This was a big departure from your normal builds, quick and dirty prototypes with several modifications until something approximating the concept is created... you went straight into the final form this time. Man the 03 air unit is impressive as heck.
He has an interesting process. I know hindsight is 20/20, but I'm surprised he didn't anticipate the takeoff issues with the pontoon design given his prior experience.
Cutting the Kevlar fabric on the bias (45*) makes the hinges WAY stronger. It results in twice the fibers crossing the hinge line. Yes I did figure this out the hard way haha Love these videos!
@@user-dk1yb8cc8j I think he just noticed the plane, not the camera. Strangely it was the girls who noticed the plane the most. Usually it's guys who pay more attention to stuff like that.
Im building an airboat out of pink foamboard insulation.. Started 3 months ago, got a "working" prototype but 3 months later i now have a 3d printer, a new larger cnc, been staying up way too late learning onshape and so far down the rabbit hole its ridiculous! Loving\hating every minute of it!! Got a few essential tips and ideas from this video.. Thanks! Its been 11 years since i got my first cnc router, if anyone doesnt understand why so many makers videos have therapists services as sponsors, dont laugh -well you can if you want, but designing something from scratch is a mind f**k in a class of its own.. Especially when you're learning on the fly with no formal education in machining and mechanical engineering.. Dont get me wrong, even the pain we go through is enjoyable and the personal reward factor is off the charts, but the pain is real folks 😊 Thanks again for the content --and pain involved in making it !!!!
I'm pretty sure that your issue with water operations is two fold- high tail mounted engines providing a nose down moment under power combined with nacelle steps that are too forward to provide sufficient pivots for rotation. The first could be solved by mounting the motors to the front of the necelles, which will also provide par thrust and blow the whole wing for enhanced low speed lift. The second could be remedied by fiberglassing 3d printed spacers behind the existing steps to move them back to slightly behind the cg. Good luck and thanks for sharing, she's a very pretty bird.
I'm picturing some little delta-wing style thing that can just dart into the water like a needle. Really high speed in a straight line but with enough momentum to jump back out.
Awesome but.... O-riiiiiings! For the love of whatever you hold dear, please... You are one of the smartest dudes on the internet and o-ring channel design is super easy, especially when you mill the channel out with Ze Robot. No more "trying" to keep compartments watertight;) Anyways, back to the video, maybe you did manage to make it watertight after all, hehe.
@@AB-bu8ti I am not an engineer, maybe just slightly techy/nerdy and I figured it out pretty much just by using the Eriks online o-ring calculator. But I guess I may also have read some articles way back when or maybe some intro text in Parkers O-ring book (online). It's fairly simple. O-rings work by being compressed. Dynamic use cases generally have a bit less compression and static ones a tad more, something like 15-30% but the calculators will tell you and there are published guidelines, too. But you don't want to over do it. Also, importantly, the o-ring still needs to have free space to expand into. If you constrain or compress it on all four sides, it will take a permanent deformation and/or wear out fast. Again, the online calculator will throw a warning if you don't have enough free space. Or if you stretch the ring too much. Also, say you have a rod in a bore that needs to be sealed, you wanna keep the gap between the rod and the bore small enough that the o-ring can't get pushed into the gap. Calculator will warn you of that, too;). But that's most likely an issue at higher pressures. You could actually just do the calcs by hand, too and then add free space, not stretch the o-ring too much and keep the gap small:) But I suggest making a few example designs in the calculator and soon, you will get the hang of it:)
"What the heck is that thing?" - all of the random pedestrians at the end of the vid. GREAT STUFF! Sometimes success and failure can't be distinguished from each other.
As someone who used to restore vehicles for a living I absolutely love glassing. It wasn't a very common repair I got to do as I typically used period correct repairs, but some owners wanted it to look right for lower cost, so filler and glass worked really well sometimes. My absolute favorite was old school body filling using lead.
I am very far from an aeronautical designer, but I'm wondering if your motors are too high/too far back? that could be putting too much forward rotation at low speeds which could be the reason it is plowing into the water. Your previous designs had the motors right up front and even pointing up a bit. Either way, your videos are excellent, thank you!
Daniel, I love your channel and your projects. You are the opposite of lazy. As I watched you apply all that fiberglass I was thinking, I guess you plan on keeping this plane for years to come. On a technical note, over the years I worked on some boat projects while at Columbia University, and a naval engineer turned me on to a three-volume set of books called Principles of Naval Architecture. Columbia's library got them for us, and I was able to look at them. If you can get a hold of them, they are seriously a dense read, but there is an entire chapter dedicated to designing stepped floats for seaplanes. It turns out the design for coming up on plane is trickier than people think. The step has to be the right size and in the right place for it to work effectively. The entire shape of the float is also important. Sorry for the long response but keep up the great work!
13:09 Good lord that’s so pretty, I have never seen mountains with my own eyes because Florida is literally flatter than a pancake, in fact it’s highest point, Britton hill is only 345 feet tall
You might not have been entirely happy with the plane, but, the onlookers looked both impressed and mesmerized by what they saw... Great seeing the drone footage too!
I have been watching you since you started your TH-cam channel. It has been fun watching your engineering skills improve over the years. Your flying skills have always been extraordinary. Keep it going.
Of all things, I enjoyed the coordination with the drone pilot the most. Reminded me of flying virtual aerobatics. Formation flight is always beautiful.
I had one of the original Hobbyking Skippers, that after a few rounds of conformal coating and foam-tac, had a waterproof FPV setup. Now I fly an updated version of the same plane, the Josway Dragonfly, with a from-the-factory waterproof FPV camera. Gotta shake up the norms a bit, once in a while!
Peel ply makes for great hinge material if you're careful with it. We use it in the construction of RC sailplanes. When grams count (over a 4m span) it is lighter than kevlar
So fun! Impressive build. Ground effect is a function of wing span. Longer wings equal more ground effect. Something like half of the span of the wings in distanced to the surface is when the ground effect becomes noticeable.
Alu cutting on the Stepcraft: apply constant cooling with water. I usually sit next to it and apply water with a brush. Alu has many different alloys and it is difficult to find the perfect values each time.
ground effect is absolutely more proportional to size (specifically of the wing) and more weight simply means the cushion of air it builds has to "work harder" so to speak to provide enough pressure to make the ground effect as pronounced as an identical plane with less weight.
"The 1930 Robertson Waterplane ground-effect vehicle powered by an outboard motor". There are pictures and videos, but I don't think I can post a pic in the comments. I saw this the other day and immediately thought this might be something you'd build or at least be interested in knowing existed, if you don't already. In other news... it's getting to be grass cutting season. I hope you are working on your next autonomous mower contraption. I'm a long time subscriber to the channel and grateful for your willingness to share your talents with the world. Keep up the great work! - Stanford
Not bothersome at all! Come say hi again next time haha. BTW, you said you're a rowing coach, right? Might be fun to take the most efficient propeller from my prop competition and build it into a little electric outboard. Then mount that on one of those super efficient row boats you guys have. Would be interesting to measure the wh/km
It really depends more on surface area, the trapped air pressure needs to have space to act on the wing surface. It doesn't care for the airfoil shape, it doesn't care about your speed, it just needs space to act. And his new plane is simply too small to really trap ample air under the wing to have a surface area to act on. adding some bigger wing outboards will allow the air trapped under the plane to properly create a lifting moment akin to a hovercraft. I'm not surprised it performs poorly, when he basically built a seaplane lifting body. To try to build a Grouns effect akin to the Russians, they used Jet engines to literally blow air under the wing to generate bonus lift until the aircraft got up to extreme speed where the stubby wings could trap enough air against the water to switch to a pure ground effect behaviour. This design is too heavy for the former and the high mounted engines are basically driving air over the wing instead of trapping it under
Make the center of the float at step go down further. It needs to ride on the step which is on or slightly behind CG without any of the tail or rear of float touching the lake. When perfected and you can get right angle of attack, it will feel much like wheels, not needing abnormal speed to gain enough lift to take-off. Many years of float and seaplane building and flying experience.
I would love to see a video series of you designing a plane like this in on shape (if you already have that I apologize). As someone who wants to get into making custom RC planes I think it would be really interesting to see your though process when it comes to a design.
Great build! I've been using heat sinks sticking out of the fuse on my ESCs for electric float planes for 20 years now! Love what you did on the VTX, you might want to add that feature for the ESCs too! Consider joining us for the NW RC seaplane championships at Pinehollow! It is hosted by the Portland Skyknights in June.
You and Nick Rehm inspired me to learn onshape and now I can make tons of stuff in there and have some really cool projects. It way expanded my follow through with my creativity.
Awesome video! Looks like your biggest problem with aluminum on that CNC might be that you're heavily recutting chips that aren't being evacuated from the cutting zone. From there, 6061-T4 may be easier to machine and getting a two or three flute endmill with a high helix angle and polished flutes. But most important is clearing those chips from the cut, which a different end mill and some compressed air would help with. Lower down the line would be something like minimum quantity lubrication coolant/lube, but get those chips out of there and you'll have a much better time already.
So many techniques went into the building of this plane. I wonder how many hours the build took and how that compares to the previous foam board ground effect plane? It's a pity it didn't work out quite as expected in terms of ground effect but it's a very beautiful design and finish. I enjoy all your builds but something about the breath of skills used to create this one was really impressive. Great job.
10:17 Spray IPA or just WD40 onto the workpiece while milling. This makes a huge difference in cutting and surface quality. Also, maybe check the alloy you are using. EN-AW-6082, 7075 or 6026 cuts really well.
Agreed, IPA probably does a great job cooling(and the low viscosity improves tolerances), but an emulsion of oil and water is cheaper and won't catch on fire
Wow. Beyond my comprehension. And from my old stomping grounds too!. You are an amazing engineer, covering all scopes of the physical/digital theater. Love your videos. If you are ever inclined to visit Montana, give me a tickle.
I just crashed my 3D printed airplane that took me 50 or more hours to build. Atleast I had fun building and designing it. Youre video's are what keeps me going and trying out new things.😊
Apart from my other comment, this build looks gorgeous! If you continue this concept, it might be cool to see some small canard hydrofoils under or near the button of the leading points of the pontoons. This could get you the taxi pitch you need to rotate at lower throttle.
Recommendation for next time: Make a holder (3d printed) for the servos which mounts into the form instead of the servos themselves so you can swap them if they go bad. Its not very hard to break the tiny gears in those servos
Lovely video. Top-notch engineering. An interesting look at what R&D aeronautics engineering probably looked like nearly a century ago; but with only one guy doing all of it. A nice blend of science & art.
put a step on the floats, it will make a world of difference and hopefully let air get under the wings since adding a step to the existing floats will give you a little bit more depth under the wings to plane on. you may also be able to add a tiny hydrofoil just forward of the CG to help it get some air under the wing and positive angle of attack once on plane to lift off.
My take is that you could have put a V-chine on those sponsons to help 'unglue' the seaplane at takeoff. The other mod I would try is canard foreplanes. They throw the air down, under the wing leading edge, as well as lifting the nose. Best wishes from London UK.
The footage with the drone and the slowmo at the end was amazing! Your building skills have advanced so much, man. Can’t wait what you come up with next :3
Hi! You will have better luck if you mount the prop motors on nacels in front of the wing and blow the thrust at the wing. You may have to make the pontoons a little taller to keep the props out of the water. You have done this on some of your other designs. The thrust from the props flowing around the wing will help lift the vehicle out of the water. Because you are blowing thrust at the wing, it can not be stalled. So you can also increase the angle of attack of the wing a little and compensate by moving the vehicle CG forward a little by moving the battery little forward. This design has a long proven history with the Ekranoplan. Good luck and thanks for showing us your project. Mine is very similar and can be seen by clicking on my icon. It is an roadable amphibious VTOL/Plane Blade Runner style flying car! It is very similar to your design in that it has pontoons with a wing in between, and works really well in all modes: car, VTOL, Plane, and navigates as well as takes off and lands on water.
Maybe a small U foil style extension on the front of the pontoons might help, and keep the weight/drag down? Looks awesome, though, and flies like a dream.
I've been thinking about making a kevlar hinge by spraying a thin strip of the cloth with mold release so it stays flexible and doesn't get impregnated when you bond it to the other parts
Kudos to you for wading into the water and retrieving the broken-off part.
I was about to say the same. Good to see people taking responsibility, and showing a good example.
I was almost disappointed until that footage rolled in.
This was a big departure from your normal builds, quick and dirty prototypes with several modifications until something approximating the concept is created... you went straight into the final form this time. Man the 03 air unit is impressive as heck.
He has an interesting process. I know hindsight is 20/20, but I'm surprised he didn't anticipate the takeoff issues with the pontoon design given his prior experience.
babe wake up a new rctestflight video just dropped
Babe where u at? Babbbe? ... Oh wait 😢
always a good day when i have an rctestflight notification
@@WannaBeQuant_SUB you're literally a child why are you sad you are single 💀
@@TwistedEngineeringit is a joke.
@@subwasd123 is probably isnt tbh
Cutting the Kevlar fabric on the bias (45*) makes the hinges WAY stronger. It results in twice the fibers crossing the hinge line. Yes I did figure this out the hard way haha
Love these videos!
Excellent tip. Is using Kevlar in a hinge a common modeling technique?
That's a great idea. I'm just starting to build some hot wire foam wings, and have been thinking of what hinges to use.
19:11 This is an artistic footage with all those people in the back... cool!
That was super cool
Asstounding footage
That Indian guy had the best head tracking. 😂
that guy mooning the cam is just perfect
@@user-dk1yb8cc8j I think he just noticed the plane, not the camera. Strangely it was the girls who noticed the plane the most. Usually it's guys who pay more attention to stuff like that.
CNC vacuum is the real MVP
Been watching SuperFastMatt? haha
@@ryushi5 Yeah
The cyclone separator has its own video. Its cool to see all the iterations.
@@Ole_CornPop yeah, and superfastMatt's recent video about the form for the land speeder body work really shows how good it is 😂
@dirty_haute holy shiznit, you weren't lying. I've seen that much material with aluminum cnc but that's not as easy to vacuum on the go. Lol
The drone shots at the end were insane
That dude went so close to the water it was crazy
They were beautiful. I've never seen good FPV video from drone to rc plane like that before.
Im building an airboat out of pink foamboard insulation.. Started 3 months ago, got a "working" prototype but 3 months later i now have a 3d printer, a new larger cnc, been staying up way too late learning onshape and so far down the rabbit hole its ridiculous! Loving\hating every minute of it!! Got a few essential tips and ideas from this video.. Thanks! Its been 11 years since i got my first cnc router, if anyone doesnt understand why so many makers videos have therapists services as sponsors, dont laugh -well you can if you want, but designing something from scratch is a mind f**k in a class of its own.. Especially when you're learning on the fly with no formal education in machining and mechanical engineering.. Dont get me wrong, even the pain we go through is enjoyable and the personal reward factor is off the charts, but the pain is real folks 😊 Thanks again for the content --and pain involved in making it !!!!
Well done for sticking with it and working stuff out!
I'm pretty sure that your issue with water operations is two fold- high tail mounted engines providing a nose down moment under power combined with nacelle steps that are too forward to provide sufficient pivots for rotation. The first could be solved by mounting the motors to the front of the necelles, which will also provide par thrust and blow the whole wing for enhanced low speed lift. The second could be remedied by fiberglassing 3d printed spacers behind the existing steps to move them back to slightly behind the cg. Good luck and thanks for sharing, she's a very pretty bird.
You are right! Just like the ekranoplan. He is also wrong about the ground effect.
Dont underestimate the effect of stiction with the water surface.
Check out an old plans design called Sealoon.
Every time I pass these areas on a sunny day I'm always keeping an eye out for exotic RC craft lol
14:57 made me think how cool would a diving plane be!
I'm picturing some little delta-wing style thing that can just dart into the water like a needle. Really high speed in a straight line but with enough momentum to jump back out.
Would be so sick. However you're probably not gonna see much when diving into the water. And it could loose radio signal
@@DigitalJedi Check out the very old movie "City Beneath The Sea". Opening few minutes features a plane that becomes a sub.
Something like an RC Seabreacher would be fun. Probably have to have a pretty tall mast or towed antenna though to maintain signal during dives.
@@ariafpv "It could lose radio signal" yeah and both props lol
The sunset shots with Mt. Rainer in the background are spectacular!
Awesome but.... O-riiiiiings! For the love of whatever you hold dear, please... You are one of the smartest dudes on the internet and o-ring channel design is super easy, especially when you mill the channel out with Ze Robot. No more "trying" to keep compartments watertight;)
Anyways, back to the video, maybe you did manage to make it watertight after all, hehe.
Any suggestion for o-ring design crash course?
@@AB-bu8ti I am not an engineer, maybe just slightly techy/nerdy and I figured it out pretty much just by using the Eriks online o-ring calculator. But I guess I may also have read some articles way back when or maybe some intro text in Parkers O-ring book (online).
It's fairly simple. O-rings work by being compressed. Dynamic use cases generally have a bit less compression and static ones a tad more, something like 15-30% but the calculators will tell you and there are published guidelines, too. But you don't want to over do it. Also, importantly, the o-ring still needs to have free space to expand into. If you constrain or compress it on all four sides, it will take a permanent deformation and/or wear out fast. Again, the online calculator will throw a warning if you don't have enough free space. Or if you stretch the ring too much. Also, say you have a rod in a bore that needs to be sealed, you wanna keep the gap between the rod and the bore small enough that the o-ring can't get pushed into the gap. Calculator will warn you of that, too;). But that's most likely an issue at higher pressures.
You could actually just do the calcs by hand, too and then add free space, not stretch the o-ring too much and keep the gap small:)
But I suggest making a few example designs in the calculator and soon, you will get the hang of it:)
"It doesn't really sail, so let's fly it" 😂 So weird to hear that
That's what they said on the Titanic before aborting a takeoff -- DCA style (Google that reference!) -- and crashing into an iceberg.
thats got to be the best pirate ive ever seen
"What the heck is that thing?" - all of the random pedestrians at the end of the vid. GREAT STUFF! Sometimes success and failure can't be distinguished from each other.
Your friend getting the shots from his quad did a fantastic job!
As someone who used to restore vehicles for a living I absolutely love glassing. It wasn't a very common repair I got to do as I typically used period correct repairs, but some owners wanted it to look right for lower cost, so filler and glass worked really well sometimes. My absolute favorite was old school body filling using lead.
When you mill aluminum, just use some water, coolant, or WD40 to make the milling go smooth. Awesome project, as always!
I am very far from an aeronautical designer, but I'm wondering if your motors are too high/too far back? that could be putting too much forward rotation at low speeds which could be the reason it is plowing into the water. Your previous designs had the motors right up front and even pointing up a bit. Either way, your videos are excellent, thank you!
I thought that too: thrust-line's too high compared to the previous forward-mounted motors?
Good work turning your hobby into something not only monetized but also thoroughly entertaining
The FPV is stunning. Some more air to air flybys would have been great if the drone could keep up!
Daniel, I love your channel and your projects. You are the opposite of lazy. As I watched you apply all that fiberglass I was thinking, I guess you plan on keeping this plane for years to come. On a technical note, over the years I worked on some boat projects while at Columbia University, and a naval engineer turned me on to a three-volume set of books called Principles of Naval Architecture. Columbia's library got them for us, and I was able to look at them. If you can get a hold of them, they are seriously a dense read, but there is an entire chapter dedicated to designing stepped floats for seaplanes. It turns out the design for coming up on plane is trickier than people think. The step has to be the right size and in the right place for it to work effectively. The entire shape of the float is also important. Sorry for the long response but keep up the great work!
13:09 Good lord that’s so pretty, I have never seen mountains with my own eyes because Florida is literally flatter than a pancake, in fact it’s highest point, Britton hill is only 345 feet tall
16:40 your welcome
Nice. It’s awesome how you show it like it is including your failures.
Thanks for this! There's for sure a gap on FPV Seaplanes models, glad someone else likes flying from water like I do! Cheers! 🌊+✈
I've watched this channel since the early days, the progress and change in technology and sophistication of your builds is impressive, nice work!
Flew way better than i would have guessed but surface effects on water way less. 😊
That CF plate has more screws than a Boeing door
😂
You might not have been entirely happy with the plane, but, the onlookers looked both impressed and mesmerized by what they saw... Great seeing the drone footage too!
I have been watching you since you started your TH-cam channel. It has been fun watching your engineering skills improve over the years. Your flying skills have always been extraordinary.
Keep it going.
Watching your videos is always an inspiring experience. I always feel the need to get up and build something after watching one. Thanks for sharing!
Wait, you're here in wonderful Washington state? Cool!
man I could watch those drone and FPV shots for hours
I knew when rctestflight and Think Flight had their bromance there would be a love child. She's so cute!
Of all things, I enjoyed the coordination with the drone pilot the most. Reminded me of flying virtual aerobatics. Formation flight is always beautiful.
Loved the 600fps with the onlookers in the background.
Even though your not impressed with this, i love it it's awesome!
Seattle is such a beautiful city thank you for being another person to put us on the map ; )
I had one of the original Hobbyking Skippers, that after a few rounds of conformal coating and foam-tac, had a waterproof FPV setup. Now I fly an updated version of the same plane, the Josway Dragonfly, with a from-the-factory waterproof FPV camera. Gotta shake up the norms a bit, once in a while!
I think the orange for flying near people is GREAT. it adds some really cool reaction shots!
Peel ply makes for great hinge material if you're careful with it. We use it in the construction of RC sailplanes. When grams count (over a 4m span) it is lighter than kevlar
I’m always surprised how massive these builds are.
FYI you can also get kevlar interwoven with carbon fiber and save a step. Beautiful design and work regardless
So fun! Impressive build.
Ground effect is a function of wing span. Longer wings equal more ground effect. Something like half of the span of the wings in distanced to the surface is when the ground effect becomes noticeable.
Alu cutting on the Stepcraft: apply constant cooling with water. I usually sit next to it and apply water with a brush. Alu has many different alloys and it is difficult to find the perfect values each time.
ground effect is absolutely more proportional to size (specifically of the wing) and more weight simply means the cushion of air it builds has to "work harder" so to speak to provide enough pressure to make the ground effect as pronounced as an identical plane with less weight.
Epic build! Take note that not all glues and adhesives "dry", some of them like silicone also "cure" like epoxy.
"The 1930 Robertson Waterplane ground-effect vehicle powered by an outboard motor". There are pictures and videos, but I don't think I can post a pic in the comments. I saw this the other day and immediately thought this might be something you'd build or at least be interested in knowing existed, if you don't already. In other news... it's getting to be grass cutting season. I hope you are working on your next autonomous mower contraption. I'm a long time subscriber to the channel and grateful for your willingness to share your talents with the world. Keep up the great work! - Stanford
Hey I said hi on my bike ride yesterday, sorry if I bothered you. I’ve always loved projects like yours, so it was super cool to see
Not bothersome at all! Come say hi again next time haha. BTW, you said you're a rowing coach, right? Might be fun to take the most efficient propeller from my prop competition and build it into a little electric outboard. Then mount that on one of those super efficient row boats you guys have. Would be interesting to measure the wh/km
Great video Daniel! Was nice seeing this RCTestFlight build in the flesh at at Open Sauce 😊
Thanks James! Hope to see you again this year!
@@rctestflight you will! Can’t wait
I like your video and I'm a big fan
Same
Looks really nice! I love your designs and building methods.
Ground effect scales with wingspan. If you want to maximize it, make your wings wider.
It really depends more on surface area, the trapped air pressure needs to have space to act on the wing surface. It doesn't care for the airfoil shape, it doesn't care about your speed, it just needs space to act. And his new plane is simply too small to really trap ample air under the wing to have a surface area to act on. adding some bigger wing outboards will allow the air trapped under the plane to properly create a lifting moment akin to a hovercraft. I'm not surprised it performs poorly, when he basically built a seaplane lifting body. To try to build a Grouns effect akin to the Russians, they used Jet engines to literally blow air under the wing to generate bonus lift until the aircraft got up to extreme speed where the stubby wings could trap enough air against the water to switch to a pure ground effect behaviour.
This design is too heavy for the former and the high mounted engines are basically driving air over the wing instead of trapping it under
It was really cool watching the fiberglass layup! Maybe if the motors were forward, they would blow air under the plane and create some ground effect.
Make the center of the float at step go down further. It needs to ride on the step which is on or slightly behind CG without any of the tail or rear of float touching the lake. When perfected and you can get right angle of attack, it will feel much like wheels, not needing abnormal speed to gain enough lift to take-off. Many years of float and seaplane building and flying experience.
I would love to see a video series of you designing a plane like this in on shape (if you already have that I apologize). As someone who wants to get into making custom RC planes I think it would be really interesting to see your though process when it comes to a design.
That footage on the foggy lake…..just wow. Stunning setting.
Great build! I've been using heat sinks sticking out of the fuse on my ESCs for electric float planes for 20 years now! Love what you did on the VTX, you might want to add that feature for the ESCs too! Consider joining us for the NW RC seaplane championships at Pinehollow! It is hosted by the Portland Skyknights in June.
You and Nick Rehm inspired me to learn onshape and now I can make tons of stuff in there and have some really cool projects. It way expanded my follow through with my creativity.
Awesome video! Looks like your biggest problem with aluminum on that CNC might be that you're heavily recutting chips that aren't being evacuated from the cutting zone. From there, 6061-T4 may be easier to machine and getting a two or three flute endmill with a high helix angle and polished flutes. But most important is clearing those chips from the cut, which a different end mill and some compressed air would help with. Lower down the line would be something like minimum quantity lubrication coolant/lube, but get those chips out of there and you'll have a much better time already.
I am living vicariously through your cool hobbies.
I've been a subscriber since you were a kid. You make some cool stuff but I miss the early FPV days when you were just seeing what worked.
best rc vehicle test channel EVER
So many techniques went into the building of this plane. I wonder how many hours the build took and how that compares to the previous foam board ground effect plane?
It's a pity it didn't work out quite as expected in terms of ground effect but it's a very beautiful design and finish.
I enjoy all your builds but something about the breath of skills used to create this one was really impressive. Great job.
Nice first flight, and the clarity on that onboard camera is insane. Some beautiful footage, including the fog. Thank you.
10:17
Spray IPA or just WD40 onto the workpiece while milling. This makes a huge difference in cutting and surface quality. Also, maybe check the alloy you are using. EN-AW-6082, 7075 or 6026 cuts really well.
Agreed, IPA probably does a great job cooling(and the low viscosity improves tolerances), but an emulsion of oil and water is cheaper and won't catch on fire
A suggestion to save weight on the next round: build pontoons hollow.
the manufacturing process here was fascinating. thanks for sharing all the cool details!
You know it's a good day when rctestflight posts!!
the last shots from the drone and the slowmo at the end are insane
dude youre living the dream.
Wow. Beyond my comprehension. And from my old stomping grounds too!. You are an amazing engineer, covering all scopes of the physical/digital theater. Love your videos. If you are ever inclined to visit Montana, give me a tickle.
I live for the "wowee" in your videos
When milling in aluminium, use Isopropanol as a cooling liquid. That does the trick. Start with little and add more when needed.
Or Paraffin (kerosine).
Morning eggs and bacon on toast with some rctestflight videos to go with it is my favorite kind of morning
doesnt matter if its a bad GEV, it looks extremely good!
In the water, put some foils under it so it gets up on those for stability and still has ground effect.
rctestflight vids make my day better
Those shots on the lake at 16 minutes are incredible
I can't wait to see you do some variable geometry stuff, love to see an rctestflight rig that can go from 'dead slow' to 'holy crap!'
I just crashed my 3D printed airplane that took me 50 or more hours to build. Atleast I had fun building and designing it. Youre video's are what keeps me going and trying out new things.😊
Apart from my other comment, this build looks gorgeous! If you continue this concept, it might be cool to see some small canard hydrofoils under or near the button of the leading points of the pontoons. This could get you the taxi pitch you need to rotate at lower throttle.
Recommendation for next time: Make a holder (3d printed) for the servos which mounts into the form instead of the servos themselves so you can swap them if they go bad. Its not very hard to break the tiny gears in those servos
Lovely video. Top-notch engineering.
An interesting look at what R&D aeronautics engineering probably looked like nearly a century ago; but with only one guy doing all of it. A nice blend of science & art.
The avionics are pretty 21st century
This was a nice surprise. I like you making something that you're willing to spend some time on to do it right.
Great video from Lake Union and Montlake. So cool to see local creators show up on the feed!
Oh this is going to be amazeballs, you are a modelling master Dan
Ever think of building an underwater glider? Would love to see your take on something like that.
Sick arial shots
Indeed! (Also, its aerial)
@@Unapersonaconunmicroscopio same thing
put a step on the floats, it will make a world of difference and hopefully let air get under the wings since adding a step to the existing floats will give you a little bit more depth under the wings to plane on. you may also be able to add a tiny hydrofoil just forward of the CG to help it get some air under the wing and positive angle of attack once on plane to lift off.
My take is that you could have put a V-chine on those sponsons to help 'unglue' the seaplane at takeoff. The other mod I would try is canard foreplanes. They throw the air down, under the wing leading edge, as well as lifting the nose. Best wishes from London UK.
The footage with the drone and the slowmo at the end was amazing! Your building skills have advanced so much, man. Can’t wait what you come up with next :3
Your flight makes Seattle look so cool.
Gasworks Park was my favorite place as a kid.
Limited ground effect due to the props not feeding the belly with air at all? Thrust points it down as well.
Hi! You will have better luck if you mount the prop motors on nacels in front of the wing and blow the thrust at the wing. You may have to make the pontoons a little taller to keep the props out of the water. You have done this on some of your other designs. The thrust from the props flowing around the wing will help lift the vehicle out of the water. Because you are blowing thrust at the wing, it can not be stalled. So you can also increase the angle of attack of the wing a little and compensate by moving the vehicle CG forward a little by moving the battery little forward. This design has a long proven history with the Ekranoplan. Good luck and thanks for showing us your project. Mine is very similar and can be seen by clicking on my icon. It is an roadable amphibious VTOL/Plane Blade Runner style flying car! It is very similar to your design in that it has pontoons with a wing in between, and works really well in all modes: car, VTOL, Plane, and navigates as well as takes off and lands on water.
Maybe a small U foil style extension on the front of the pontoons might help, and keep the weight/drag down? Looks awesome, though, and flies like a dream.
Tail wing. Last ground effect vehicle had rotating thrust and a tail wing to help lift.
It does seem to fly really well.
Looks like Gavin had some part in that. Like always Daniel you killed it bro. I love rctestflite.
I've been thinking about making a kevlar hinge by spraying a thin strip of the cloth with mold release so it stays flexible and doesn't get impregnated when you bond it to the other parts
put fabrics (silk) between styro when you glue it together, so it cannot break, and you have a hinge for elerons