So, I felt the need to design something for you fellow phlatprinter owners for a Christmas present.

I am not an indoor airplane designer, but I want to try my hand at it so this is what I came up with..
A 34" wingspan Bellanca Citabria. My design criteria was it needed to be inexpensive, (looks like about around $15 in materials so far) and an indoor flyer since since most of you live in colder winter climates.
Well, I will see how it fly's. For all I know, it could be a total turd and all of this will be merely an exercise in wasting time. So if it never comes to fruition, please don't be disappointed. It's the thought that counts.
My plan is too post the G-code, instructions for assembly and an inexpensive power set up recommendation. It can be cut on one single 15 X 39" sheet of 3mm depron. You will also need two .040 X.121 X 40" strips of carbon (plenty left over) and about 4 .040 carbon rods and a maybe a small amount of balsa for the control rod support (still sorting that part out). It goes together quick as I have pre-punched all the support rod hole locations to take some of the guess work out.
I will keep you posted on the progress and hopefully get it done before Christmas.


Attached files CITABRIA DRAWING.PDF (83.9 KB)Â CITABRIA.cnc (31.4 KB)Â CITABRIAFLAT.DXF (178.7 KB)Â citabria build manual.pdf (2.6 MB)Â

 

Cool project! These are a ton of fun. I designed one called the 3Decathlon (essentially the same as a Citabria) that Fancy Foam now sells. Here's what it'll do...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShaVOeK0 ... er&list=UL

It's always fun to see people's reaction when you take a plane that looks like it should only fly circles, and start freestyling the snot out of it!

 

Wow looks great! What is the gear made from? Carbon would make it light and it could go through the + shape and into the top wing as support.

This is exactly the thing I have been looking for. I am a school teacher and very good friends with the Asst. Superintendent, who used to be my principal and my assistant scout master. I talked him into letting the local RC club, of which I am a member, use the gym several times a month to fly in. It is a small gym and many of the fliers will be first time electric flyers. Any ideas for Light weight indoor flyers I can get will be a great asset in helping those new guys learn the ins & outs of electrics.

Can't wait to hear how it flies!!!

Good Luck!!

 

I got the inspiration from the GP Electrifly Citabria. The 3decathlon looks nice also.
Flat carbon rods on the gear. The carbon rod is nice and rigid but expensive to use. Probably could have gone with wire. all my flat foam planes have been designed around outdoor flying, so I have been using what I learned from that and applying it to this model.
Really, I have to admit buying the Fancy foam or GP models are the way to go. $50 is reasonable considering you get a painted model. I will test it indoors next weekend.

 

Here is the finished airplane.

For some reason, I felt the need to take a video of the plane being cut.
Attached files

 

Thanks Mark
I got a quick flight in today since the wind was on light side. The plane flew really nice!
Made a couple of small changes. Made some fuselage doublers that look like windows. They are placed under the wings. Just wanted improve the stability of the wing with the fuselage.
A nice feature of the kit is all the carbon rod placements are marked with pre drilled holes. This takes a lot of guess work out.
Now I just need to incorporate the few extra parts onto the foam sheet and draw up some assembly plans.

 

Thats where I got the idea to do a scout. Why pay $50 for a kit when you can have the whole plane plus engine and radio for $50.

viewtopic.php?f=34&t=3225

I made mine out of fanfold because depron may be light but it can't take the hits like FFF.

Hopefully I can get someone to shoot some video of the Scout this friday night.

 

Yep, you need to play nice with 3mm depron. 6mm is a lot more forgiving. That's why I went back and added in some reinforcement to the design. the two things I dislike about Fan fold is its wavy and it's heavy.
The foam is pretty reasonable. I got raped by Hobbytown on the price for the carbon strips. Two .118 x .040 x 39 strips were $10! Brutal! I knew I was getting ripped off but didn't want to wait to order it. $2 a strip from Mark and Trisha. I know where to order it when I need more.
Half way through a build manual.
Your Scout looks nice.

 

At the Wichita E-fly, I actually got a chance to speak with Mike, who kits the planes, and one of guinea pigs, I mean test pilots, who said the plane was quick, so you had to be on top of the controls. :02cents: Here's a video of Cliff (local club member) flying:



Enjoy

~Nathan

 

Thanks Mark!

I should mention a few things for setting up to cut. You will need a 1/16 bit for cutting the plane. The true 3mm sheet size I used measured 15.25 X 38.25. The program will use every bit of the sheet, so make sure you get the sheet all the way up under the forward pinch roller on the X axis. The Y axis has a little more breathing room. You can go as far as a 1/4 in from the edge of the foam. You may want to run a dry run to make sure the plane will fit on the sheet based on where you set your zero point.
The feed rate is 90ipm, so you may want to tailor it for the rpm you use on your machine.
Merry Christmas!

 

I like it. Don't care much for Depron, but I like the looks of this bird. Good job!

 

Any chance of you posting the skp file for the plan on the cnc file. Need to modify it for overhead gantry. Thanks.

 

I don't have a .skp file. The model was done in solidworks and the g-code was done in mastercam x4.
I can convert the model to several different formats. Maybe a .xt (parasolid) would be helpful?

 

dhc8guru, does SolidWorks has the option to export in dxf?

 

I added the .dxf to the download list in the original post.

 

Great, dhc8guru, it can now be imported into SU.

 

I guess the g code I wrote won't run on the PP1 and PP2? Well hopefully everyone can easily take the .DXF file and program it to runon those machines.