I got a note from Dinkar on an upcomming Annual Science Exhibition in India. He is planning on presenting the Squirrel as a project (along with some stuff he will receive from Bill Khul).
I think this is very exciting and look forward to giving him a hand in any way that I can.
In the 2010 version of this exhibition the theme was International Biodiversity.
Dinkar received two of the three boxes that were sent out. The one missing is the camera I sent him so we’re still using his phone camera. Pictured below is his postman whom he says is a very nice person. You can see that the boxes made from reused cardboard survive quite well.
The lubricant which I bottled and double bagged leaked. I’m surprised. There must be a lot of temperature and pressure variation during shipping. I will send some lubricant to some more addresses to see if I can get it to survive shipping. Also I was surprised to find that some of the sticks on the AMA Cub arrived broken.
I sent the Minnow and the AMA Cub. The minnow was designed by my friend Lloyd Shales. It’s a great indoor model.
The AMA Cub is the Squirrel’s predecessor. Designed by Frank Ehling around 1957 it was revolutionary. It still requires tools and many steps and parts and when I used it to introduce people to model aviation, I found that it was still too much work.
So that’s why I designed the Squirrel. To make it easier.
Shubham Narwade of India is bringing his Squirrel (from Uncle Dinkar) to school to share with his classmates and teachers. He is going into grade 7.
I think I’m onto something here as you can see from these pictures from the lab.
On the design I’m still working on a few challenges. I’m convinced it flies well with just webbing rather than the banner. I flew that configuration it in the lab. It’s tricky to get a good assessment indoors but I’ve used to it. 🙂
A couple things about assembly and a couple things about aerodynamics are on the table. There are some configurations that get into an accelerated phugoid. I think I may learn something about aerodynamics here as I can’t imagine what could cause that.
But it’s pretty clear that this will gel pretty soon.
This thing has more wing area than a Squirrel but actually less balsa parts. It also has a lot of space to add a message which I think will be very exciting. People can decorate the banner with markers and so forth and then attach it to the plane.
I’m going with a fixed wing attachment rather than a sliding one (since I haven’t figured out how to make it slide). It’s difficult for prototyping since I have to add ballast or move the propeller fore and aft. But in the end I think it will be predictable to fly without trimming. We’ll see if I can get that to gel. I need to spend at least another a hundred hours or so on this. I’m pretty excited as I see some potential here.
The working name “voice” is a little dry. But it’s a cool working name since the plane can deliver a message through it’s banner. “Tweet” is nice. Since a tweet is short and limited to physical proximity. I will name it after the design is finished.
My original idea was that this plane could make some rounds at various protests and public events and carry peoples’ messages. That’s where the working name “voice” came in.
