Tag Archives: Dayton

Dayton Test Build from Kit

Experimental,

I just did a Dayton kit build. It went together very fast.

What worked well:

  • The motor stick came out very rigid!
  • The paper is really easy to deal with. Printing or decorating will probably come forward for kids.
  • Wheels are pretty cool!
  • The wing has a quarter of an inch more chord! I may reduce the wingspan to 11.5 or 11″.
  • I realized that the upright wing tips overlap with the leading and trailing edge. This makes sure the four corners of the wing are glued. With Squirrels children often leave gaps. You can cap them with shards of balsa but it’s better to not have a gap.
  • The angle of incidence of the tailplane seems to be okay. More testing to come but the rise is 3/16′ over 3″.

Problems:

  • I forgot the toothpick grove. I just used blocks to mount the toothpick for now. In retrospect, I realize the grove can be made by having a gap in one of the fuselage sides. After inserting the toothpick and capping it, it should be strong and will not require as much glue dry time for the toothpick.
  • It’s still a little tricky to assemble the wing. I used the wing tips as spacers to glue the leading and trailing edge. Then glued the wingtips later. I need to see a few people do this to convinced myself it’s easy enough.
  • The stabilizer notch in the motor stick could be tighter and deeper.
  • The laser cut shows where to mount the wing but the fuselage isn’t even for the tape.
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Model Plane Meetups!

Gallery,

Two events! Get your tickets right away as ticket sales close Friday at 4pm. If you don’t have a credit card or paypal, send me a note for your RSVP.

This Sunday at 2pm, make the Sparrow catapult glider!

Sparrow  is designed by Lloyd Shales. It’s very easy to make and is an amazing flyer. A catapult glider works like a sling shot so bring your running shoes!

The event will be at Wild Wing which has a large fields next to it. We can make the planes, have a beer or food while the glue is drying and then bring them to the large field.

Eventbrite - Sparrow Model Plane! before Friday at 4pm!

This Sunday at 7pm, lets make Dayton model planes with wheels!

These sorts of simple model airplanes are fun for all ages but we are doing the event in a pub.

This will be at Busters Pub, 2525 Carling Avenue, Ottawa, Ontario at 7pm. Come early for a brew or food!

The Dayton model airplane is a new design (September 2012)! It’s based on the Squirrel.

Eventbrite - Make your own rubber band plane before Friday at 4pm!

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Dayton Wing Mount

Experimental

I’ve run a Dayton in a hallway which resulted in the wing mount failing. The point of failure on the first break was right behind he tape in the front. The second failure was just ahead of the tape in the back.

We sat at the pub and contemplated (an important part of the design process). 🙂

Here’s the scoop so far. The Squirrel will rarely break for a couple of reasons. One is the wing held in place by an elastic. This not only allows a wing adjustment (and removal) but it has flexibility.

Secondly, the beam is cut to 1/8×1/16″ (to match the motor stick thickness) instead of 1/4×1/16″. I snipped them with scissors since I made the part from scratch. I could have fractured the wood. Laser cutting might be better here.

What I really like about the taping system is the wing doesn’t shift. The plane stays in trim better.

Perhaps the answer is to go to 1/8th Square here. It’s might be strong enough but I need to make sure we don’t start breaking the wing leading edge or something else. Another thing that has come to mind is to split the tape so that the tape will fail. This would be interesting for kids since the make an extra step to cut the tape thinner but learn about the trade-off of the different fail modes that come forward.

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