Piper Cherokee (low wing trainer)

Piper Cherokee

Low wing trainer

Wing Span  1195mm

Fuselage  957mm

AUW 1290grams/2.84lbs

E-Power BL2815 Brushless Outrunner Motor 1400KV 

10 x 7 3 blade prop

Tested using a 3s 2200mah

Full function flaps

Elevator

Ailerons

Rudder

Steerable nose wheel

Removable wing

So why a low wing trainer ?? 

Well everyone seems too be building Cubs,high wing trainers or SToL.Personally,Iprefer the low wing look and I wanted a model with decent,robust landing gear capable of withstanding heavy impacts or even crashing.We all need to learn to  land at some point!

Landing gear

Dihedral is perhaps a little steep !

Some pre flight shots

A picture of internal formers

The plane has been designed and built to the same specification as my P51B Mustang,However,this is the original model and true to form has already undergone changes :)

So,how does it fly?

I maidened her on a calm friday night a few weeks back,spent quite a while taxi-ing up and down the car park trying to convince myself I had done everything I could to ensure a successfull maiden.

Each run was getting faster,and each run was consistently running true and straight (least the undercarriage was working !!) Then it was do or die,full flaps and off I went....

1st time,clean lift and a steady climb.The CoG wasn't to bad but as I have found with later flights it has a very large tolerance for positioning the CoG. A couple of circuits round the field and then landed (something I am not very good at by the way ....hence the trainer with under carriage :P )

She has had about 20 or so batteries thru her now,thats possibly about an hours flying and apart from a suspected burnt out rudder/nose wheel servo,she's still good to go.

I kept the wing as simple as possible for the maiden flight,the wing tips are to be rounded on the finished model and servo's shall be removable as per my other builds,for this version they were just hot glued into the bottom of the wing.

A build blog will follow as will plans.

Talking of plans,the 1st set were printed straight from Sketchup and I have been trying several different methods for printing them .......people make this look easy..... My conclusion...I'm missing something because up till now I just couldn't get it right but hopefully,there shall be a set on pdf for you all to try .....soon....hopefully....if you want ;-)

The flight footage :-) 

We were still dialing in the CoG so the plane was a little twichy,that and it was windy.You might also notice on the line up for approach,the battery died......oh well !!

http://youtu.be/ncuDRqcm3UE?list=UUyg-G6WBI91yM0O3bvU_4Yg

2nd video shows the plane has the capabilty too perfom basic stunts...loops,rolls etc....

http://youtu.be/ZXAWvswjitQ

Thanks for reading,hope you enjoyed and watch out for the build blog and plans.

Cheers Scottie