Mutley's Drak

[plingboot]

Have you seen the mod Håvard Støre on the 'Lab did to his elevons to stiffen them up - apparently there should be a couple of extra glass fibre rods in the kits to do this...

[Andy Sayle]

I did see that, yes.  I like the idea of this, but I'm going to see how it flies on just the one set of spars, and laminate.  I think it should be stiff enough, so long as I don't get any flutter at speed, it should be okay.  If anything, any reduction in control authority as the elevon deflects at high speed, will be like a natural dual rate!

Andy

[plingboot]

I've said it before, I really don't need a drak, but the build looks like a really enjoyable process... and I'm so bloody tempted.

[Andy Sayle]

Mine has really brought back my "building" mojo again.  I got a bit bored of assembling kits about 18 months ago....

Andy

[mutley2]

I wonder if some decent vinyl would give a similar level of protection

How are you testing the antennas that you are making?

Cheers
Andy

Hey andy, Yep mine is getting the vinyl treatment like my Z2 and Z3, its great at looking after the under side of an airframe and looks kinda cool as well, vinyl likes sticking to laminate but not to EPP with out some help.
Making GHz antenna's is part of my day job so I've have access to some high end VNA's, great bit of kit for testing 433Mhz etc.

[Andy Sayle]

I've used Profilm on laminate for a bruiser class wing ages ago.  That worked quite well too, and a fair bit lighter than vinyl.  I guess if you are doing the camo scheme though, printed vinyl is the way forward!

[dp106]

Not that I know much but isn't vinyl on top of laminate going to add a fair bit of weight? Think laminate itself adds a fair bit of strength without the need to add vinyl as well?

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[Billy_boy_2010]

Looks like it's coming along nicely.

Out of interest Why did you go for the balsa elevons?

It's such a great looking plane. I can't believe people aren't laminating every inch of theirs. It's supposed to be the ultimate wing, long lasting crash proof. Laminating really makes this possible.

Read a great tip on fpvlab- on the maiden fill the nose with the foam block that comes with it- just cut a hole for the battery. This will mean, if the plane does crash, the nose won't break off.

[mutley2]

Tonight's progress, made a couple of 2.4GHz 3 leaf, 4 leaf and a half flexi 433mhz dipole ready for tuning/trimming tomorrow and covered the other elevon. Not bad going as it's only 8pm and I cooked tea hehehehe, this rush of work was inspired by a big glowy thing in the sky this afternoon that was rumored to be the sun.

dp109, yes it does add weight but this is not enough to make any real difference, both the Z2 and Z3 had the same treatment and they never lacked power.

Billy, I went for balsa elevons because they are a little more stable and will take more punishment than the EPP elevons, I'm sure the EPP elevons are 101% because Chris would not sell it otherwise but I do have plans to get very leery with this airframe and guess it will meet a very short sticky end.

The pic

[Billy_boy_2010]

Cool looks great.

Are you planning on some serious range with this thing? Or monstrous power and deep dives?

[mutley2]

Cool looks great.

Are you planning on some serious range with this thing? Or monstrous power and deep dives?

A bit of both really, I've got some sites planned this year both in this country and hopefully abroad, it's down to how she performs.

[Billy_boy_2010]

Sounds mysterious!

I suspect it will excel in both these areas.

[Andy Sayle]

I live in North Wales.  Snowdonia is a short drive away.  Mountain bombing sites galore!  We should organise a UK Drak owners meet at the top of Snowdon...

[AdamG]

How do you plan on transporting this abroad?

[stevec]

How do you plan on transporting this abroad?

45000mah and fly it there. :sparta: