My tricopter build and other related bits.

[Martinus]

Rather than repeat my build logs verbatim here I'll present a few photos of the stuff I've done with links to the various builds:

1. Tricopter build and transmitter modifications:

https://martinus.org.uk/main/?q=node/6

2. Flying wing and mini speedster foam-board builds:

https://martinus.org.uk/main/?q=node/2

 

[zathros]

Very very cool!! I have a few electric planes and helicopters. I like these over the huge gas powered monstrosities I used to build, as you can fly these anywhere. People use to call the Police when I fly my gas powered plane. It had a 5 foot wingspan, can't remember the engine size, the piston was bigger than a half of an inch. It was what they call a "Stick" plane, no real design, just proper aerodynamics. It was loud and caused a lot of ruckus. The electric planes let you fly anywhere, and they are much easier to fix.

You have some nice flying machines, I hope you post more of your creations. If you have any YouTube videos, they can be embedded here.

 

[Martinus]

I've only ever worked on a gasser once, it was bloody intimidating. Back when I was a kid the RC gear was prohibitively expensive for me. I still got books from the library on building RC planes but I put it aside as a pipe-dream years ago. I built a lot of rubber-band powered free-flight planes which was enjoyable (and cheap!).

Saw some of the Flitetest videos and was blown away not just with the materials they were using but also the fact that all of the parts were relatively inexpensive. I'm getting into the hobby two decades after I had aimed to but now I don't worry about the cost of crashing.

 

[Martinus]

You need all three rotors to keep the model in the air - the CoG is more or less right under the control board which is placed in the centre of the model. If one of the motors/props is taken out then it will drop out of the air like a rock.

More motors gives more speed for the most part (the power to weight ratio is very high) and while yaw in a tri is more responsive than yaw in a quad you'd want a racing quad to accelerate harder and maintain a higher speed.