rtfm
Well-Known Member
Hi,
I have decided to create a dedicated thread to chronicle my design/build progress. First off, I have decided to revert to an earlier name for my project: The Razorback. And since it incorporates a freewing design, I've named this thread accordingly.
Some history:
I got my PPL three years ago, and decided to build my own plane, rather than pay out good money to rent one every time I wished to go flying.
At first, I thought I'd build a kit. I got the plans for a Sonex, and started that. Only to discover that I didn't much care for working with Aluminum. So I stored the plans, and got a set of KR2 plans. Wood might be more my style. I decided after a few months that I didn't much care for the design, so those plans also went into storage.
Now I was in a quandary: My knowledge of existing kit planes was fairly minimal (even though I spent a lot of time on the Web looking for them). I decided to have a go and design one of my own - after all, how difficult could it be? I was urged into this mindset in part (to be honest) by the fact that I was broke, and if I was busy at the design-board, I wasn't spending money, but I was working on my plane. Having more time than cash, I set to it. The other half of my motivation was that I had discovered gyros in a major way, and had to have one. Have you checked out gyros lately? They're nearly all of them pig-ugly flying things. I was sure I could do better...
The first attempts were so embarrassing I try to put them out of memory. At the time I was extraordinarily pleased with them. So I have drawings of them safely locked away in the workshop, but they are not for the faint-hearted...
Sketch 1:
The first sketch is my very first freehand back-of-an-envelope design, done over a few beers one rainy afternoon in the pub. These are the scrawlings which got me started.
Sketch 2:
The second followed soon after, when I discovered tractor gyros via Tervamaki's web site. I had also discovered SketchUp.
Sketch 3:
This is Don Shoebridge's rendering of my 2nd sketch into 3-D
By this time, I figured I was ready to start building. Note - I didn't really have a clue where I was going. I figured if it looked OK, it would fly OK.
Build attempt #1 was the tractor configuration above, glass over wooden superstructure (1st picture, 2nd row). The next picture along is me in the workshop shaping foam with the curve of a cross-cut saw - quite effective, really. This build attempt lasted long enough for me to spot that the frame I was building it on had warped, and I could not unwarp it.
Build attempt #2 Was out of aluminum tube. A pusher design with an overhad tail. All was proceeding great (I even overcame some of my reluctance to working with aluminum) - until I discovered that I could not sufficiently triangulate the fuse without having aluminum tubes pass directly through the engine!
Duncan
I have decided to create a dedicated thread to chronicle my design/build progress. First off, I have decided to revert to an earlier name for my project: The Razorback. And since it incorporates a freewing design, I've named this thread accordingly.
Some history:
I got my PPL three years ago, and decided to build my own plane, rather than pay out good money to rent one every time I wished to go flying.
At first, I thought I'd build a kit. I got the plans for a Sonex, and started that. Only to discover that I didn't much care for working with Aluminum. So I stored the plans, and got a set of KR2 plans. Wood might be more my style. I decided after a few months that I didn't much care for the design, so those plans also went into storage.
Now I was in a quandary: My knowledge of existing kit planes was fairly minimal (even though I spent a lot of time on the Web looking for them). I decided to have a go and design one of my own - after all, how difficult could it be? I was urged into this mindset in part (to be honest) by the fact that I was broke, and if I was busy at the design-board, I wasn't spending money, but I was working on my plane. Having more time than cash, I set to it. The other half of my motivation was that I had discovered gyros in a major way, and had to have one. Have you checked out gyros lately? They're nearly all of them pig-ugly flying things. I was sure I could do better...
The first attempts were so embarrassing I try to put them out of memory. At the time I was extraordinarily pleased with them. So I have drawings of them safely locked away in the workshop, but they are not for the faint-hearted...
Sketch 1:
The first sketch is my very first freehand back-of-an-envelope design, done over a few beers one rainy afternoon in the pub. These are the scrawlings which got me started.
Sketch 2:
The second followed soon after, when I discovered tractor gyros via Tervamaki's web site. I had also discovered SketchUp.
Sketch 3:
This is Don Shoebridge's rendering of my 2nd sketch into 3-D
By this time, I figured I was ready to start building. Note - I didn't really have a clue where I was going. I figured if it looked OK, it would fly OK.
Build attempt #1 was the tractor configuration above, glass over wooden superstructure (1st picture, 2nd row). The next picture along is me in the workshop shaping foam with the curve of a cross-cut saw - quite effective, really. This build attempt lasted long enough for me to spot that the frame I was building it on had warped, and I could not unwarp it.
Build attempt #2 Was out of aluminum tube. A pusher design with an overhad tail. All was proceeding great (I even overcame some of my reluctance to working with aluminum) - until I discovered that I could not sufficiently triangulate the fuse without having aluminum tubes pass directly through the engine!
Duncan
Attachments
Last edited:
