Eurofighter FPV build

[Zeeflyboy]

I actually recently looked at some of those keychain photo viewers - you can pick them up cheap from china.

The problem is even the smallest ones are a bit too big here...

And my bird is already starting to get porky - weighing in at around 2530g at the moment, still some things to do.

[tox]

Err....ummm....guess who's not paying attention :) Oops.

Zeeflyboy! Great job...he he

Tox

[Zeeflyboy]

Hah cheers

So, here's my tow hook to give me bungee capability


first I found a spot that is approximately 60% from nose to CG which is the recommended point for attaching the hook, and then proceeded to attack with a dremel.









I then cut out a piece of plywood to size, and sacrificed a coat hangar to the gods of RC using some clippers. I epoxied this in place and then added two additional side rails, also epoxied in, and you can see a small L bend at the back to stop the pin being yanked out. I also drilled a few small holes to give the glue some extra grip.









I then installed using gorilla glue and taped it in place while the glue foamed up.





Et voila, tow hook!




This area will be glassed over as part of the belly landing reinforcement work, so it'll get a huge strength boost from that. Hopefully with the addition of the glassing it'll prove to be strong enough! I will need around 10kg of force minimum to launch, although of course the hook won't ever see that kind of load since the eurofighter is free to move when the bungee is released so it should only ever have to overcome the inertia of the jet.

Edit - just weighed her and she is indeed getting a bit porky. Weighing in at just over 2,540g currently with everything! I've been toying with a very lightweight glassing all over using lightweight cloth and PU. Apparently it can be done for a penalty of around 100g on a model this size and it would greatly improve both the toughness and the appearance.... Not sure whether to do it or not!

I'm going to go and find out what kind of weight the guys are flying this model with... I suspect the quoted all up flying weight is with a very small battery.

[Zeeflyboy]

So, the problem with delays is that I get ideas...

My carbon for the wings is finally in my possession, but I've not yet got to work on the main spars.

Today I tried out some light weight glassing using WBPU and lightweight 25gm cloth. I must say I'm impressed by how easy it is, how much it toughens up the foam, and how light too.

I started off with a canard to see how well it worked and how much weight it would add:

First I filled the gaps in the surface with lightweight filler and sanded it back taking off all the paint from the foam. I also took the opportunity to shape the canard a bit better with a nice sharper trailing edge... Then I covered it with a layer of the lightweight cloth and WBPU (almost invisible!)




Then using grey base paint I put on a few layers while sanding it back to get it smooth. Here it is in between coats and sanding so you can compare to the other canard (ignore colour, it's just a primer coat).





And here's the final article, smooth and primed ready for a light final coat of whatever colour I choose in the end.





So how much weight did it add? 2.8g in total! 0.6g of that was the light weight filler, so the glassing itself was only 2.2g for the canard.

It's now completely resistant to the light knocks that dented the foam before, and while it's not as tough as a proper glassing, it is seriously light weight and a big improvement over bare foam.

Inspired by that I moved on to my dashboard.... filled and sanded to tidy it up:





In the process of glassing:





And glassed, now awaiting some base coat/sanding etc.

[Zeeflyboy]

So, slow work this stuff now...

I have done a little more glassing, now have both canards, nose cone, dash and am close to getting the tail done....  obviously need to paint the dash and finish off the tail, so don't judge too harshly lol.








I also started work on mounting my wing spars... here you can see one cut out with plywood cross braces inserted for a test fit.






I then glued it all in place using gorilla glue, then topped it off with lightweight filler and sanded back to smooth. The spar is very solidly mounted indeed, I hope the tube mount in the plane comes out equally as strong! I will still be doing two per wing just to be safe. The problem is with two, the alignment is the most important bit - if these two spars aren't perfectly aligned with each other then wing insertion/removal will be incredibly difficult... I may have to come up with a simple jig to make sure they do end up aligned.





And because I need to have something else to distract me since this clearly isn't a big enough project, here's what I've been putting together as well! I bought a turnigy talon v2 and have made some custom mounting plates for extra FPV gear.... plate for an EZUHF 8ch Diversity RX at the back, eLogger will go beneath the plate. On the right OSD Pro on the bottom of the plate and IMRC 5.8Ghz on top, on the left will go GPS. it makes a nice solid little quad actually - I was quite impressed with the build quality... anyway I know it's not really related but there we go...

[FPVSteve]

Excellent work as usual, I am in awe.

However - I fear I must warn you that your quad probably won't fly very well at all without a propeller on each motor. The purpose of a propeller is to provide thrust, and in the case of a quad copter this also translates into lift from all four corners. Without lift you may struggle to get some aerial shots or indeed any fun out of your new project so my professional advice would be to install some forthwith. I hope this helps ;D

[Zeeflyboy]

Thank goodness you were here...

I just spent hours wondering why it wasn't working. I had assumed it was because I haven't installed the EZUHF RX yet, but then I suspected it was due to the motors not being connected to the ESCs.... But now I know it's a much more simple problem, I forgot the propellers! What a dummy!!!

You have saved me many more hours of head scratching!

[Funky Diver]

I love Gorilla Glue, it is undoubtedly now my favourite glue for general building stuff. 

What type of filler are you using? How does it sand?

Looking very smart there dude :)

[Zeeflyboy]

using the filler from jepe... seems just like other lightweight spackle type fillers I've used but it slightly more dense and harder when it dries (heavier though).

It sands very well indeed though, very easy and to a smooth surface.

So this afternoon I glassed the cockpit area... quite a slow job since it's quite a complex shape for sanding etc.








I also did a bit more work on the dash... pretty much done now - just need to make a small screen for the bottom right and put in the HUD etc.




I may try to come up with a small locking mechanism for the canopy - after seeing rcexplorer's disappear after being held on by just magnets it'd be a shame for mine to do the same....

[Zeeflyboy]

That's the cockpit now completed IMO, although I did order a sony HAD II camera because I was so impressed with the video quality... that's the only thing that will change!

[Brucey]

Words fail me with this build. I feel honoured to be watching it grow

[Coyote]

So much attention to detail went into this I`d be scared stiff to try and fly it :)

[Zeeflyboy]

thanks!

I will be a little apprehensive come the first launch for sure lol.

so my FPV blackbox arrived today... great little bit of kit!

I shot this quick little video to give an idea of the view.... The crappy image at the top is just a symptom of my crappy rx in the fatshark predators, I'm not overly bothered as I will be moving to an external rx soon anyway, and I've been flying with it like that for a long time on my other stuff so I've learned to ignore it lol.

This is still with the RCV922 camera - the HAD II on the way should have better light handling (will be using same lens, so FOV will be the same)


Eurofighter FPV cockpit view preview.m4v

[FPVSteve]

Please tell me you're using a head tracker for that ;D

Looks amazing!

[Zeeflyboy]

in that video I'm not, but yes I will be for actual flight.

try twiddling the pan and tilt knobs while flying aerobatics - it's not easy lol. I think it works fine to use knobs/levers for slow/high alt planes where the flying isn't very intensive, but for this kind of thing you really need head tracking to make it functional.