Flying brick project, a heavy plane without wings.

The wingless planes have always caught my attention, I have seen the documentaries in which NASA engineers are making the first experiments to create what later became the space shuttle, the first prototype they made was built in a garage with wood and steel and they would fly it in tow with a car.  

(I have put videos that I recorded as I was doing the project but I have also made a video of the whole project. I will put the minute in which what I am saying happens.)

2015-apr-15

 I was testing the concept by carving some models in solid foam and seeing how they flew, it is difficult they are stable but there is one that flew very well, so I made a bigger and very light version and since it still flew well I put a motor and a propeller in it and it worked really well. 

2019-apr-24

Rctestflight published a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmRX-CzJbd0) in which he was trying to do something like this to launch it from a probe balloon at 30km (9800ft)  altitude. But he couldn't get any of it to work well. I remembered that my model was stable and returned to the project. This time I made a model very heavy with solid foam a small hole for the electronics and loaded with a lot of lead. It weighed 350 grams and had only 15 cm (6 in)  wingspan.

Here you can see the first tests, I pilote it with a radio and I can steer it perfectly, the only thing that lands a little hard     (The nasa engineers used rockets in the landing phase to give it speed and land it safely) These launches were done from my zanganoXL plane, a super stable plane with a lot of cargo capacity, that way I could let it fly out of control and in the meantime land the "brick.

The bad thing about this brick model is that the hole in the bottom that gave it that stability also drag a lot so it had bad glide ratio.(Even so a brick could not expect much glide)

3:15 https://youtu.be/O9lJ91PvCfY?t=195

2020-may-12

I started to make another design. Here's a test throw with a rubber band.

7:04 https://youtu.be/O9lJ91PvCfY?t=423

It seems to be working well, I'm going to make a bigger and heavier one, the bad thing is that I no longer had the zanganoXL cargo plane, a turbulence ripped off a wing and it didn't end well     

So I made the best cargo plane in the world, the stratolaunch, rather a version: Double fuselage and double motor, the weight is very distributed in the wing so they don't suffer much. Still inside the wing has an aluminium plate to reinforce. A beast: 2.6 meters wingspan and powered by two 1300kv motor with 8x4 propellers. 

I've also created a 3d print load release hook that can hold more than 2kg without moving, and the good thing is that the servo doesn't need to make any kind of force to hold it or release it. I tell you in more detail in this other article. 

The V2.1 flying brick is a foam box covered with tape, and as the stratolaunch is more unstable I can't let go of the controls so the brick has a small automatic pilot that should bring the plane back. 

The bad thing about this design is that it is highly unstable, when I change the rear part that was slowing down the V1 model, it lost all the stability and it doesn't matter what I do that goes into a spiral. It would be solved by adding a dihedral, but let's see how I can add it a dihedral if it doesn't have any wings    

I've tried to put the bottom part of it more rounded to see if it makes a dihedral effect but nothing, it keeps going into a spiral.  So again to think a new model.

This time it has a pointed shape that should give it stability, I have tried several small models and they were all very bad.

10:02 https://youtu.be/O9lJ91PvCfY?t=602

Now I have made one similar to dream chaser  MiG-105  which is an old Soviet design and has given me good results, I have been modifying it to look more like a flying foam box and I have ended up to this design. Now I'm testing it and it seems to work well. The idea is to finally launch it from a balloon probe from the edge of space and make a controlled descent with all the measuring instruments and cameras, possibly reaching supersonic speed, see if that can stand it.

I'm experimenting with putting a proximity sensor on it so that it will up the elevator when it approaches the ground to land gently. I'll tell you how it goes in the next article, let's see if the weather gets better and I have a chance to fly it. 

I hope it was interesting to you, thank you very much for reading me.