I am a fairly new indoor flier and have designed and built a pennyplane from the "best" information I could assemble. Pictures posted in folder " Richards Pennyplane". It weighs 3.2 grams (with prop), and all other details are basic per AMA rules. I am using a balsa sheet, 15" dia., 25" pitch propeller. (It weighs 1.2 grams.) - and 3/32 in. "A to Z" (Peck Polymers) Supersport rubber from my hobby-shop. Rubber lube is STP "Son of a Gun", and seems to work very nicely.
The wing is simplex 4%, and the stab is circular 3%. Thrust is zero-zero, stab is at zero, and the wing, 4.4 deg.
I set up the plane using the "ten step adjustment process", and it flys "right on the verge" of a stall. It reliably recovers from a rafter beam "hit". The flight balance location is 88% wing chord.(With prop and rubber.)
It flies in approx. 14 foot circle and the climb is just beautiful to see, flying very slowly at about 15 degrees attack angle. With the climb loading the prop, it turns quite slowly, ...estimate 1.2 to 1.5 rev. per second.
Right now I am using a 1/2 length motor with weighted spacer, and winding to 0.5 ounce-inch torque, I am getting lovely flights in a 25 foot ceiling - 2 1/2 to 3 minutes. But I would believe the cruise period is very short. The motor has roughly 1/2 length of "knots" at landing. If I put in more turns the climb is too high, and with a longer motor, the flight is longer, but of variable heights, with the causes unknown to me.
I would very much like to achieve a longer cruise time and and with slower descent. Is there anyone with experience to suggest the next logical step to me to take?
Received on Thu Apr 19 2012 - 15:31:57 CEST
This archive was generated by Yannick on Sat Dec 14 2019 - 19:13:47 CET