going EP on this one. Time to flip sides maybe. We'll see after I think about it more and get a little further along.

 

[technoid]

I increased the size of the rudder and elevator. The rudder is 2 inches wider the elevator is 2.2 inches wider.

 

[technoid]

I imported the plane this morning to add the control surfaces changes to the physics and there's definitely more control. It's not a 3D plane but there's more control than before. But I have a problem. When I converted it from an older version I lost all the smoothing groups so there's a lot of work to reset all of them.

 

[technoid]

I finally got the smoothing groups applied again but I need to go back and tweak a few of them. I used the auto-smoothing feature to smooth each of the objects and it doesn't always get them right, or at least what looks the best. But they're mostly fine just a few places need tweaking. I need to take the wife to Dallas for her specialist appointment so I'll be gone most of the day. At this point I'm not certain I want to release this plane it might end up being a beta released on the forum instead of a full release.

 

[rcdoski]

Either way I'm looking forward to it. I'm curious to see what it would look like with the big STOL tundra tires on it if that's what you have in mind. And again have a safe trip.

 

[technoid]

Either way I'm looking forward to it. I'm curious to see what it would look like with the big STOL tundra tires on it if that's what you have in mind. And again have a safe trip.

We just got back from the doctor's appointment. After I go back and tweak the smoothing groups I plan to work on the tires. I'm curious if they'll look okay on it, so help me out with your thoughts when I post a picture. I can go back to the normal tires and wheel pants if they look better.

 

[rcdoski]

I would be glad to help you out and I'm sure with you working on it it will turn out great. Don't know how much this helps right now but here is a shot of the KITFOX and yours. Yours is similar but I think it will look very good with a similar setup like on the KITFOX.

 

[technoid]

Thanks, that's a good picture I'll save it.

I just finished modifying the Fly Baby tires, they had tread on them so I removed it. Here's a picture of what I have so far. Once I put them on the plane I'll resize them. The wheel on them is a larger diameter than the tires on the Kitfox but I'll see what they look like. I don't have a side view but except for the tread being removed (to make them smooth) they're the same as the ones on the Fly Baby.