Designing RC aircraft ( for the first time).

For me, designing an rc aircraft has always been a long standing ambition of mine. However with the pressures of school and exams, I never really had the time to explore my love of the hobby further by designing my own designs. True, I flew my Horizon Hobby Delta Ray occasionally, but I always wished to start designing myself, utilising many Flite Test and Experimental Airlines building techniques. And hopefully coming up with a few of my own as my skills increased! 

This year, I am going to start college in September, completing an engineering degree. And finally I made the time to start designing a first model. After sketching a few preliminary designs that resembled a mixture of a Cessna 172 and de Havilland Beaver, I came up with this design.

 This design I went with for a number of reasons. Firstly, lets discuss the engine location. Having a set of high wing mounted pusher propellers means the plane will be able to belly land easily on rough fields, without the risk of damaging the props or motors. This is in my response to my experiences on my Delta Ray. If landing on a wet field ( common in Ireland where I live) the Delta Ray would absorb a lot of water through the oversized cooling holes for the twin motors if belly landed ( a necessity due to the undercarriage being too small for rough field takeoffs). I would quickly have to dry the motors (no easy feat due to their covering cowlings) to prevent interior corrosion of the motor wiring. Also having pusher props would make the design a great future FPV platform. No troublesome prop in a camera shot (as with the Delta Ray). 

Having a contra-rotating twin motor design, like the Delta Ray, will in addition remove any adverse torque effects when throttling the motors up, a fantastic advantage for an FPV plane or any plane, model or full scale in general. The Second World War vintage P-38 Lightning used contra-rotating propellers to great effect, resulting in a wonderful high speed platform for many uses, including fighter, reconnaissance and even VIP transport! 

 The contra-rotating props was a good feature on the Delta Ray, and something I would want for my first design. 

Another feature I included in my design, was the ability to replace the nose in the event of an unplanned "arrival". This again came from my experience of the Delta Ray, after a particularly bad nose dive into a sodden Irish field. The nose section snapped right off, prompting me to make some non aesthetically pleasing repairs!  

It is the design and construction of the removable nose of my up and coming model which I talk about in my video below. I tried to make an innovative design, while relying on tried and trusted Flite Test building techniques. 

  I hope you find the video and article informative and inspiring. By the way, please leave a comment on the article and video, as feedback would be much appreciated. I've just got started on Youtube and the Flite Test website and have a lot to learn! Any recommendations would really help improve my content on Flite Test and Youtube. I want to get new builders and flyers like me building meaningful projects, like this one, so we can continue to grow this amazing hobby and all have a ball in the process.

Thanks for reading, 

Finn. 

Image credits: P-38 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lockheed_P-38J_Lightning_-_1.jpg 

All other images are my own.