The Thunderbird is starting to take shape, my rocket motors should be here any day now, my motor mount tube is almost cured enough to take off of the mandrel and the fuselage is almost built!
I rather like the tab together design. It makes building a lot easier, but cutting all of the little tabs by hand is a real pain in the butt.
Showing the rear detail- where I've sanded the bottom of the fuselage to accept the motor tube
Top Right- 3/4 completed fuselage
Middle- Sanded 3 piece wing, joined into one, with a carbon spar impregnated into the bottom skin
Bottom Left- top fuselage skin ready to go on
I made a small mistake when printing- I had the part right, but then for some unforeseen reason i decided to remove the 6mm lip on the top and bottom fuselage panels. I ended up having to attach some 1/4" square balsa wood to the corners of said pieces, all in all I actually think it will work better, being that I would like to fillet the corners and the wood will be harder than the foam, thus staying in better shape for a longer period of time (not that this plane should last long anyways)
Thursday is approaching quickly!
More progress to report later- when I get some more time to work on it :P
Project list for AEF (not necessarily in order of importance)
1. Launch Dolly for Me163 70mm Ducted fan jet, remotely detachable with steering and brakes.
2. Launch mechanism to mount to a Funcub that will release two Hacker Skyfighters, converted to RC gliders.
3. Launch mechanism for a 1ft long glider model of a Space shuttle, also mounted to Funcub, possibly could use same mounting hard points as aforementioned launcher.
4. Hacker models SkyCarver, I have one built, but I would like to build a new one with all of the tips and tricks i have learned from the first.
5. Can't forget finishing the ThunderBird
6. Build side force generator for 2.6m wingspan extra 260 (electric(A150 powered))
oh right, side force generators...
New SFG, picture does not do it justice. In reality the SFG is about half the area of the old one. (red)
Old SFG (red)
This airplane is an ExtremeFlight Extra 300EXP (48"), I really like the airplane, but the stock side force generators are just too big. I've decided to remedy the problem by making my own, as seen above. The ones I have created (now covered in red) are 8 grams lighter per side, 8 grams may not seem like much, but every little bit counts with these small planes...I've also reduced the area to about half, which should increase the roll rate without taking a big hit in side area.
stay tuned, Next up....Rock-It plane wing mounting!
