Mark's aircraft

home aircraft books history links old news quotes soft sounds weather

aircraft - indoor - swift

aircraft - electric - swift

early electric power gliders helicopter indoor technology future

hornet swift pico stick indoor thing

selection>

Fun indoor zagi type wing.
This sort of thing is quite popular in the US.
Chosen for its looks and the fact that it's from mscomposit.
I wanted something to fly a bit different from the pico stick.

construction

2 piece white (with green pattern/logo) polystyrene foam semi symmetric wing epoxied together and reinforced front and back with zagi tape (not included).
Not very sticky, but I didn't want to risk a reaction with spray mount - need to keep smoothing it down again.
White foam fins.
Blue foam elevons.
I covered these in white solarfilm to avoid the colour clash.
Radio is basically the same technology as the hornet heli, dropped into nicely accurate holes.
I cut a channels into the foam to carry the Rx aerial - ms 5 channel and servo cables - 2x cirrus cs-10bb.
The elevon pushrods run in tubes, which makes them a bit more precise - I used pins and zagi tape to hold these in place.
The supplied motor mount just epoxy glues to the white foam - seems to work well.
The 300 motor supplied fits in a reduction gearbox that is a bit tight.
8x6 Graupner cam slim prop sits between the elevons (need to trim a little off these to get adequate clearence).
No need for a mixer as I am using the FF8 computer Tx.
An easy and quick build.
Needed about 300g nose weight to get the balance right.

flight

I took it up to wolston 1 evening for its 1st flight.
The 1st problem is how to launch it - the prop at the back gets in the way.
You could launch and then start the motor, but it takes a bit of trust.
The instructions recommend throwing it like a banana, and that's what we tried.
Flew straight away.
Very powerful with the 300 motor (close to 100%), but rather noisy, especially at low revs.
I had balanced the prop.
The noise seems to be coming from the rather tightly meshed gears.
The vibration noise radiated by the foam wing was just horrible.
The only thing I could think of was to replace the power plant.
I had a GWS pico ducted fan unit for experimentation.
I drilled some holes in in and cable tied it to the mount.
The lighter weight meant no nose weight required making the whole thing some 500g lighter.
Much easier to launch too.
Flew well at Wolston until the 8.4V burnt the motor out.
It was a bit underpowered - could do with 2 units really.

I took it to the October 2002 indoor session, and flew it with a replacement pico motor in the ducted fan unit.
I had damaged the motor bearing in removing the pinion gear, and it fell out soon after take off, killing most of the power.
I had a spare pico stick motor and gearbox, and decided to fit that.
This seems to be the ideal setup - at least for indoor.
It's nice and light for slow flight, but zips along nicely at full speed.
Very easy to control, although it is, of course, not stable.
The ms-009 700mAh nimh pack runs for ages with just a pico motor sipping at it through the ms-055 plus 5A speed controller.
The speed controller disconnects nicely from the power pack on contact with the ground.
The prop tends to unscrew itself.
I've fitted a nyloc nut now.

Now 2006, and the swift has been much modified, gaining 1500mAhr 3 cell lithium and speed 300 motor, and now a cycle bell brushless motor.
Also covered in yellow solarfilm, to hold down the no longer sticky reinforced leading and trailing edge tape.

statistics

more photos