Plane Project
I’ve begun working on a project which involves designing and 3D-printing an RC plane. I don’t have a lot of experience in the skills required to execute this project, which is why I’m doing it.
My ultimate goal to create a modular fixed-wing autonomous aircraft platform to fulfill a variety of operation specifications—quickly and easily. However, there are A LOT of steps to get to that point, and it’s going to take time. I’ve just gotten tired of seeing YouTube videos about cool projects without doing one myself. Doesn’t hurt the resume either, LOL.
Step 1: Design, Build, and Fly a 3D-Printed RC Plane
I imagine (and hope) that this will be the hardest part of the project, at least in shear effort. But there’s only one way to get the ball rolling.
Design: I know how to CAD pretty well already, but Onshape is a newer software for me, and some of the more advanced tools, which I’ll need, are a bit tougher for me. The actual modeling isn’t bad, but Onshape’s assembly studio is a large departure from what I’m used to in SolidWorks. That’s the easy part, though. Actually designing the plane so that it’s aerodynamically preferable, that it can fit all of the electronics, that it has a proper weight distribution, etc. There’s a lot of factors there. In order to move as quickly as possible, though, I just need to forget about trying to know everything going in, perform a bit of research, and just try different things, and learn from there.
Build: I don’t know what I don’t know, which is why I need to churn out designs and test them. Right now, it seems pretty simple, but I’m sure it’ll be more difficult than I anticipate.
Fly: I’ve flown RC planes before, but only when I was much younger. The goal is to design something that’s not difficult to fly. I also need to figure out trimming the aircraft as well as mixing, which is going to be vital for future designs.
I’m going to build a Piper model that my dad has to hopefully shed some insight into all of these aspects of Step 1. Also, given the nature of iterative development, all of these elements of the first aircraft are going to be performed simultaneously and (obviously) influence one another.
Initial Designs
I didn’t know quite where to start, and I just started messing around in Onshape. After I made the first design (left), I realized that was going to be impossible to make at my experience level, and humbly decided I needed to design a prop-plane before moving to EDF, if that turns out to be a better option.
This was the first “plane” I designed for this project. It was more of a fun thing than something practical, at least for the stage I’m currently in. Flying wings are not very stable, and combine that with not very much RC experience and the flight dynamics of a 3D printed plane (primarily mass).
At some point I’d definitely like to flesh this design out (sort of like NG X-47B) after going through extensive CFD.
After coming to terms with the reality of not being able to make a sick EDF stealth jet, I decided to design a sort of hot-rod prop plane, denoted as V0.1. This served more as a lesson in using splines and lofts, which is definitely one of the must frustrating tools in CAD. At a certain point I definitely want to be able to define splines using equations.
Primary Design - V0.2 - 10/19/24
Version 0.2 serves purely as a virtual trial for the design without fleshing out internals and ensuring perfect aerodynamic design. The fuselage is a tapered vertical elliptical. The wings are dihedral with a straight leading edge and an inward tapered trailing edge. From root to tip, the airfoil moves from a positive mean camber line to a symmetrical shape. At this point, picking or designing the perfect airfoil is pointless, but I am doing research and following a general shape. Some aspects of the design are based off of research, such as ailerons being closer to the tip than the root for increased control at lower speeds. However, most other components are just based on how cool they look. I’m just trying not to get carried away.
I’ve tried printing the forward fuselage section just as a test, and that’s proving to be difficult. About 1/3 through the print, the part stops sticking to the bed and everything crashes.
So, my next steps are to figure out how to get the part to stick to the bed, and move onto V0.3, where I’ll focus more on practical design and beginning internal component work. I asked Reddit about any tips/advice that could be given, and most of it was “don’t start your RC experience with a 3D printed plane,” which was unfortunate, but somehow not discouraging. I’m committed to figuring this out, even if it’s going to be extremely frustrating.
