Eddie the weeble

[Terence Lynock]

Well, always being one for something different and having seen someone selling a flyable r/c Red Kite on eBay I thought I would build one just for the fun of it, started out with the 'Eddie the Eagle' plans from RCM&E and took a look at them and my first thought was 'its bloody big!' so downsized from about 7 foot span to 4 foot 6.

Then thinks I, wot is required is some insurance so I redesigned the rear of the body to take a brushless motor and 6 x 5 prop which has caused a problem or two as the rear half of the tail is elevator so this had to be modded and instead of usual pushrod and servo in the fuse I will have to use a servo and snake or maybe two one to each end of the elevator.

The standard servo for the ailerons I have replaced with micro servos in the wings which saves space in the fuse plus about 25g of weight, at the original size the all-up weight was 4lbs 14 oz and I was hoping to come in at about 2 lbs if possible for the smaller size.

With larger battery and motor/ESC etc included it looks like I can actually beat the 900g giving me a very healthy wing loading of about 8 oz sq ft all up, the full sized version had a 12 oz sq ft wing loading so not so bad so far, on the subject of wing loading I wonder how many have made the mistake I did?.

worked out the area of the wing in sq in then took a good guess at final all-up weight, worked out the wing loading and was horrified to end up with 15.75 oz sq ft! did all my sums again and just could not understand it then this morning as I lay in bed almost comatose a little voice said 'ah but you got two bloody wings not one!' so i divided the end answer by two and bingo! 8oz sq ft! I had only worked out the area of one wing and forgot to double it.

Just when this contraption will become free of its earthly ties I dont know but it is coming along quite well, I have actually built five models over the past year but this is the only one that has really caught my imagination and cant wait to terrorise the local Yorkshire Terriers and Jack Russells with it, if all goes well I will build the full size version and take the Rottweilers on,

                 regards,           Terry