Yeah bohh, we are all like a bunch of vultures out here. Maybe you should have posted a vulture instead of an Eagle

You should know you can't just tease us cause we will pounce all over an idea especially one as cool as this.

I'm still waiting for servos and gear to make mine fly. In the meantime, I think I will practice up on my airbrushing. It certainly needs a lot of it if I am ever going to make my bird come out even half as good as some of you pros Randy.

 

You guys seen this, another set of plans for the eagle:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1035283

 

I couldn't wait... Found a LazerToyz 10g motor in my spare parts box and hooked up a 10A ESC and 49g 11.1 500 mah battery and a pair of tower pro 900 servos with an APC 7x5 prop to my reduced size SouthernEagle just to get an idea of how it might fly when my 3g servos actually do arrive.

What a sweet little plane!

Wind was blowing a bit more than I wanted to deal with, but I couldn't wait any longer and as I carried it out to launch it, I could just feel it aching to fly as I held it into the wind.

I applied a quarter throttle and gave it a gentle toss and it was airborne, floating around as gentle as could be.

Left and right turns were very gracefull and it loops with agility although I don't think I have seen any real birds doing loops lately.

Now to work on my airbrush skills.

I wanted to see if it was worth putting time, effort, and money into to build the full size version and I am now convinced that it is.

The small FFF version certainly going to make a great little plane for indoor or even outdoor flying, but now I want a full sized bird to tease the hawks with.

I suspect that the larger version may very well fly quite nicely with the same power package as I have on this smaller version seeing as I never needed to go more than half throttle even fighting the wind.

Bohh, I really can't thank you enough for starting this thread. I know a couple of us jumped in there and kinda took off on it, but you get the credit bud! It was after all, your idea and we hope you finish your bird and get one of these in the air.

If it were an owl, I would say its a hoot! But since its an Eagle, I guess we'll just have to say it screams! Man what a nice plane, thanks again.

 

Here are some photos of my 3mm SouthernEagle. This was my second endeavor at airbrushing. It came out ok but I have a lot of learning still ahead of me for this kind of work.

Attached files

 

My transmitter (Spektrum DX7) has a setting called "V Tail" which is much like a delta wing setting. Not sure if there is any difference, but for some reason the radio has settings for both.

The first one I built was made with FFF to see how it flies and to get an idea of how to airbrush one of these critters.

I put a 10g motor from Lazertoyz on it, powered by an 11.1 volt 500mah 49g battery with a 7x5 prop. and flew it about half a dozen times. It flies really nice! The hawks even came out to check it out.

I had a sheet of 3mm Depron left and cut out the second one using it. It is considerably lighter. The whole plane weighs as much as just the wing of the FFF version. This will make an excellent indoor flier.

I also decided I did not want to hold the wing on with rubber bands and changed the mounting technique.

I used 3g servos in the Depron version and am waiting for a 5g brushless motor I have on order for it.

I don't know how, but somehow or another, the wing ended up with a slight curvature providing an airfoiled surface! I probably could not do that again if I tried.

Just holding it into the wind in my hand, the wind nearly pulls it from me. It wants to fly! I can't wait to see how this one flies compared to my first one.

I can tell you this much, it draws a lot of attention! I will be taking this one to SEFF.

 

These Eagles are really fun to fly. It is just plain relaxing to let them float around, head em into the wind and watch em hover motionless at 1/4 throttle.

With the 10g Lazertoyz motor on my FFF version, I have tons of power to spare and can fight a pretty strong headwind with ease.

I don't have anything special on my FFF version, just a flat bottom wing, but the laminated feathers on the top of the wing seem to provide an airfoil in themselves.

I folded the tips upward and ran a bead of hot glue in the fold cut to hold it in place. I left out the fold cuts on the 3mm version and just used an ink pen to score a fold line in it. I should have left the fold lines in place now that I realize how well the tail feathers worked out.

The cut depth on the tail feathers was perfect. I did not even need to add tape for hinging. It hinges nicely with the top skin and what little foam is left under it.

There was a thread on RC groups on painting the Eagle. I read thru it and cut out a couple of swoop templates to aid in the air brushing.

I have enjoyed trying to learn to air brush as this is a whole new area for me. I bought one of those compressors and air brushes from Harbor Freight and this was the first time I had something to use it on since I usually cover my foamy planes in Oracal vinyls.

All in all, the Eagle project has been one of my favorites. I want to tackle the K5 Saucer soon. Another learning curve most likely as it uses a heat covering.

 

Any idea on CG spot for your bird Randy?

 

Did the cut files ever get figured out? I tried to cut this the other night and the bit was making random cuts all over the place. Totaly trashed a sheet of bluecor.

 

Did not know there was any problems with the cut files.

I have been cutting both the small and large Eagles with no problems.

In fact, the 56" wingspan Eagle has been on the back burner for quite awhile and I finally finished it up this week.

I had to work on my airbrush skills and get the right equipment which made a word of difference. Now that I have a decent compressor with a 3 gallon resevoir, things work so much better.

Here are some pics of the my Eagle Eye 56" wingspan plane, with a FlyCamOne2 video camera installed.

Maiden flight has not been done. Hope to have video later this weekend. Attached files

 

Yep, that was a great improvement over the rubber bands. My Southern Eagle has the rubber bands and it is not too bad because the wings are not so wide, but when I started thinking about the size of rubber bands I would need for this big guy I knew I to come up with a better way.

I put a couple of carbon fiber rods in the bottom of the leading edge of the wing that protrude into the fuse, reinforced the fuse with a bit of lite ply. Added lite ply on the tail for the screw and nut support. Epoxied the nylon screw into a piece of blue cor sandwiched between a lite ply and glued the assembly to the sidewalls of the fuse.

I also glued a section of foam to the underside of the wing that fits snugly into the fuse wing opening. The wing fits into place tight like a glove.

All and all, I am real happy with how everything turned out. Can't wait to fly it.

 

I have named my new plane the EagleEye. It has a FlyCamOne2 camera mounted in the nose section.

Maiden flight this weekend...

Here are some photos taken from the camera which takes 1280x1024 photos. Attached files

 

I wish I could say the same. Look at the included photos and you'll see just how messed up it is cutting these out. That is only page 1. I stopped at that point rather than ruin even more foam. While I noticed that at the very end there was some skew, that alone can't be the reason it cut like it did. It was missing whole lines as well as making cuts where it should not have. The extra travel was unreal. It used almost 1500 lines just to draw out the eye. 9508 lines of code is far more than what should have been needed.

While there may be something wrong with my system, Its weird that I can cut a F-22 out with no errors at all but this file goes nuts as you can see. Any ideas? Suggestions?


http://cid-814bb7244635d8d8.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/planes2/100|_0146.JPG

all 4 photos are on the link

Please also note the time shown that it took to cut it at a 100 ipm setting. ( 1 hour ) it seldom allowed it to go over 19 ipm and revisited a number of the same cuts many times