ap0r

Quote I wonder about the batteries though. Motor charts state that they draw at least 50A and a 5Ah battery makes the airplane airborne for less than a minute? Yes, a plane this size could easily draw 50 Amps. Flying time of an R/C plane is often only a couple of minutes. Honestly, it takes so much concentration to fly that you can't go much longer than that anyway. 50 amp at full power (only for takeoff)

Ooops, i tought you had experience with RC planes already! Agree with Blackbird and Whale You CANNOT use this model as a trainer! I am a pilot student in real life, i fly solo (as in by myself, with no help, alone in the plane) already, and i had lots of trouble handling a Trainer RC plane! You should really get in touch with RC people in your area to find a test pilot. If you want to do it, you'll probably destroy this beautiful creation,

I haven't thought of adding servos in the tail. I would need a total of 3 servos which would add a lot of weight, especially when it's that far back on the plane. Servos are ideal solution for control, you can place them anywhere you want and use lightweight pushrods to move the surfaces.

As long as you add a fairing in front and rear of the micro motor, it shouldn't affect flying caracteristics. Otherwise, it would be like a spoiler. Better explain this with a drawing. On wing A you can see how a normal wing works. Wing B has a deformation that causes airflow to be disrupted and produce vortexes. A disrupted airflow creates very little differential pressure, diminishing lift by a great amount, and the energy to power the vortexs comes from the motion of the airplane, therefore increasing drag. In fact, the efect is so strong, that some airplanes are equipped with "spoilers" that deform the wing to slow down and descend faster (For example gliders) And on Wing C the fairings avoid most of the "spoiler" effect, but still there is a deformation of wing shape, wich causes lift to be roughly equal to drag. Cheers :D

Big Cam thanks for placing the quotes as they were supposed to be! Kudos!

Elevators (the horizontal tail mobile parts) push up and down, and rudder (the vertical flap) push sideways. They actually create surprisingly little force (the plane is in the air after all, and it only needs to rotate the pertinent axis) So you should be ok with what you have. d) Center of Gravity is Very important. As the tail produces only small forces, a deviated CG means an uncontrollable airplane. For ideal results, the center of gravity should be about 2% to 5% ahead of the center of lift. That way the plane has a slight tendence to nose-down, wich makes stall recovery, enter gliding, etc. easier for the pilot. I totally failed there :D Yes, the weight is cubed. After all, we're scaling on 3 dimensions :D The new math is correct.

Hello all :). I registered today, just to say, that this is totally awesome and i'm following it :D I am not a fan of lego, and haven't built nothing since i was a kid. But i am an all time aviation lover, and a humble Pilot Student. To all the people saying that this machine won't fly. The physics that are behind powered flight apply in a very similar way to any aircraft, regardless of size. Still, you HAVE to be wary of the weight, for with that wing profile (shape) you get a small wing area, so the plane will either have to be very light OR fly as fast as it's regular size counterpart. If he gets: a) The correct shape and angles of the wings. b) No play in control surfaces c) Enough structural rigidity as to prevent excessive wing flex under positive G load d) A good CG position e) Scale weight in relation to the real-life counterpart. 28.59Kg (about 63 lbs) is the theoretical maximum: square root of (weight of real life plane / scale). but for good results you shouldn't exceed half of that (14 Kg or 30 lbs) because if everything was scaled you would need 91 lbs of thrust wich i doubt two props that small can provide. I, as an aviation lover, and pilot student, have faith in that this machine WILL fly as long as Carsten manages to bring the model to the above mentioned conditions, wich i'm sure he has the ability to do. Cheers :)