Things of Beauty

 At last night's meeting of the Concord Model Engineers, Ding presented a model he was working on, and gave some pointers about how to cut spars and assemble wings.  He cuts a template from aluminum with snips and files it to shape, and then cuts around the template.

 He brought this model he was working on, building from scratch without plans.  It was so nice looking I took a couple of snaps with my phone cam.  I was so struck by not just the impeccable craftsmanship, but the beauty of the frames.

 The final model will be in a contest where the minimum weight is 40 grams.  Ding is shooting for 35 grams, so that there will be some leeway for repairs.

There's some pretty impressive modellers in the CME, many with decades of experience.  Ding gets a lot of respect from these guys, as you can imagine.

Enjoy!

F1D - How One Gets Built

F1D - How One Gets Built! By Jim Longstreth, edited by Andrew Tagliafico:

Do you love incredibly beautiful planes, have Faberge-egg level building skills, and are clinically insane?  F1D might be for you!  Check out the amazing shots of building 1 gram planes.

"For those not familiar with this type of indoor endurance model let me give a brief description here. The term 'F1d' refers to the FAI rule category. I don't have the rule book in front of me, but basically the models weigh in at minimum of 1 gram and a maximum of 2 grams. The wingspans are 65cm, or 25-1/2', long and a chord of 8' to 10'. The propellors are 20' to 24' inches in diameter. The flying surfaces and the propellor are covered with 'microfilm', which will be described later. The motor stick is a hollow tube of rolled balsa, and the model is braced with a superfine tungsten wire or kevlar fiber. Some competitors have developed spring mechanisms operated by the torque of the rubber band motors to effect variable pitch propellors!


World Championships are held every 2 years. Flights approaching 50 minutes are required to be competitive. The Kibbie Dome at the University of Idaho, in Moscow, Idaho, is one of the favored US flying sites and is pictured below. The balloons dotting the photo are used to steer the models at altitude in the event they are drifting into hazard. There are several models aloft in this picture, but due to their transparent covering and almost non-existent structure they are nearly invisible.?

A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever

We'll be documenting the Arcticopter build, and here are Josh's first couple of shots.   We'll figure out how to script the build a bit more, and probably make it into it's own page.  But these shots were so nice I thought I'd upload them right away.  Who know wires and connectors were so beautiful?

 The motors came with connectors and shrink wrap.  These are 3.5mm bullet connectors.  The male connectors go on the motor; the female connnectors, on the ESC.  Oddly, the shrink wrap supplied was also 3.5mm, so it was really hard to fit them over the connectors; I gave up and dug out some 4.5mm.

Tinning the wires.  It's important to make sure the solder is sucked into the wire.  Then when you solder the wire to something, you'll be sure that there's a strong physical and electrical connection between the two pieces.

Soldering the bullet connectors is pretty easy.  Put the tip of your soldering iron into the little side hole, and melt the solder so that the cup fills up.  Strip your wire so that the stripped portion is just longer than the depth of the cup.

Put your tinned wire into the cup.  Center the wire and keep it upright.  Don't hold it too close, since the wire absorbs the heat of the solder very efficiently.  It only takes a few seconds for the solder to set up.  Be sure that you have put the shrink tubes on the wire first.  Don't worry if you forget... just desolder and try it again.  Bonus practice!

Repeat for each of the solder cups.

That's a fine looking solder attachment!

Slide the heat shrinks over the connectors.  Cover the females almost totally... leave just a tiny gap so that the connectors can be slid together all the way.

Use a heat gun to shrink the shrink wrap.  Keep it moving, and expose both sides.

Notice how many strands the motor wire has.  Be careful when stripping, not to cut off any of the strands.  Twist it nice and tight so it doesn't smoosh out like a mop head.

Here are the male bullet connectors.  The shrink wrap on the right-most wire could be placed a bit higher to cover the connector all the way up to the flange.  I tested the fit, and it was fine so I didn't bother to redo it since we've trying to get the electronics ready for when the frame and kkboard arrive.