Indoor kits or plans?

[peabody]

My neighbor is interested (actually, so am I) in plans or a kit for an indoor electric stunt plane. I Googled and came up with Jr. Ringmasters and such.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks

[PerttiMe]

Igor Burger's foamy indoor GeeBee has been mentioned here many times.

Here's Igor's thread on it: https://stunthanger.com/smf/gettin-all-amp'ed-up!/early-christmas-)))))/
and another one with plans attached at the bottom of the first post: https://stunthanger.com/smf/gettin-all-amp%27ed-up!/igor-burger%27s-geebee-r3-cl-a-build-log/

I suppose you could convert an RC flat foamy.

[Paul Wescott]

Check with Larry Renger.  He might have something for you.

Also, here’s a video of an electric Baby Pathfinder doing the pattern indoors, LOL.  Yes if you have a blimp hangar handy you can fly almost anything indoors…




PW

[Paul Wescott]

Larry has indeed built a few.

I imagine almost any 1/2A sheet-wing design could be converted to foam-board with electric power.  Even scaled up or down some.

Here is a .049 equivalent system Larry described to our club:
Motor: Hacker A20-34
Prop: 6x5.5apc
Battery: 850mah 3S
42' lines
12,500rpm

This is what Eric Rule listed as equivalent to a .061 glow system:
Motor: Hacker A20-26M
Prop: 7x5
Battery: 1300mah 3s

I don’t have the specs on the foamy in the photo.

PW

[Dennis Toth]

Rich,
Seems that you could scale down some of the1/2A ships just keep the total weight to around 9oz or less using either foam or creative balsa construction. Build it as a Flat Winger from 1/8" with spruce main spare and watch the battery weight. Since these are indoor ships I would add a bit more engine offset maybe 3-4 degrees to hold it out, try and have the motor thrust line go through the vertical CG so the offset only produces a yaw moment. I would use the pusher prop to keep things tight on the outside maneuvers. Fly it like a dead calm day and step back to avoid hitting the wake.

Where in Florida could we fly them indoors for say 45 - 55' lines?

Best,     DennisT

[Mike Griffin]

Looks like fun.

[De Hill]

Mark Wood and the Wichihawks clubmembers have been flying indoors with electric stunt planes. See his
thread on Feb 27.

[Paul Taylor]

Rich,
Seems that you could scale down some of the1/2A ships just keep the total weight to around 9oz or less using either foam or creative balsa construction. Build it as a Flat Winger from 1/8" with spruce main spare and watch the battery weight. Since these are indoor ships I would add a bit more engine offset maybe 3-4 degrees to hold it out, try and have the motor thrust line go through the vertical CG so the offset only produces a yaw moment. I would use the pusher prop to keep things tight on the outside maneuvers. Fly it like a dead calm day and step back to avoid hitting the wake.

Where in Florida could we fly them indoors for say 45 - 55' lines?

Best,     DennisT

I will be looking for a indoor foamy too. One club member said we have access to a gym close to Odessa Fl.

[Mark wood]

I have two kits I am producing for our local club. The first is Igor's GeeBee with his permission and the other is a Travel Air Mystery Ship. I don't know what a good price would be but likely around $50. This includes the hardware necessary for assembly. I don't have instructions because we build them in a group setting. But if there is real interest, I will create some. They are a great fun to fly.






I am also in the early stages of making a Laird Super Solution as well. Being from Wichita, it seems we need to cover the Wichita classics.

[PerttiMe]

Looking at Igor's design, I get the idea that a bit of side area is good for low speed stunt.

[John Hammonds]

Looking at Igor's design, I get the idea that a bit of side area is good for low speed stunt.

I also believe Igor's model has (A lot- Don't know how much) of fuselage offset as well.

TTFN
John.

[Mark wood]

I also believe Igor's model has (A lot- Don't know how much) of fuselage offset as well.

TTFN
John.

It really isn't that much, about 3/8" however the chord is wider which increases the area. The large diameter propeller generates quite a lot of torque which is balanced by the lead weight. We tried reducing the lead and it didn't work out so well. The line tension is maintained by the significant lead out rake which is necessary for the wingover and overhead maneuvers. This causes a few issues in the maneuvers but you learn how to fly it with practice. Having the significant rake causes the fuselage to fly with about 12 degrees AOA and that makes the airplane fly on it's side as it crosses the overhead. With the active timer, I can slow the airplane down tremendously, which you can see some of the messing around with settings in the video above.  It's pretty crazy to fly at super low speeds and then get some thrust increase enough to just power over the top as the airplane pitches up. With the non active timers we increase the speed a bit in order to be able to fly the overheads.

On the Mystery Ship, I have a bit more fuse offset, 7/8" but it also needs a lot of lead to hold the outboard wing down. Like the GeeBee it has about 12 degrees line rake and does a good job of maintaining tension over the top.

[Igor Burger]

That offset, fuselage side area and side area front of CG is necessary because centrifugal force is much lower than weight of model, so line tension is maintained by arerodynamic forces (fuselage lift and prop thrust), unlike centrifugal force on large models. It allows the same lap time on short 5m long lines like we fly on large models. The purpose of that model is winter training of kids and beginners for flying outside. This video shows speed and offset during flight.



I collected all info on my FB page:

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1130005910510845&id=363984487112995

[Mark wood]

That offset, fuselage side area and side area front of CG is necessary because centrifugal force is much lower than weight of model, so line tension is maintained by arerodynamic forces (fuselage lift and prop thrust), unlike centrifugal force on large models. It allows the same lap time on short 5m long lines like we fly on large models. The purpose of that model is winter training of kids and beginners for flying outside. This video shows speed and offset during flight.

I 250% fully agree with the yaw being necessary for line tension on these models. You designed a wonderful model for this arena, Igor. Many thanks to you. With the active timer project I can get the airplane flying to very low lap time, almost walking speed or it seems and still fly the wingover. The downside is it makes performing maneuvers nicely a bit of a challenge. Regardless these indoor foamie CL models are a 100% blast to fly. I'm not sure the message is fully appreciated though, about how wonderful these are as practice / trainer planes. Inside there is little wind to contend with beyond that which the model creates making the first time efforts at learning maneuvers easier since the pilot needn't worry about where the wind is coming from. Also the construction time is short, only a few hours which reduces the worrying about the model. And if they do crash, and we've been pretty good at that, they are easy to fix.