The first conversation of this $5 model I painted, big mistake! This time I want a power version and clean that doesn't get paint chips everywhere lol.
Below you will find the parts I used on this project, you can change the set-up however you like for example a smaller Kv motor would go slower but give longer flight times. My average flight time is 3 minutes when power on all the time, however I have had 10+ minutes flights by climbing to about 250 meters and gliding around.
The model also can catch thermals! Although it gets tossed around a fair bit if you can stay on one then you will go up a fair bit.
The pre-marked ailerons are small in my opinion. This time I increased the size to 20cm long at the same width. The new ailerons position starts 6cm in towards wing root from the original groove line as you can by the ruler.
The tail control surfaces are also small. This time I cut the control surface all the way to the top as a full piece and also increased the width by 5mm.
Space is thy enemy with models this small. However you can gut out the foam in the fuselage area. Don't go too deep and keep rechecking how much foam is left as you go.
The motor mount has a 2 degree down angle and a 3 degree right angle to counter motor torque. You can also see at the back of the cut out area is a slit going even further back. This is where the RX (Receiver) will slide in out of the way.
I wanted to keep the wing removable unlike last time, to do this I installed a servo Y cable so the female plugs sit just below the bottom wing level. This is important, if the servo plug is 100% flush with the wing bottom then it will wear the wing over time, leave a few MM and never encounter this problem for yourself.
With in-line servos there are no control lines or horns, this means there is nothing at all to catch or get stuck on the fuselage when removing the wing. When in place the servos simply plug into the female servo plugs.
The V-tail servos are also in-line with 0 control lines, this means wiring them in at the tail. To save weight I soldered my own loom with just 4 wires:
Position, Negative, Signal 1, Signal 2
As the servos can share the same power they only really need unique signal cables, so by sharing the power you remove the need for 2 additional wires to be ran. I made a slit in the fuselage top all the way to bury the wires in then went over it with white medical silk tape.
The motor and ESC are pretty self explanatory, if not then look back through previous projects on how to set-up. I'm running on a 5.2*5.2 Cam speed prop although I could go higher the maximum propeller size is 6*3.
A simple elastic band keeps the canopy in place. You can see the design is very clean with very little drag. I could do something about the aileron servo wires but its not worth it, whatever you do adding weight will most likely be worse than the little drag caused by these exposed wires.
For a $5 model this is super fun, its very smooth to fly and super agile. It can do all sorts of tricks from aerobatics to a little 3D and casual gliding. I like crazy roll rates and such but to tame the model just dial down the rates until your more comfortable flying, then when ready there is lots more you can still do!
Motor version $5 Hobbyking Hand Launch Free Flight Glider EPO RC conversation Maiden
