100% final report

AMAR SAJJAD, SALMAN SADIQ, MUHAMMAD RIZWAN, ADBUL RAHMAN, MUHAFIZ GHOGARI 1

Table of contents

Sr. No Topic Page No

1 Abstract 2

2 Introduction 3

3 History

UAV 4-5

VTOL 5-6

4 Design Concepts

Tri-craft 6-8

Initial Gantt chart 9-10

Updated Gantt chart 11-12

Initial Estimated Budget 13

Final Budget 14-15

5 Drawings 15-18

6 Calculations

Wing 18-20

Fuselage 20

Boom 21

Horizontal stabilizer 21

Vertical stabilizer 21-24

Center of gravity 25

7 Construction

Right wing 25-36

Left wing 36-46

Right boom 24-58

Fuselage 59-69

Left boom 69-85

8 Appendix


Parametric study 1 86-87

Parametric study 2 87-88

Tools required 88

9 Recommendations and conclusion 89-90

10 References 91


Abstract

Our group has decided on making an aircraft which will have three motors and

will be able to have vertical takeoff as well as horizontal takeoff. Two motors

should be 90 degree rotatable and will be fixed at the front part of the booms.

This type of aircraft can be used in various applications such as military,

surveillance and business. In this project we were first required to present the

idea which we have, give the proposal and parametric studies and show the

AutoCAD design of the approved model. This aircraft is made from scratch and

all the dimensions, material selection and calculations are shown in this report.


Introduction

In this project we made a UAV from a scratch which will be capable of vertical

takeoff as well as horizontal takeoff. UAV stands for unmanned aerial vehicle

which means that the aircraft is controlled by a remote or transmitter from the

ground. There are basically two categories in the UAV one is the autonomous

UAV and other is the remotely piloted aircrafts. The one which we made is

remotely piloted aircraft and it will use aerodynamic forces to lift it and

perform different maneuvers.

The aircraft will have 3 motors which will power it and out of the 3 motors 2

will be 90 degree rotatable and will be fixed at the front section of the booms.

The third motor will be used to provide balance and stability to the aircraft

during the vertical takeoff. The third motor will stop once the aircraft starts a

horizontal flight. This motor will support the aircraft in the air while the motors

rotate 90 degrees for the horizontal flight (transition point).

In this report we have included all the previous designs that we had and the

differences between them. We have also included the different parametric

studies which match with our model. All the construction steps and procedures

are discussed in this report along with the problems we faced and how we

rectified those problem. All the materials we have selected for each part of the

aircraft and which tools we used to work on them is also mentioned. We have

also mentioned the electrical equipment’s we used and the calculations which

represent the required power of batteries and motors. In this report, we have

also shown the initial Gantt chart and the updated Gantt chart of the group and

the explanations and reasons for the failure to complete the certain task on

time.


History of UAV

Using bats to carry incendiary bombs into enemy territory wasn't a good idea,

and it wasn't the first bad idea in the

history of unmanned aerial vehicles

(UAVs). During the American Civil

War, an inventor patented an

unmanned balloon that carried

explosives that could be dropped

after a time-delay fuse mechanism

triggered the basket to overturn its

contents. Air currents and weather

patterns made it difficult to estimate

for how long to set the fuse, and the balloon was never successfully deployed.

By 1883, the first aerial photograph was taken using a kite, a camera and a very

long string attached to the shutter-release of the camera. In 1898, this

technology was put to use in the Spanish-American War, resulting in the first

military aerial reconnaissance photos.

World War I saw the development and testing of various radio-controlled

unmanned aircraft, but none emerged from the testing phase in time to be used

before the war ended.

In the 1930s, the British Royal Navy developed a primitive, radio-controlled

UAV: the Queen Bee. The Queen Bee could be landed for future reuse and could

reach speeds of 100 mph (160 km/h). Instead of being used offensively though,

the Queen Bee primarily served as aerial target practice for British pilots.

During World War II, Nazis developed a UAV to be used against nonmilitary

targets. The Revenge Weapon 1, an unmanned flying bomb better known as the

V-1, could reach speeds of almost 500 mph (804 km/h), carry 2,000 pounds

(907 kilograms) of explosives and could travel 150 miles (241 kilometers)

before releasing its ordnance. Its wingspan was about 20 feet (6 m), and it

measured nearly 25 feet (7.6 m) long. In towns and cities across Britain, the V-

1 was responsible for more than 900 civilian deaths and 35,000 injured

civilians [source: NOVA].

Figure 1- Presentation


In the 1960s and 70s, the United States flew more than 34,000 surveillance

flights using the AQM-34 Ryan Firebee, a UAV launched from a host plane and

controlled by operators within that plane. The U.S. also employed UAVs called

Lightning Bugs that were released from airborne C-130s for missions over

China and Vietnam. Engineers from the manufacturer operated the aircraft

with a joystick control.

In the late 1970s and 80s, Israel developed the Scout and the Pioneer, which

represented a shift toward the lighter, glider-type model of UAV in use today.

The Scout was notable for its ability to transmit live video with a 360-degree

view of the terrain. The small size of these UAVs made them inexpensive to

produce and difficult to shoot down.

The U.S. acquired Pioneer UAVs from Israel and used them in the Gulf War. On

at least one occasion, Iraqi soldiers attempted to surrender to one of the UAVs

as it flew overhead [source: NOVA]

Although UAV technology saw sporadic development throughout the 20th

century, it wasn't until the Predator drone arrived on the scene that unmanned

aerial vehicles earned a permanent place in the arsenal. To understand the

Reaper, it'll help us to know a little about its direct predecessor, the MQ-1

Predator. We'll read about this landmark UAV next.

History of VTOL Aircrafts

In addition to the helicopter, many approaches have been tried to develop

practical aircraft with vertical take-off and landing capabilities. Nikola Tesla

patented a vertical take-off and landing vehicle concept in 1921.

In May 1951, both Lockheed and Convair were awarded contracts in the

attempt to design, construct, and test two experimental VTOL fighters.

Lockheed produced the XFV, and Convair producing the Convair XFY Pogo. Both

experimental programs proceeded to flight status and completed test flights

1954–1955, when the contracts were cancelled. Similarly, the X-13 flew a series

of test flights between 1955 and 1957, but also suffered the same fate.

The use of vertical fans driven by engines was investigated in the 1950s. The

US built an aircraft where the jet exhaust drove the fans, while British projects

not built included fans driven by mechanical drives from the jet engines.


NASA has flown other VTOL craft such as the Bell XV-15 research craft (1977),

as have the Soviet Navy and Luftwaffe. Sikorsky tested an aircraft dubbed the

X-Wing, which took off in the manner of a helicopter. The rotors would become

stationary in mid-flight, and function as wings, providing lift in addition to the

static wings. Boeing X-50 is a Canard Rotor/Wing prototype that utilizes a

similar concept.

A different British VTOL project was the gyrodyne, where a rotor is powered

during take-off and landing but which then freewheels during flight, with

separate propulsion engines providing forward thrust. Starting with the Fairey

Gyrodyne, this type of aircraft later evolved into the much larger twin-engined

Fairey Rotodyne, that used tipjets to power the rotor on take-off and landing

but which then used two Napier Eland turboprops driving conventional

propellers mounted on substantial wings to provide propulsion, the wings

serving to unload the rotor during horizontal flight. The Rotodyne was

developed to combine the efficiency of a fixed-wing aircraft at cruise with the

VTOL capability of a helicopter to provide short haul airliner service from city

centers to airports.

Design concept

Figure 2 Tri craft from top


Figure 3 Tricraft from side

Figure 4- Tri craft from side


Figure 5 Tricraft from front

The aircraft shown above is the aircraft we are going to make in the project.

We named it Tri-craft as it has three engines. The front two engines will be

movable and the third engine will be fixed. According to our plan the first two

engines should be placed at the front section of the boom and these two motors

will be rotatable. The third motor which is fixed at the back section of fuselage

will not be rotatable and this motor will be used to provide balance and stability

during the vertical takeoff.


Initial Gantt chart

7-Sep-15 17-Sep-1527-Sep-15 7-Oct-15 17-Oct-1527-Oct-15 6-Nov-1516-Nov-1526-Nov-156-Dec-15

Making of proposal

Calculations

Purchasing

Construction and AutoCAD

Testing and Modification

Final report

Presentation

Project Gantt Chart

TASK Start Date Duration End Date

Making of proposal 7-Sep-15 10 16-Sep-15

Calculations 17-Sep-15 16 2-Oct-15

Purchasing 3-Oct-15 6 8-Oct-15

Construction and AutoCAD 9-Oct-15 21 29-Oct-15

Testing and Modification 30-Oct-15 10 8-Nov-15

Final report 9-Nov-15 8 16-Nov-15

Presentation 25-Nov-15 12 6-Dec-15


Explanation (Initial Gantt Chart)

As the table above shows, it will took us 10 days to make a proposal and

submit. The reason for such a long time to make a proposal is that we

decided to make a group of 5 members and the proposals we were coming

with did not accommodate the use of 5th member. We tried to make different

model proposals and speak to Mr. Omar Chafiq which is why it took us that

long to get our proposal approved.

The duration for our calculation is 16 days as shown above. As we got our

proposal approved of Tri-craft, it consists of twin boom, twin rudder and has

3 motors out of which 2 will be movable. Because of the so many different

parts of the aircraft, it took us that long to do the research and get the

calculations done for each and every part.

Purchasing will be done in 6 days because we might need to go at different

shops and we have no plan of ordering online because everything is

available in ACE hardware and hobby ultimate.

It will take us 21 days to finish construction and AutoCAD because we have

no previous experience in making a aircraft and working with such tools.

Also, we planned on giving on 3 days a week for construction as we need to

focus on other subjects as well.

We will test the aircraft as soon as its ready and the time allocated for testing

and modification is 10 days. All this time is basically for modification which

we might need to do after testing.

The final report and presentation will take us 20 days combined since we

need to make sure everything is perfect in report and presentation. The

report will be lengthy as we plan on talking about each and every detail and

we will keep plenty of time for presentation as well since this will matter our

final grade.


Updated Gantt chart

10

12

18

44

5

7

7

2

2

7-Sep 17-Sep 27-Sep 7-Oct 17-Oct 27-Oct 6-Nov 16-Nov 26-Nov 6-Dec

Making of proposal

Calculations

Purchasing

Construction and AutoCAD

Programming

Testing and Modification

Assignments

Final report

Presentation

Project Gantt chart

TASK Start Date Duration End Date

Making of proposal 7-Sep-15 10 16-Sep-15

Calculations 17-Sep-15 12 28-Sep-15

Purchasing 3-Oct-15 18 20-Oct-15

Construction and AutoCAD 5-Oct-15 44 18-Nov-15

Programming 19-Nov-15 5 23-Nov-15

Testing and Modification 24-Nov-15 7 30-Nov-15

Assignments 1-Dec-15 7 7-Dec-15

Final report 7-Dec-15 2 8-Dec-15

Presentation 8-Dec-15 2 9-Dec-15


Explanation (Updated Gantt Chart)

It took us 4 days less to finish all the calculations. We found most of the

information online from one website due to which we saved our time for

calculation.

It took us 18 days to finish purchasing as we had to go around in all the

branches of ACE hardware and hobby shops. Also major reason of so much

time in purchasing is because we ordered many stuff online.

Construction took us a lot of time as it took us longer to find appropriate

material and also some of the members were working with plywood which

takes longer to file and shape. Another reason for so much time in

construction is because we had to think and make a new mechanism for 90

degree rotation in which we made mistake twice and remade it again.

It took us 4 days for programming also. If u see the initial Gantt chart you

will know that we did not count time for programming as we were planning

to get it done from some technician. Then later on we decided that since

we’re making this whole aircraft from scratch and on our own we should

also try to do the programming my ourselves which took us 4 days to

complete. Also we had to learn various functions of the transmitter which

contributes in more time waste.

The assignments were very lengthy and we had holiday for National day

celebration which is why we were so late for assignments and report. Also

another reason is that we had to do Monokote on our aircraft by ourselves

which took us one complete day since no technician was ready to complete

it in 3 days.


Initial Budget Estimation

Material Cost (AED)

Tools 500

Balsa wood 350

Bass wood 100

Plywood 140

Struts 50

Ailerons 30

Motor X 3 1500

Battery X 3 900

ESC X 3 450

Propeller X 3 60

Servos 800

Wires 400

Push rods 90

Hinges 100

Drill machine 300

Drill bits 120

Sand paper 150

Transmitter 1300

Landing gear 150

Monokote 250

Total 7740

The budget calculation we did initially was 7740 but despite of that we kept

our budget as 8000 to make sure we can cover all the damage, waste or some

changes throughout the project.


Final budget estimation

Material Cost (AED)

Tools 350

Balsa wood 400

Bass wood 140

Plywood 200

Struts 50

Carbon fiber rod 70

Brass rod 25

Ailerons 30

Motor X 3 900

Battery X 3 655

ESC X 3 300

Propeller X 3 60

Servos 400

Wires 350

Push rods 90

Hinges 40

Drill bits 60

Sand paper 220

Transmitter 410

Landing gear 20

Monokote 150

Total 4920

The overall budget decreased drastically because we ordered most of the stuff

from the Hobby Gulf website which was way cheaper. Muhammad Rizwan

provided us with most of the tools including the drilling machine and some of


the drill bits which is why we saved a lot of money on this. The hinges we used

are plastic paper hinges which is cheap as compared to other heavy hinges. As

we were very late for the submission of aircraft for Monokote, we did the

Monokote on our own which saved us the job fees of technician. Some material

was wasted because of the mistakes by all of us so we had to purchase more

material which cost us more than the initial budget for woods. Despite of the

finial budget shown above, we spent the total amount of AED 6000 which

includes the money for fuel as we had to go around a lot for shopping.

Engineering drawing

The aircraft that we made is purely electrical as all the components that we

have used are electrical. The electrical components consist of the following:

1. Servos: 2 for the rotating motors, 2 for the rudders, 2 for the aileron for left

wing and right wing and 1 for the elevator. The servo is Futaba 3003 and it

is capable of handling loads as much as 4 KG.

2. Batteries: 3 batteries we have used 1 for each motor. The center battery is

3300 mAh and the other two batteries which are inside right and left

booms are of 2600 mAh.

Figure 7- Servo placement

Figure 6- Batteries


3. ESC (Electronic speed control): we used 3 ESC’s as we have 3 motors so 1

ESC for each motor. The ESC is of 40A and it is suitable for our motor.

Figure 8- ESC

4. Receiver: which will receive the signals from the transmitter. It have

different ports for 9 channels.

Figure 9- Receiver


Figure 10- Schematic Diagram


Explanation: The schematic diagram above shows that there are basically 3 batteries in the

circuit. Two batteries of same power are powering the motors which are

rotatable and are attached with booms and the third battery will be in the

fuselage and power the center motor, all the seven servos, receiver and the

center ESC. The diagram above also shows that there is a receiver whose job is

to receive signal from the transmitter, this receiver has 9 channels and there

are extension cables attached to each channel for the specific servo or motor.

The first channel is for the ailerons, second channel is for elevator, third one is

for center motor, fourth one is for two rudders, and fifth channel is for the two

motors which are rotatable whereas the sixth channel is for rotation of the two

motors. The diagram above also shows us that there are three Y-connectors

which we used and this is because we want some of the servos to work together.

This will mean two servos which are connected together by a Y-connector will

actuate together with the help of single input from the transmitter.

Calculations: Calculation part for wing

Span= 120 cm

Chord= 20 cm

Wing area = span x chord. (Equation 1)

As we know that our wing is not tapered hence there is no need to find the mac.

The wing area is 120 x 20 = 2400cm2 which is 0.24 m2.

Aspect ratio for our wing is span2/ area. (Equation 2)

Which is 1202/2400 = 6

Wing loading= weight of the aircraft/ area of the wing. (Equation 3)

Which is equal to = 3/0.24= 12.5

Now we need to find the area of the wing exposed and for if we see in our

aircraft there are 2 booms and a fuselage where the wing is un exposed/

covered and for this reason we find that the covered region of the wing is 22

cm, 6cm of boom from each side and 10 cm for the fuselage. Since we have our

reference area of the wing which is 0.24 so we find the area exposed as

Span – area covered x chord will give us the area exposed which is = 98 x 20 =

0.196 m2 (Equation 4)

The next step is finding the lift.


L= 0.5x density x velocity2 x wing area reference x coefficient of lift.

Assuming that the velocity is 10 m/s

We also assume sea level conditions and they are mentioned below in the table

Temperature 287K Pressure 101325 pa

Density 1.2250 kg/m3 Viscosity 1.4607 x 10-5 m2/sec

We found from the graph of NACA 0012 that the coefficient of lift at 5 degrees

is 0.6194. The graph below shows cl at the point mentioned above:

Figure 11- Graph of CF vs Alpha

The reason for taking 5 degrees is because the aircraft wings is kept at positive

angle of attack.

0.5 x 1.2250 x 102x 0.24 x 0.6194= 9.10518 N (Equation 5)

After finding the lift we need to find the parasite drag coefficient and induced

drag coefficient.

First we find CDi and for that we need Reynolds number and the formula is

mentioned below:-


RN = cruise speed x length of the wing divided by viscosity (Equation 6)

which is

(10 x 0.98)/ 1.4607 x 10-5 = 670911

The cf value is 0.005

We find K as 1.27

Then we find the Swet= Sref x 2 x 1.02 (Equation 7)

0.24 x 2 x1.02 = 0.4896

The equation for CDP is (Cf x k x Swet)/ Sref (Equation 8)

Which is

(0.005 x 1.27 x 0.4896)/ 0.24 = 0.012954

Now we find CDi and the formula is CL2/π x AR x e (Equation 9)

e is the efficiency factor = 0.95

0.61942/ π x 6 x 0.95

Therefore CDi = 0.02142

Fuselage

RN= cruise speed x length of the fuselage divided by viscosity (Equation

6)

(10 x 0.48)/ 1.4607 x 10-5

RN = 328609.5708

Once we find RN fro table we can find Cf

Cf = 0.007

After finding Cf we can find the K factor.

K = 1.39

CDp = Cf x K x Swet/ Sref (Equation 10)

(0.007 x 1.39 x 0.4896)/0.24

CDp = 0.00198492

Fuselage sizing

The length of the fuselage must be calculated by using the formula mentioned

below

Length of the fuselage = aWoc (Equation 11)

0.333 x 30.41 = 0.5224m

The reason for making the fuselage smaller is because we need to reduce the

nose weight of the aircraft and also accommodate the motor for the aircraft to

do the VTOL.


Boom

Length of the boom = 0.70

RN = cruise speed x length of the boom divided by viscosity (Equation 6)

RN = (10 x 0.70)/ 1.4607 x 10-5 = 479222.2907

Assuming the Cf as 0.006

K = 1.33

CDp = 0.006 x 1.33 x 0.4896 x 0.24 = 0.0162792

Horizontal stabilizers

L = 51 cm

Chord = 10 cm

We find the Sref by using the formula of the wing area which is

Wing area = span x chord. (Equation 1)

51 x 10 = 510 cm2 or 0.051m2

Then we find the aspect ratio by using the formula of

Aspect ratio for our wing is span2/ area. (Equation 2)

0.512/ 0.051 = 5.1

The 96 percent of the horizontal stabilizer is exposed which is 0.49m

We find the Reynold number and the equation is mentioned below.

RN = cruise speed x length of the horizontal stabilizer divided by viscosity

(Equation 6)

10 x 0.49/1.4607 x 10-5= 335455.6035

The Cf is 0.007

K = 1.39

Then we find the CDp of the stabilizers and the equation is

CDp = Cf x K x Swet/ Sref (Equation 10)

0.007 x x1.39 x 0.049/ 0.0051 = 0.009348431

Vertical stabilizers

L= 19 cm 0.62336 ft

Cr = 10 cm 0.328084 ft

Ct = 5cm 0.16404 ft

First we find the taper ratio which is


Ct/Cr = taper ratio (Equation 12)

Then we find the mac which is

mac= 2/3 x Cr x(1+ (Ct/Cr) –((Ct/Cr)/1+(Ct/Cr))) (Equation 13)

mac= 2/3 x 10 x(1+0.5 –(0.5/1+0.5)) = 7.77 cm or 1.89534121 ft

We take the value of µ from the graph

µ= 3.8 x 10-7

Then we find Reynolds number which is

RN = cruise speed x density x mac divided by viscosity (Equation 7)

RN= (0.002377 x 32.8084x 1.84584)/3.8 x 10-7= 378812.8385

The Cf value we obtain is 0.07

And then we find K as 1.39

The value of t that we find is 0.08

Then we find CDp and the formula is

CDp = Cf x K x Swet x t/ Sref (Equation 14)

1.39 x 0.007 x 0.08 x 0.135/ 0.1425

CDp = 0.000073743

Total CDp = 0.000073743 + 0.009348431 + 0.0162792 + 0.00198492 +

0.012954 = 0.040640294.

Total CD = CDp +CDi = 0.040640294 + 0.02142 = 0.062060294

D = ½ x density x velocity2 x area x coefficient of Drag (Equation 15)

0.5 x 1.2250 x 102 x 0.24 x 0.062060294 = 0.912 N

The lift to drag ratio can be calculated by using the lift which we got and divide

it by drag which is

9.10518 /0.912 = 9.98375N

Vcruise= 0.75 Vmax (Equation 16)

Assuming V max is 13.3

The cruising sped which we get is 10 m/s

Vstall = (1/0.5 x density x area x clmax) 0.5 (Equation 17)

After putting the values of CL max which is 0.8198 we get the Vstall as

8.71886m/s

Vtakeoff = 1.2 x Vstall (Equation 18)

1.2 x 8.71886 = 10.46m/s

Landing velocity = 1.23 x Vstall (Equation 19)

= 10.72 m/s

Thrust to take off = (bhp x n/ Vtakeoff) x 550 (Equation 20)

Considering the propeller is 50 percent efficient


(1000 x 0.5)/ 34.31 = 14.57 lbs appx 6 kg

Propeller sizing

D=kp 4Root of power

The max output from the motor is 1000

Where V is 16.8 and I is 54A

The number of propeller is 2

D= 1.7 x 4root of 1000 = 9.55cm

The reason we used this bigger propellers is because the greater and

aerodynamic the size of the propeller is the higher the mass flow comes into

the propeller and as we can see in equation 20 the required takeoff thrust is

around 6 kg so it is important to increase the size of the propeller as it is the

easiest and weight saving techniques that helps in provide greater amount of

thrust in lowest amount of RPM.

Endurance = Battery max / current max (Equation 21)

For boom we have 2600 mAh battery

2600 x 10 -3/ 44 = 3.5 minutes

For fuselage we have 3300 mAh

3300 x 10 -3/ 44 = 4.5 minute


Figure 12- Calculation of CG

Construction of right wing

Done by Amir Sajjad

The construction of the right wing was done by me. The aileron which is at the

right wing was also attached by me. The linkage between the servo and the

pushrod along with the installation of servo was also done by me. I am also

responsible for programming the servo which will move the right aileron.

We decided to make a cardboard prototype of our design because this

experience will help us in many ways such as we will come to know the amount

of material we are going to need and which tools to use etc. I used a normal

cutter for cutting the cardboard into proper shape and then used super glue to

join the ribs with the struts. I suggested one idea which ensured that the airfoils

we make are exactly same in shape and dimensions and this idea was that we


make the first airfoil perfectly same as the AutoCAD design and then use this

airfoil as a reference to make other airfoils. Instead of using paper to draw

marks and shape of the cardboard we used that reference airfoil to do that

which contributed towards the perfect wing. I decided that we will use the same

technique in the main construction which we will do next week. After attaching

the ribs with the struts I covered the leading and trailing edge with a cardboard

as this will give base to the cling film we will later use for the covering. After

covering the wing with a cling film I placed my wing and left wing in the housing

on the fuselage which is made by Abdul Rahman. After the whole aircraft was

ready we took it for flight test and found out that the wing span is less so we

changed the wing span from 110 cm to 120 cm in the AutoCAD deign. The

method we used for testing was to place the aircraft outside the car window

and keep holding it at the speed of around 30 km/h to 40 km/h.

Figure 14 Amir cuttiing the struts

Figure 13 Amir salman and Muhafiz working


Figure 15- Cardboard model

Old specification for my wing Updated specification of my wing

Wing chord: 20cm Wing chord: 20cm

Span: 55cm on my side Span: 60cm on my side

Three wood struts Two wood strut front and back with

carbon fiber rod in the middle

After the designing and dimension selection phase of our project I moved on to

the selection of materials and for that we searched many hardware shops such

as hobby ultimate, ACE hardware and creative minds. Once we purchased the

material and tools from the hardware shop we decided to begin the wing

construction my cutting the plywood with the appropriate tool and then make

it in the perfect shape using the sand paper. To make the first airfoil we used

our AutoCAD airfoil design to draw the exact same airfoil on a piece of paper by

keeping that paper on the computer screen and tracing the exact airfoil shape

successfully and then we glued that piece of paper on one side of the plywood

and make the markings around it with marker to get the exact shape drawing

on the plywood. Once this was done we removed that piece of paper and started

cutting the plywood beyond the markings to keep a safe clearance. Initially I

used cutter to cut the plywood but the cutter was on strong and sharp enough

to do this job so we searched for another tool which will cut the plywood easily.


We used hacksaw to cut the plywood and it took about 20 minutes to cut single

piece of airfoil excluding the filing part. Then we filed it using the sand papers

of 60 120 and 150. If we needed to file more we used 60 grain sand paper and

after the filing is done we used 150 grain sand paper to smooth the surface of

the airfoil. It took me one hour minutes to file the initial airfoil to the exact

shape and dimension. Then we compared this airfoil to the AutoCAD diagram

we had in our computer and it was of the exact shape and size. Since this airfoil

which me made was perfect in all aspects me and salman decided to use this

airfoil as a reference airfoil and make other airfoils accordingly by keeps it on

the plywood and drawing it and after completing all 22 airfoils we compared

each one separately to the reference airfoil and rectified any changes between

them.

It took us approximately 6 days to complete the construction of the airfoil

because it took us 4 days to cut the plywood into the airfoil shape and then 2

days to file it just like the exact reference airfoil.

Once all the ribs were completed we stacked them together with a duct tape

and then took it to the university workshop for drilling purposes. As me and

salman decided earlier that we will pass three struts between the ribs to make

the structure stiff, Mr. William s assisted us to drill all three holes in the airfoils.

The selection of the drill bit was based on the diameter of our struts which we

purchased from the ACE hardware. We measured the diameter of the struts

using the Vernier caliper and the diameter was exactly 6.3 millimeters. Then

we decided to use the drill bit of 6.5 millimeters as we needed some clearance

for the struts to pass through the ribs easily and luckily this size of drill bit was

available in the workshop. Mr. Williams restricted us from using the drilling

machine because of some safety purposes, so he drilled all the stacked airfoils

for us without opening the duct tape. We faced a big problem after drilling as

Mr. Williams made a big mistake while drilling a hole in the leading edge. The

hole he drilled was not straight which would seriously affect the shape of our

wing. We had various ideas in our mind like drilling a straight hole on the same

spot and closing the excess space with the hot glue and using the square strut

instead of the round strut but all these ideas were not good enough to rectify

the mistake Mr. Williams made so we came to a conclusion that we will drill

another hole slightly behind the faulty hole for each and every airfoil

separately. We discussed this plan with our group members since we had no


experience in using the drilling machine so Rizwan brought a drilling machine

and showed us how to use it and how to drill straight on a rough craft plywood.

Once we were satisfied and confident enough that we can drill our airfoils now,

we removed the duct tape and drilled the first hole on the desired spot. Once all

the three holes on the first airfoil were done, I had an idea to use that airfoil as

a reference as drill holes on the remaining airfoil by keeping it under the

reference airfoil. This helped us to drill all 22 airfoils on the exact position for

leading edge, trailing edge and center. We closed all the fault holes on the airfoil

except the leading edge hole by using a bulbond wood glue. The reason for not

closing the leading edge hole is that we can use that space for passing the servo

wires throughout the wing and towards the fuselage.

The method we used for drilling is as follows:

o We kept the craft plywood under the airfoil to use it as a base and to avoid

drilling holes in the table.

o Salman held the airfoil tight for me while I was drilling the holes in all 11

airfoils for my wing. Similarly I helped salman while he was drilling holes for

his wing.

o Before drilling salman was observing the level of the drill bits to make sure

I’m holding the machine straight and also I was careful not to press too hard

to prevent the airfoil from breaking.

o We used the clockwise drill rotation to drill holes through the airfoils and

used anti-clockwise rotation to remove drill bits from the airfoil.

After drilling the next step in our construction was to make a housing for

aileron. The initial length of aileron which we decided was 30 centimeters but

later on we realized that we if keep it 30 cm long there will be less clearance

between the propeller and the boom so we changed the length to 24 cm. Also

we realized that the wing span is less also we have to attach the booms under

the wings. Then we changed the wingspan from 110 cm to 120 cm which will

make each wing 5 cm longer so it will be 60 cm now instead of 55 cm. Another

problem that we had was that to make a wing 60 cm long we will need 24 ribs

instead of 22 then we decided to increase the gap between each airfoil by 1 cm

so there is now 6cm gap between each wing instead of 5 cm. This will solve our

problem of having less ribs for the wing. To make a space for aileron attachment


at the rear section of 4 ribs I first measured the width of the aileron which was

approximately 3.5 cm and then I drew this 3.5 cm line at the rear section of the

airfoil and cut it using the hacksaw. Then to give it the curvature shape, I rolled

the sandpaper around the wasted strut stick and filled it using that strut.

Figure 16- Complete wing

After this we attached all the ribs with the struts using super glue and to make

it a single structure wing we made one block using three hard balsa wood and

drilled holes on both sides to pass the struts through. We found that the wing is

not stiff enough as it became anhedral due to the poor joint of the wings in the

middle. Then the only solution that came to my mind was to use either a carbon

fiber rod or aluminum rod and pass it through the center. We really regretted

as we already joined all the ribs with the struts with a gap of 6 cm between each

rib, and now we were facing a big problem as we need to drill so many holes to

pass the carbon fiber rod. Then we used appropriate drill bit and drilled the

ribs at the wing tips using the drilling machine and drilled the remaining ones

using a drill bit and plyer. We rotated the plyer manually to drill the hole across

each rib. The carbon rod that we found was 45 cm long but we needed at least

80 cm so that it can also pass through the booms and give them an extra support

due to the heavy motor it will carry. We then decided to pass another light

weight rod which will have a diameter less than the carbon fiber rod. The

problem that we faced using this technique is that the center rob was quite thin

which was not helping in joining the two carbon fiber rods. Then Rizwan

suggested this idea that we can apply plenty of hot glue on the brass rod and


then slide it through each carbon fiber rod from one side and another carbon

fiber rod from the other end before it dries off.

Then the next step in our wing construction was to fix hinges at the trailing edge

of the ribs that we cut. The hinges we used were made of plastic and they were

strong enough to hold the aileron. First we made a cut on the aileron using the

surgical knife and then we placed one half of this hinge in the aileron and

applied glue and then we made another cuts on the aileron using the cutter and

placed another half of the hinge in the aileron and then joined them using super

glue. One thing that I had in mind while fixing the hinges is to make sure exactly

equal length of plastic hinge has been placed inside the aileron because if this

is not considered then there is a huge chance that the aileron will not be straight

by looking from the top view.

Figure 17- Hinges

After the aileron the next part is placing a servo and actuating the rotation of

aileron and testing. The best place to make a housing for servo is on ribs

through which the carbon fiber rod doesn’t pass. This is because our servos are

quite big in size which will prevent them from fixing on the ribs having the

carbon fiber rod because of less space. Making a housing for servo was the

toughest part as all the ribs were already attached and we were not able to find

enough room to make a cut using our hands. It was me who decided that we can

cut the rib using the cutter even if we cut it at the angle by applying the constant

required force. We first drew the housing size by placing the servo on the ribs

and then we kept on trying to make a cut on the lines using the cutter. After we

successfully made the housing we placed the servo in the housing and tightened


it using the screws and then attached the push rod to the aileron using the

control horns.

Figure 18- Hinges and control horn

The next part is programming. I and salman learned the programming together

from YouTube because we needed to connect our servos so that both the servos

respond to the same input. To begin with the programming we need both the

servos, a y-connector, electronic speed control and a battery. First we will

connect both the wires from the servos to the y connector and then we will

connect this Y-connector to the receiver at the channel one because channel one

is for aileron. And then we will connect ESC to the battery and the receiver.

When all the connections are done we made sure that all the inputs in the

transmitter are off and then we switched on the transmitter.

After programming we did the covering of our wing using thin balsa sheet. It

was not easy to cover the leading edge of the wing because of the curvature

which will break the balsa sheet into pieces. Rizwan suggested us one idea that

we can use sticky wallpaper to cover the thin balsa sheet. Once this is done, we

can bend the sheet easily and make it into proper shape of the leading edge

without breaking it. After we attached the balsa sheet with the leading edge

using the super glue, we removed the wallpaper.

Improvements that I made:

Changing our wing span:

Before starting with our project construction, we planned on making a

cardboard prototype model of our aircraft with the exact dimensions. The

reason for this is because of the cardboard we will be able to know exactly how

much material are we going to need. The material which was decided by me


and all the group member was to use B grade balsa wood. So by making the

cardboard model we will come to know how much Balsa wood we need to

purchase. This will make us use our resources more effectively and efficiently.

Another advantage of making a prototype model is that we will get the idea of

how to begin with the construction of our project and also we will be able to

determine if whether the dimensions we have selected is appropriate or not.

Because of this cardboard model we came to know that the wing span of our

aircraft is less which is why later on we changed it to 120 cm from 110 cm. This

is the first improvement we made to our project.

Choosing Plywood:

When we finalized our proposal and project design after it got approved, we

started to think about the material that we should be using for the construction

of different parts of the aircraft. Since my part is the construction of wing I will

be starting from there only, the material we selected for the construction of

aircraft wings was B grade balsa wood. The reason for this is that it was our

first time ever that we were going to use this material and we really wanted to

get our hands to that material. Another reason is that the balsa wood is really

easy to work on which will save us a lot of time and energy and also we won’t

need to buy any heavy duty cutter or tools because just the surgical knife and

normal cutter is more than enough to cut the balsa wood. Third reason for the

selection of this material is that this material is really lightweight as compared

to all other competitor materials such as bass wood and plywood.

When we analyzed and experimented on the balsa wood for its stiffness and

fracture points we came to a conclusion that even though it is light and easy to

work on, we cannot use this material for the inner structure of our wing

because it is not strong enough to be able to even survive light impacts or cuts.

This issue really mattered for us because we don’t want our project parts to

break off after they’ve been made after so much hard work, not only that but it

will also be a loss of hard work.

Another material that came to light was the bass wood. But after testing the

bass wood as well we came to know that there is not much difference between

the bass wood and the balsa wood stiffness wise. Also we came to know that

bass wood has much more ductility as it needs a lit shock only before it gets

shattered into pieces.


The third material was the plywood. According to our study, plywood is the best

material that we can use in our project construction. As plywood is much stiffer

than balsa wood and bass wood it is much safer to use plywood instead of the

balsa or bass wood. Once factor that came to my mind was that the plywood is

also much heavier than the latter material but because we won’t be using the

whole sheet of plywood and just the ribs are made out of plywood it won’t make

any significant difference to our aircraft overall weight. Even though plywood

is much harder to work on and file me and my team is ready to put all our effort

into it and make it work because the safety and stiffness of our aircraft is the

main priority.

Replacing cutter with the hacksaw:

Since it was already decided that we will be using plywood for the construction

of wing, the tools we plan to use for the cutting and filing purposes matters a

lot. This is because if the tools are not proper then it might take it forever to cut

and file the plywood into the desired shape. Initially we used normal cutter to

cut the plywood, me and salman almost struggled one whole day to make the

proper cuts on the plywood as needed. This was the point at which we realized

that this cutter is not sharp and strong enough to cut the plywood which made

us to go to ACE hardware and purchase a big hacksaw. This hacksaw was very

efficient and fast enough to cut the plywood into the desired shape and we

saved a lot of time in cutting because of this plywood so I think this was one of

the improvements that we made.

Using balsa cover sheet:

At first we bought a bass sheet for the covering of the wing and when we used

this bass wood for the covering of the leading edge it broke off. Then we realized

that this sheet is not capable of bending as much as we require because of which

we changed the material to paper balsa sheet. When we bought this sheet, even

this sheet wasn’t able to bend that much so to counteract this problem we used

a sticky wallpaper to cover one side of the sheet and then we tried to bend it.

This method solved our problem and we were able to cover curve areas as the

leading edges.

Passing wires across the airfoil holes:


As mentioned earlier, we made a big mistake of sticking the ribs on the struts

and covering it before making enough housing for the passage of 5 wires that

will pass through my wing towards the fuselage. The 5 wires are:

I. Aileron wire

II. Rudder wire

III. Elevator wire

IV. ESC extension from the boom.

V. Servo for 90 degree rotation

To pass these 5 wires which are mentioned above, I suggested that we must

remove the knob connector of each wire using a sharp pin or cutter and then

we can pass all the wires one by one without having to drill the airfoils to

increase the diameter of the whole.

Strength Weakness

The most important objective that I had

throughout the project was to maintain

perfection.

Time was the main weakness. Since I was

not used to work on such materials it took

me considerably excess time to finish of

the work.

Another strength that contributed in the

success of our project was that we all

shared our opinion and everyone came up

with great ideas and solutions.

Another weakness according to me was

that poor knowledge of tools. It took us

little time to understand and adjust with the

tools. Mistakes were made and rectified.

We all were committed to the project. We

made advanced plans to meet and work

on the project.

Clash of other work which was not related

to the project such as other subject

assignments and TCA’s.

We all worked at the same place and

guided each other to get the job done with

perfection.

Time management was a very big

weakness. We wasted a lot of time

shopping and ordering but anyhow we

completed our work before deadline.


The mistake I made during the project:

- Wrong selection of covering material. Initially we selected bass sheet to

cover the wings but then when we tried to bend it for the airfoil shape it

broke. We wasted many bass pieces just like that which made us change the

covering.

- We didn’t drill on our own. After the wrong holes were drilled by workshop

technician then we made another new holes one by one on my own.

- Attaching the ribs on the struts. We attached the ribs using the super glue

and then later on we realized that the housing for servo and carbon fiber rod

is still to be made.

Construction of left wing Done by Salman Sadiq

I and my group started to think about making a conceptual aircraft which I think

is one of the best ideas we have come up with. Since our aircraft is completed

made independently we need all the specifications and all the criteria’s to work

properly in order to attain the desired results which we are aiming for. For this

all of our group member to make and aircraft which will be similar to the real

aircraft but will be made up of a cardboard. The reason for making this

conceptual design is to make sure that the product which we will be making

will be perfect as this was our first attempt to make an RC aircraft.

The specification of my wing is mentioned below with the old one and the

updated design are as follows:-

Old specification for my wing Updated specification of my wing

Wing chord: 20cm Wing chord: 20cm

Span: 55cm on my side Span: 60cm on my side

Three wood struts Two wood strut front and back with

carbon fiber rod in the middle


We bought cardboard from ACE and decided to work on it by making the

airfoils, this enabled me to understand of how to shape an airfoil and why it’s

important to make it perfectly as this is the only part of an RC aircraft that

produces lift. When we made the airfoils the mistakes that I have made is that

the struts were not that good as Amir had different size and I had different size

making it imbalance from one side to another. Another problem was the

covering we used cling film coating but since this was a concept we can

experiment by doing such work. The major purpose was to provide as much as

errors in the cardboard prototypes and understand what went wrong and then

never repeat it in the real RC aircraft

Figure 19 Group working

Figure 20 Cradboard model ready


My part is to make the left side of the wing. In total I had to make 12 airfoil and

since I know that my airfoil is similar to NACA 0012 as it is symmetrical which

means that the upper chamber and the lower chamber has the same shape. My

dimensions for the airfoil was 20 cm wing chord, 3 cm in thickness and length

was 55 on each side. So the gap between each struts was 5 cm and in total my

wing comprised of 12 airfoils as mentioned above. Once the designing part was

planned then I moved onto the next part which is the selection of material in

which I visited most of the hardware shops such as, ACE, wesam stationary,

creative minds, hobby ultimate, hobby center and factories to search for the

wood that I needed.

Figure 22- AutoCAD of wing

Figure 23- AutoCAD of wing

I consulted with my other group

members regarding my material

choice and my fellow colleague

who is working on the wing that

we need to use ply wood in wings

as this is one of the best woods

for the aircraft and this will make

our part stronger and stiffer as

we need this for the airfoil which

is one of the most important part

of the aircrafts structure. Then I started designing my airfoil on to the AutoCAD

Figure 21- Material we purchased


to view weather the airfoil which I have designed looks appropriate or not and

then discussed the same with Amir. Once the designing on an AutoCAD was

done then I moved onto the next part which is using the paper and computer to

draw the shape of the airfoil by tracing it and then I cut the paper according to

what I traced. Once the tracing part was done I attached that paper by using

UHF paper glue and then I stated cutting the first airfoil accordingly. Once the

material, AutoCAD and tracing was selected and implemented then I moved on

to resources that I used which is mentioned below in the next paragraph.

Figure 24- Craft wood

Starting with the resources that I used in making my airfoil. The major resource

which I used in cutting the ply wood is saw. First I started cutting the airfoil

using cutter but then I realized that cutters does not cut the airfoil properly so

then I tried using hacksaw which I believed was better than the normal cutter

but the second problem which arise while cutting is that the line which was

drawn, cutting it was a challenge as the hacksaw was cutting at an angle which

was not good because then I have to file a lot and get the proper shape of the

airfoil.

The airfoil which I experimented on was just to understand which one of the

three resources are good enough for me to use in my project work. Then I

concluded that saw is the best one and I can give the direction to it by pressing

on the opposite side, this enables me to work more efficiently by covering the

same amount of work in little time. I thought the cutting would take less time

as I heard about balsa wood which takes very little time to cut but when I

worked on ply I got to understand that this wood is very hard to cut and it will

be time consuming. According to our Gantt chart I gave time of around 7 days

for complete construction of the wing left side but then it took longer than that

as only the cutting part took more than 4 days for me. I and my colleague

decided to take one airfoil as a reference and make the other 21 airfoils with


that reference since, I know that the wing which we’re making must be perfect

in order to achieve the desired results.

Once the cutting part was done then I moved on to the filing part in which I

made sure that the filing sand paper is of 120-150 fine granules. This is

according to my research is one of the best filers for ply wood. I also considered

using 60 fine granule sand paper for quick sanding as some of the areas of the

airfoil had so much distance from the line and so that I need to make sure that

the filing part finishes quickly in order to maintain the time frame which I

proposed in my Gantt chart. The filing part took for me 2 complete days and

then me and Amir decided to file all the airfoils together to make them look

similar and must give us similar dimensions as decided earlier.

After filing the other major part is to make holes for the struts to pass through

the airfoils in order to complete inner structure of the wing. For that since,

we’re not an expert in drilling part we took assistance of Sir Williams by

combined all the airfoils and covering it with duct tape we went to sir Williams

for his assistance in drilling. Before the drilling process I decided to check all

the airfoils and make sure that the airfoils which we made must have similar

dimensions and all of them are made perfectly. Once all of the procedure got

completed we decided to buy struts which is around 6.3mm. The reason for

buying this strut is because we decided to put three struts on each wing and the

trailing edge part was very small and in order to prevent it from chipping of I

decided to buy the struts of this dimensions. Coming back to sir Williams, we

showed our drilling points to sir and he gave us the drill bit of 6.5mm which

according to us was very perfect.

Sir assisted us with the drilling part and he drilled for us three holes. Out of

those three the front one drilling point was drilling at an angle and the drilling

was not perfect as we need to pass our struts straight from each of the airfoil.

Since our drilling part went wrong, I and Amir decided to drill the airfoils again

but, we will the one using the drill in order to achieve the result which we want

to achieve.

So we bought a drill machine and then started learning how to use the drill

machine. We bought craft ply wood and started drilling in it to make sure that

when we apply these drilling techniques in the new one we should get the

results which we want to obtain. Muhammad Rizwan, another member of my


group who is working on boom taught me how to use drill machine as he is one

of the best driller in our group. There are certain techniques which he taught

me and they are mentioned below:-

1. Drilling counter clockwise and anticlockwise: this is useful as when we drill

the holes we need counter clockwise and to prevent the wood from chipping

we use anticlockwise which automatically helps to remove the drill bit from

the hole which we made.

2. Drilling with angle that is perpendicular to the surface: there is a leveler

present inside the drill machine which Rizwan said that if the white marking

is in the center then the drill machine works perfectly and the drill will be

straight.

3. Last, technique was that never press the drill too hard as it can either goo

through the wood or can break the support handle, this will decrease the

efficiency of the work.

The drilling part was done effectively and it also took 2 days as the first day was

in the university and the second day we drilled on our own to get the effective

result which I needed.

The design was updated and we changed the length of wings and increased it

by 10cm further making a total length of 120cm compared to 110cm as per our

previous selection. The reason for doing this is because the boom was shifted

18 cm away from the fuselage compared to previous 12. Since we needed the

clearance for the propellers which are 13cm so we decided to shift the boom 6

cm away in order to get good clearance.

After the drilling part was done we decided to make housing for the ailerons in

order for the aircraft to achieve the banking turn perfectly. For that we took 5

airfoils out of 11 and made a u type shape which provides the housing for the

aileron. The aileron balsa was filed and checked weather the end of the aileron

matches the trailing edge this will not make the control surface look odd by

sticking outside the trailing edge of airfoil. We also used the hinges that was

made up of paper and that paper hinges will make sure that the connection

between the airfoil and the ailerons are ok.


Figure 25- Wing inner structure

Then when we connected the two sides of the wing, I and Amir decided that this

work is not that good as we saw in our aircraft the wings were anhedral. Which

means that the wings were tilted downwards. Which was my biggest concern

as we need perfection. Then our group discussed with Sir Omar Chafic

regarding the problem which we faced and then sir guided us by saying that we

need carbon fiber rod to pass through the center. This will help us to solve the

problem regarding tilting. The reason why I was concerned about the tilting

part is because since our wing will be attached with the boom in which we will

be having batteries, electric motor and servos. So if the wing is already tilted

without these attachments, then it will be more tilted if those things gets

attached with it. Coming back to the carbon fiber rod, another problem which

I encountered and I think was my biggest mistake in this whole project work

was the gluing part. I used super glue to attach the wings with struts. Once it

got dried up it was really hard for me and Amir to make holes for the carbon

fiber rod, because the thickness of the rod was 10.5mm and the drilled hole at

the center was at 6.5mm making harder for us to drill through the holes. I and

Amir decided to increase the holes of the drill by using two techniques which

are mentioned below:-

1. We take the drill bit 7mm and above and started increasing the holes by

using pliers, this procedure was done step by step but we made sure that the


drilling is perfect and we get the results which we need the last drill bit

which I used was around 11mm.

2. The next step is since we have 6 struts and the center one was removed

because of the carbon fiber rod, I decided to cover the strut with the sand

paper of 150 granules and started filing the rough areas to make sure that

the filing provides perfect housing for the carbon fiber rod to pass through

it.

Figure 26- Sand paper

This problem was solved by our ideas and we finally made the desired airfoil as

needed.

By doing all of the above procedures I concluded with the inner structure of the

wing. Moving on the electrical part which is the wing and the electrical

component which I used is the servo for the ailerons. The servo which I used is

the futaba S3003 series. This servo can be used in normal mechanism and can

take a load of up to 4 kg. For this servo I again had an issue because we need

housing for the servo in order to rotate the ailerons and we get the desired

deflection during banking turn. This was again solved by making a housing in

one of the 9th airfoil where as you can see that the carbon fiber rod ends on the

7th airfoil and the carbon fiber since the ailerons are attached at the tip part of

the wing, so therefore it is important to attach the servo’s either on the 8 or 9th

airfoil which I did and then there are pushrods and control horns are connected

which is then connected to the ailerons and made sure that the rotation is equal

from both sides.


Figure 27- Servo connection

Figure 28- Hinges connection

Another best idea which we came up with is the leading edge hole which where

me and Amir came up with an idea that we will pass the wirings of the servos

from that hole making a proper channel for the wiring while not disturbing any

airflow. Lastly, when we did everything our only part was to cover the leasing

edge and trailing edge with the balsa sheet thin one. Which is very effective

when we do the Monokote covering.

Figure 29- Wing inner structure

Then I did the programming part for my ailerons by connecting the receiver to

channel 1 and then adjusting the sub trim and then deflecting the ailerons up


and down and then by adjusting the sub trim I managed to complete the

programming part of the wing which I made.

The strength and weaknesses during my project work.

Strength Weakness

I was very conscious about making

the wing perfect by analyzing

smallest imperfection possible and

made sure that they are corrected in

minimum time.

The time scale was not maintained,

especially I think I have wasted most

of my time and not following the

deadline which I made on my own to

finish the wing part. The deadline

which I thought was 20 November.

Made some of the strong decisions

and made sure that all of the

members comply/agree to the

decisions that I made.

Another weakness I think was lack of

understanding about the products, as

I have never seen a balsa wood and

other components although I know

how to work with them but at the

time of shopping I was not able to

decide so I took my whole group

members for assistance.

Always made sure that I listen to my

group members and they are happy

with the working environment

Time management is very bad, all of

the assignments, project work and

exams were on our head and the

workload was increased unnecessary.


The mistakes that I did in my project work.

One of the major mistake I did was glued the strut with the airfoil at the start

which made it hard for us to make the housing for the servo.

Drilling part was also hard as we glued and there is no drill bit that can drill

up to 60cm so we had to use pliers and we used this to make hole in the

airfoil increasing the working time for us.

Lastly, when we started covering it though of using bass wood and I used

glue to stick the bass wood with the leading edge of the airfoil. Once I started

bending the bass wood it broke into pieces. I had to remove all the pieces of

bass and file it which makes the airfoil much harder to cover. Filing

procedure took long time for me which again increases the time of work

unnecessarily.

Construction of right boom

Done by Muhammad Rizwan

Materials:

B grade balsa

Basswood

Plywood

Carbon rod

Aluminum sheet

Aluminum wire

Paper hinges

Push rods

Servos

Motors

Propeller

Screws

Control horns

Copper rods

Landing gear

Monokote

Hot glue stick


Tools:

Pliers

Nose plier

Screw driver

Hammer

Hot glue gun

LN keys

Saw

Hacksaw

Clamp

Superglue

Iron

Construction:

The chosen aircraft is a concept and is never made in the world. In order to

make such an aircraft is very difficult task as all the dimensions and

specifications are self-made and all the things needs to be calculated and should

be perfect. The aircraft similar with our aircraft is heron-tp and Harfang. These

both are spy drones and are used for spying purpose. The difference between

our aircraft and these drones is that our aircraft can take off vertically i.e. VTOL.

In order to obtain perfect result all the group members agreed on making a

conceptual design made from cardboard. The cardboard for the conceptual

design is bought from Ace hardware. I worked on the right boom as this was

my work and all the other group members worked on their parts accordingly.

There were many errors and flaws in our work and in the aircraft and this was

the main reason we decided to work on a dummy aircraft first. This dummy

aircraft we all made with cardboard.

Figure 30- Rizwan working


Figure 31- Card board model ready

Figure 32- Card board ready

For making this dummy aircraft cardboard and other material we bought from

Ace hardware. Later on the same day we started working on it and each group

member started working on his part. So my part was right boom and right

vertical stabilizer and horizontal stabilizer so I worked on it. I measured the

boom dimension with a ruler and started cutting the cardboard with paper

cutter. After cutting each side of the boom I started joining the sides with the


help of glue. The glue I used was superglue. After joining all the sides of the

boom I started cutting the vertical stabilizer. With the help of ruler I drew

vertical stabilizer on cardboard and later cut of out with scissors. After

completing cutting the stabilizer I started making housing on the boom for the

vertical stabilizer and fixed it on the boom with the help of super glue. The main

idea of working on the dummy aircraft was learning to work in group and

learning to making things in perfection and also we wanted to see the scale of

the aircraft and how it looks. Working in the dummy aircraft helped us a lot as

we were able to think of the dimensions and overall weight of the aircraft. The

dimensions we set for the boom seemed a bit large so we decided to reduce it

by 1cm from side. The length of the boom we kept same but the thickness we

reduced by 1cm because the extra 1cm seemed too thick and also it was of no

use as accommodating the batteries and other electrical stuff won’t require this

much room. Also thickness in overall will increase drag. After completing the

dummy prototype all the group members

including me understood the issues and

mistakes and we made sure this should not

happen in our real prototype.

For making the RC aircraft I started making

right boom. For the material as there was

shortage of balsa wood we (the group

members) went in many stores including some

wood factories and in the end after waiting for

the stock to arrive in the hardware shop I and

my fellow group member bought the material.

All the material and tools are bought from Ace

hardware and hobby ultimate. Boom is made of b grade balsa and is like a box

that goes 40cm in length and then it starts to shrink like a cone and the cone

length is 30cm so overall the boom is of 70cm. the box is of 6X6cm in width and

height and 40cm in length and the cone is of 6X6 in width and height and is

30cm in length. For the stabilizers I made it with solid piece of balsa wood.

Thick 10mm solid balsa piece is cut and filed to get desired shape and size.

Figure 33- Rizwan working

Figure 34- Rizwan cutting plywood


For cutting the wood and getting it in desired shape accuracy should be kept in

mind. I started cutting wood with wood saw and it was easy to cut but I kept

some clearance that could be filed later to make it perfect.

Cutting the balsa wood and filing is relatively easy when compared to other

woods but as balsa wood is light weight the balsa dust while cutting it mixes

with atmosphere making it difficult to breath near the place where the cutting

is being done. This issue further became worst when I started filing balsa wood.

In order to resolve this issue I used mask. By wearing mask the issue somehow

resolved but was not completely finished. After completing cutting all the

pieces of balsa wood for the box in front and cone rearwards I had to make

vertical stabilizer and horizontal stabilizer. For the stabilizers as mentioned

above I used one solid 10mm thick piece of balsa wood cut and filed it to get the

desired shape.

After all the cutting work is done these stabilizers and the sides of the boom

which I made need to be joined to form a stiff 1 boom. For joining the vertical

stabilizer as in our design the vertical stabilizers is going through the boom and

also the horizontal stabilizer is requires cavity that could hold it firm at a place.

For making the cavity I used surgical blade and after that is done I passed the

stabilizer through the boom and glued it. The glue I used is hot glue. The reason

I used hot glue gun and stick is that this glue is stiff and sticks and cooled very

quickly and if something went wrong it can be removed by heating and melting

it again. Only one problem I faced while using the hot glue is that while

removing the excess glue sometimes by mistake when I touch the glue it is

extremely hot and almost burnt my skin 2 or 3 times.

After completing and joining the boom me along with my group members went

to ultimate hobby to buy the electrical stuff. I bought stuff for my boom and the

specifications of each of the electronic and along with picture are as follows:


Motors:

Figure 35- Motor which we used

Type: Brushless outrunner

Size: Replacement for 25-size glow engine

Bearings or Bushings: One 5 x 14 x 5mm Bearing, and Two 5 x 11 x 4mm

Bearings

Wire Gauge: 14

Recommended Prop Range: 11x8 to 14x7

Voltage: 12–16.8

RPM/Volt (Kv): 870

Resistance (Ri): .03 ohms

Idle Current (Io): 2.40A @ 10V

Continuous Current: 32A

Maximum Burst Current: 44A (15 sec)

Cells: 3S-4S Li-Po or 10–14 Ni-MH/Ni-Cd

Speed Control: 40–45A brushless

Weight: 190 g (6.7 oz)

Overall Diameter: 35mm (1.40 in)

Shaft Diameter: 5mm (.20 in)


Overall Length: 54mm (2.10 in)

Servos:

Figure 36- Servo

Specifications:

Modulation: Analog

Torque: 4.8V: 44.0 oz-in (3.17 kg-cm) 6.0V: 4.10 kg-cm

Speed: 4.8V: 0.23 sec/60° 6.0V: 0.19 sec/60°

Weight: 1.31 oz (37.0 g)

Dimensions: Length:1.57 in (39.9 mm)

Width: 0.79 in (20.1 mm)

Height: 1.42 in (36.1 mm)

Gear Type: Plastic

Rotation/Support: Bushing

One heavy duty servo for rotating the engine:


Figure 37- 10 KG servo

Specifications:

Voltage: 4.5v~6v

Speed: .19sec

Torque: 10.5kg/cm

Bearings: 2BB

Gears: Metal

Weight: 49g

Size: 40.7x20x39.4mm

Battery:

Figure 38- Battery


Specifications:

2600mAh 25C 14.8V 4S1P

Endurance: 3.5 min

I started working on the mount for the engine. The mount is made with

basswood and aluminium sheet. I bought heavy duty hinges and glued it on

aluminium sheet box which I fixed on the front side of the box. The aluminium

box was of the same width and height of the boom so that it fixes properly and

it is stiff. This mount wasn’t strong enough to hold the handle the force

produced by the motor as it would break. Me and my group other group

member who is working on other boom discussed this issue.

Figure 39- Boom mounting

Figure 40- Boom mounting

The design for the movable mount of the boom was not efficient and it would

also create a lot of drag. So we decided to change the design and came up with

a totally new idea. For this new mechanism we needed to cut the boom at an

angle from the front side as shown in the figure below.

Figure 41- Boom front section

I cut a ply wood of the same dimension as the front side of the boom. I drilled

four holes at a gap of approximately 2cm horizontally and 0.5cm vertically. I


passed two metal wires top to bottom in the pair of holes and inserted a carbon

fibre rod in it. The wire I got from the clothes hanger made of aluminium wire.

I took the clothes hanger and with the help of wire cutter I cut the straight part

of the hanger as I wanted only the straight part. After cutting the aluminium

wire I with the help of pliers bent the wire and made it a U. After all that is done

I cut another ply and mounted the motor and the two U wires on it too. I cut one

more ply which was of 3cm x 6cm and attached it to an aluminium cross section

by using super glue. Then I cut the ply in hexagon shape on which I made the

same holes as on the ply attached to the boom to pass the metal U wire through

this hole and make two loops and then glued the 3cm x 6cm ply using glue gun.

This was the mount for the motor. Now I drilled two holes in the top and bottom

corners of the hexagon and two holes horizontally on the sides of the ply

attached on top of the hexagon. I mounted the motor and screwed it to the

mount. Then I placed the mount on the front side of the boom and passed a

carbon fibre rod through the four loops of the wires. This mechanism let the

motor mount rotate by 90 degrees. The mechanism is shows in the figure

below.

Figure 42- Mounting


After making the mount I cut a D shape from ply and drilled 7 4mm holes on the

D sides and 1 12 mm hole in the center of the D. the 12mm holes was to pass

the carbon rod. I attached the D with the movable part of the mount with 2

screws. Other holes I made were for the push rod. The push rods will be

attached with that D and second end of the push rod is attached with the servo

that ultimately rotate the mount by pushing the pushrod and the pushrod

pushes the D that is attached with the moving part of the mount and hence in

this way the engine rotates 90 degrees.

After this is done I now had to join the boom with the wing. For joining the boom

with wing I made 3 holes in the boom with drill machine. 2 holes of 6.5mm and

1 holes of 12mm. from the 6.5mm holes the struts pass in the wing pass and

from the 12mm hole the carbon fibre pass. As these rods pass from the booms

and also these passing though the wing the boom in this way is attached with

the wing.

After this is done I had to mount the landing gear under the boom. For landing

gear I bought tire from ultimate hobby and took it to welding shop. From there

I bought 1 copper wire and passed the copper rod through the wheel and bent

it forming a L shape. I then asked the worker in the shop to weld one end of the

copper rod and make it thick so that the wheel doesn’t come out of the rod. The

landing gear looked like this:

Figure 43- Landing gear


Figure 44-Sponge Wheel

I then went back to my workstation and

decided to fix the landing gear with the

boom. For the fixing of landing gear I took

measurement of the area inside the boom

and cut the ply accurately so that it fit in that

area inside the boom perfectly leaving no

clearance. I made a 4mm hole in the center

of that ply. After making hole I took another

ply of same dimensions and started cutting

the ply from center in a line. Later I filed the ply to make it smooth. I cut another

ply in same dimensions. Then I measured the length of the landing gear as

required and bent the excess part of the landing gear to form a L. one end of this

rod I passed through the hole I made in the ply and attached all the 3 ply I made

with this with the help of superglue to form a sandwich so that the landing gear

shouldn’t move. Later I glued this sandwich section with the boom keeping the

landing gear out with hot glue.

After completing the landing gear work I decided to put in the electrical stuff

and for electrical stuff I required calculated center of gravity. I got the center of

gravity from online and started putting in the batteries, ESC and wires. I had to

mount the battery, ESC and wires in the boom properly as it should not move

when in flight as these are heavy and needs to be placed at CG or to maintain

center of gravity properly. For mounting I took 1 small piece of balsa wood and

cut it in my desired size and keeping cg and battery position in mind I glued it

inside the boom in front side of the battery. For the back part of the battery

Figure 45- Boom from inside


again I did the same thing and glued it behind the battery so that it should not

move. This inside configuration looks like this:

For checking the center of gravity of the boom I placed my finger straight and

tried to balance the boom on it. When doing this I figured out that the boom

balance just under the carbon fibre rod and that is the boom actual center of

gravity.

After completing the whole boom the boom looked like:

Figure 46- Right boom and right wing

Strength:

I was very conscious about making my part perfect by analyzing smallest

imperfection possible and made sure that they are corrected in minimum

time.

Made some of the strong decisions and made sure that all of the members

comply/agree to the decisions that I made.

Always made sure that I listen to my group members and they are happy

with the working environment

Weakness:

The time scale was not maintained, especially I think I have wasted most of

my time and not following the deadline which I made on my own to finish

the my part.

Another weakness I think was lack of understanding about the products, as

I have never seen a balsa wood and other components although I know how


to work with them but at the time of shopping I was not able to decide so I

took my whole group members for assistance.

Time management is very bad, all of the assignments, project work and

exams were on our head and the workload was increased unnecessary.

Construction of Fuselage

Done by Abdul Rahman

In this project me and my group decide to make a conceptual H-type Tricraft

which I think it is one of the best ideas we have come up with. Since our aircraft

is completed made independently we need all the specifications and all the

criteria’s to work properly in order to attain the desired results which we are

aiming for.

My part is to construct the whole fuselage according to the selected dimensions.

The dimensions which I selected is approved by the group leader and all the

members. The dimensions are given below:

Before start the construction of our project, we decided to construct our project

with the help of cardboard as it’s a new invention so with the help of this

cardboard model we can easily get our lags and it provide us benefits during

material selection plus we will get the idea of construction, which method we

can apply and which tools we require and how to properly attach the parts

using the glue.


Figure 47- Card board model ready

Figure 48 abdul rehman doing work on his fuselage

After the designing and dimension selection phase of our project I moved on to

the selection of materials and for

that we searched many hardware

shops such as hobby ultimate, ACE

hardware and creative minds. Once

we purchased the material and

tools from the hardware shop, I

decided to start the construction of

fuselage.

First I start from the outer surface

of the fuselage because our fuselage

is like a curve box, the curve area is the frontal

nose part and the box are is the belly of the Figure 49 balsa b grade


fuselage including tail. To start constructing the curve nose design of the

fuselage I took help from our AutoCAD design. I print the whole fuselage design

on the chart and place a BASS wood on the chart to get a proper dimensions of

the curve. I mark the dimension on the bass wood and start cutting it with some

clearance to keep a safe distance.

Figure 50 fuselage drawing with dimensions

I used jigsaw Machine to cut the Bass wood for the construction of the nose

curve. It consumes a lot of time to cut a proper curve but with the using of jigsaw

I can easily achieve it within 15 minutes. After cutting the nose curve I start

filing by 120 & 150 sand paper on the nose curve to achieve a proper design

according to the given proposal. After finishing the nose part I start working on

the tail and belly of the fuselage. I use the same technique that I used on the

nose curve but this time it is easier for me to cut the BASS wood linearly with

the help of cutter. The outer surface of the fuselage took me 4 days to complete

cutting and filing process.

Once all the cutting and filing process completed I start putting the pieces

together to fix it with the help of glue gun. I stick the square bar at the tip of the

connections which is stiffer to attach the BASS wood pieces together.

After completing the outer structure I have to make housing for wing

attachment, servo, motor and landing gears. To make a space for servo and


landing gears first I wait for rizwan, salman and amir because it’s difficult for

me to place a servo with consulting it with them. As servo is used to control the

elevator which is rizwans part and wing attachment housing is done after

completing the wing structure, so I wait 3 days for that but in between I used to

work on landing gears.

Talking about the landing gears. Fist I plan to buy the readymade landing gears

but I didn’t find the proper landing gears for our project, so I decide to construct

it by my own self. I went to the welding shop buy a copper rod because copper

is stiffer than aluminum, check that the tires of the gear is placed inside the rod

properly or not, well it is placed properly so I do start constructing the landing

gear. I do weld the one end of the rod with bolt and then install the landing tire

inside the rod and bend the rod at 90 degree, as I achieve the l shape landing

gear. Then I place the 15cm rod inside the fuselage and take do measure for

booms propeller clearance from the ground. I placed 15 cm long rod inside the

fuselage and make a l shape bend after 10 cm, as after the bending part is placed

inside the fuselage for fixing so the length that we requires for landing gear is

10cm. The bended portion inside the fuselage is fixed in between the fuselage

by using ply-wood. I placed the bended rod between the ply wood and screw

the ply-wood tightly.

Figure 51- Abdul Rahman glueing his fuselage


Figure 52landing gear

After completing all these things I install nose landing gear by connecting all the

parts of the aircraft. I placed a propeller on booms motors which tells me about

the ground clearance. I know how much clearance is required to the propellers

before fitting the landing gear. The ground clearance is 10cm for the nose

landing gear.

Figure 53 landing gear copper rod bent for fixing


Figure 54landing gear fixed on fuselage

I have to make a platform for motor mounting, I use square sparks for the

housing of motor mounting with the help of glue gun. This housing is internally

fixed with fuselage accordingly.

Figure 55fuselage shown from inside

Salman and Amir complete its wing structure and show it to me for making the

housing of wing at the top of the fuselage. The thickness of the airfoil is 3cm and

airfoil chord is 20cm, according to this dimension is use to cut the upper surface

of my fuselage part with the help of saw and then file it properly. And for the

servo Rizwan told me to put a servo aty the tail part of the fuselage inside the

motor fixing area. And make a hole at the tail area from where the string

attached between servo and Horizontal Elevator.


Figure 56wing cavity on fuselage

After finishing the programing I did the coving of the fuselage nose with using

balsa sheet. I used 4 balsa sheets whose width is 10cm and stick it with the

nose section with the help of hot glue.

Figure 57fuselage front covering

Mounting of the motor is very crucial part of the construction, as I have no idea

how I can attach my mounting with fuselage. First I used to fix it with glue only

but as motor have to face a heavy pressure so I use the sliding technique in

which it holds the mounting from bottom and upper side. And I use ply wood

for mounting of motor, so first I decide to place one ply only but later on testing

I realize that single ply wood piece isn’t face the huge amount of pressure, so I

place one more ply wood bar at the bottom of the mounting due to which the

strength of the mounting get increases and it can able to face u huge amount of

pressure.


Figure 58 center motor mounted on fuselage

Figure 59fuselage shown after engine mounted

Finally when all the construction completed, me start learn about programing

from Salman & Amir. I need to connect my motor with ESC and then connect

the ESC with the battery & the transmitter making it work and then adjust the

motor at channel 5, when all the connections are done we made sure that all the

inputs in the transmitter are off and then we switched on the transmitter and

check it, as it work perfectly or not.

Figure 60ESC shown


The battery I used in fuselage is high performance Li-po Battery 3300mAh, 25C-

14.8V-4S1P. It is a 4 cell battery and work till 4.5 minutes during heavy

operation. In normal operation it works around 6 to 8 minutes.

Figure 61 3300 mAh center fuselage battery shown

We use the Brushless Out runner

Motor 870Kv which have 25 power. It can hold the aircraft up to 2.5 KG

weight. It is high torque direction drive alternative to in runner brushless

motor.

Specification of motor:

Diameter: 35mm

Case length: 54mmWeight: 190g

Shaft Diameter: 5mm

Continuous current: 32A

Max burst Current: 44A

Max power output: 537.6 watts

Figure 62 motor box shown specs

Figure 63 motor box showing specifications


Cells 3-4S Li-Po

Requires 40A or higher brushless ESC.

After the programing part I start working on the fuselage upper covering. I used

this Balsa sheet for the covering of the top part. I cut two pieces of it and place

it around the wing attachment rod. There is some gap in between the two pieces

which is covered by monokote. And I fix that coving by screwing bolt.

Figure 64 fuselage upper part fixed where wing is mounted

For Monokote I have no idea how I do monokote my part so didn’t take help any

of our group member but there is one person who help me to provide me the

tools and teach me how to monokote the parts, this problem is overcome by

David as he teach me properly how I do monokote the fuselage part properly.

Then I easily do the whole monokote to my fuselage

Figure 65 fuselage after monokote covering

Strength of my work during project:

I was very conscious about making the Fuselage perfect by analysing smallest

imperfection possible and made sure that they are corrected in minimum

time. I made some of the strong decisions and made sure that all of the

members are agree to the decisions that I made. Always made sure that I


listen to my group members and they are happy with the working

environment.

Weakness of my work during project:

Time management is very bad, all of the assignments, project work and exams

were on our head and the workload was increased unnecessary. Lack of

knowledge about programming the whole aircraft. Difficult to produce report

and making presentation because I’m not good in it.

The mistakes that I did in my project work.

One of the major mistake I did was I fixed the servo of horizontal elevator

at the tail of fuselage. And then I have to remove it because of rizwan’s

decision.

The nose covering that I did I have to peal it off because I have to install the

landing gears then I cover the nose part.

I made a single plywood housing for the motor mounting instead of single I

have to use twice to make it stiffer.

The experience that I had with the team was very good as we encourage each

other’s work and adjust with each other’s decisions. Although we had some

arguments but then at the end of the day it was for a goof purpose and I think

this should continue till the end, the coordination and working environment

also contributes to good working We were little late in our work but I think the

late submission is genuine as we had assignments, housework’s and exams

coming in between.

Construction of the left boom

Done by Muhafiz Ghogari

The part which I am making in the project is the boom. It is cuboidal shaped and

will be made by using balsa wood.

The balsa wood is very light in weight and at the same time strong too. It can be

easily cut with blades and shaped easily using sand paper to give it smooth

shape and surface. The different grades of balsa wood include:

- Ultra-Light

- Light


- Light Medium

- Medium

- Medium Hard

- Hard,

Amongst which, ultra-light is the lightest balsa wood with the lowest density

and the hard balsa being the strongest and heaviest balsa with the highest

density. Furthermore the balsa wood is also divided in grain types,

A – Grain. This type of balsa wood has long straight lines and is very flexible and

light weight. It is generally used to wrap the fuselage, leading edge or trailing

edge surfaces of the wings.

B - Grain. This type pf wood is A & C mix type. It is long weight to medium type

and it is used to make fuselage or the wing ribs. This is the type of balsa which

I will use in my project to make the boom.

C – Grain. This type of balsa is short length grain which is medium hard to hard.

It is generally used for making fuselage and empennage The balsa wood I have

already purchased from Ace

Figure 66 grades of balsa


hardware shop. I tried to order online but the cost of shipping was more than

the cost of products and also it was taking long to be delivered.

The length of the boom is 70cm and as one of the three motors will be mounted

on this part, this part needs to be strong.

Once I have finished cutting all the parts needed for my boom, for the parts of

the boom which will be needed to be smoothened and I will smoothen it using

a sand paper of grade 150 or 180. The sand paper I have already purchased

from ace hardware shop along with the balsa wood.

Once I have finished smoothening the surfaces I will start gluing the parts with

each other. For this I will use Ciano / super glue to hold the surfaces in desired

angle and position at first and then apply glue gun to make the hold stronger. I

will attach the ribs and all the other parts of the boom except the front part and

the top side of the boom. This is because I will need to place

Figure 67superglue

Figure 68hotglue gun

the batteries, wires, servos and the motors in the boom.


Also, for the servo and the battery I will make a housing of the same grade balsa

wood and glue it to the inner side of the bottom of the boom so that they don’t

move and stick to their place during flight.

The last thing that I will work on the boom is the motor before covering the

boom from the top side. For the motor (which we haven’t decided yet as we

want to see the weight of the aircraft before deciding the appropriate motor to

use) I will use hard balsa to make its housing in the front side of the boom. The

housing will be used to hold firmly the servo and the rods which will help the

motor to rotate by 90 degree up. I will use aluminium rods to hold the motor

and a ring in which the motor will be placed. At last I will connect the motor,

servos and the batteries and see the working of the motor. If it is working

perfectly I will finally close the boom from the top side by gluing the top side of

the boom. Once the whole structure is complete, I will use sand paper to

smoother the edges and the extra glue on the edges will be filed using a metal

file. If there is some spacing left in the boom it can be easily filled using baking

soda and super glue. Baking soda and super glue make a very hard hold also

cover the surface easily.

My part of the model was the left side of the boom. The whole boom was of

70cm in length but we planned to make it into two sections of 40cm and 30cm.

the width and height of the boom is 6cm x 6cm. the front section of the boom is

40cm long which is a simple cuboid. The rear section of the boom which is 30cm

long is of conical shape which at the front end is 6cm x 6cm and at the rear is

1cm x 1cm.

The reason we came up with this idea of dividing the boom into two section was

because it wouldn’t be possible to bend the balsa sheet into a perfect cuboid

into a cone section as the balsa would break. To make things easy and save time

and resources we first decided to make

Figure 69dummy prototype from front


Figure 70dummy prototype from side

the model with cardboard. Given below are some images of the model made by

cardboard.

After making the model with cardboard we decided what all resources we

would need to make the model with balsa wood.

The resources are as follows:

Glue Gun: the glue gun was used to make stick the different parts of the model

which needed extra tough bond which we wouldn’t get with superglue.

Surgical Blades: the surgical blades were used to cut the balsa wood. As the

surgical blades are very sharp they cut the wood very precisely and easily.

Sand Paper: the sand paper were used to give finishing to the cut parts and also

shape them. I used grade 150 and 180 sand paper for my part.

Aluminum Sheet: the aluminum sheet was used at the front of the boom where

the motor was to be attached.

Cutter: the hard cutter was used to cut the aluminum and ply wood used for the

front part of the boom where the motor was to be attached.

Drill Machine: the drill machine was used to drill holes in the front part of the

mount of the motor.

Hack Saw: the hack saw was used to cut the aluminum sheet.

Motor Used:

Type: Brushless out runner

Size: Replacement for 25-size glow engine


Bearings or Bushings: One 5 x 14 x 5mm Bearing, and Two 5 x 11 x 4mm

Bearings

Wire Gauge: 14

Recommended Prop Range: 11x8 to 14x7

Voltage: 12–16.8

RPM/Volt (Kv): 870

Resistance (Ri): .03 ohms

Idle Current (Io): 2.40A @ 10V

Continuous Current: 32A

Maximum Burst Current: 44A (15 sec)

Cells: 3S-4S Li-Po or 10–14 Ni-MH/Ni-Cd

Speed Control: 40–45A brushless

Weight: 190 g (6.7 oz)

Overall Diameter: 35mm (1.40 in)

Shaft Diameter: 5mm (.20 in)

Overall Length: 54mm (2.10 in)

9) Servo used for the Rudder

Modulation: Analog

Torque: 4.8V: 44.0 oz.-in (3.17 kg-cm) 6.0V:

4.10 kg-cm

Speed: 4.8V: 0.23 sec/60° 6.0V: 0.19

sec/60°

Weight: 1.31 oz.

(37.0 g)

Dimensions: Length: 1.57

in (39.9 mm)


Width: 0.79 in

(20.1 mm)

Height: 1.42 in

(36.1 mm)

Gear Type:

Plastic

Rotation/Support:

Bushing

Servo used for the motor:

Specifications:

Voltage: 4.5v~6v

Speed: .19sec

Torque: 10.5kg/cm

Bearings: 2BB

Gears: Metal

Weight: 49g

Size: 40.7x20x39.4mm

10) Battery Used:

Specifications:

2600mAh 25C 14.8V 4S1P

Endurance: 3.5 min

The work was going as per the Gantt chart and all my work was up to date. The

cutting of balsa, joining them and making one single boom. But one of my group

members by mistake broke my boom as the drill machine he was using fell on


my boom. Due to this I had to go and buy new balsa wood and make the whole

boom again which merely took one day as I gave one whole day to keep up with

the date. Once the boom was made I started fitting the motor but the

mechanism we had thought was not efficient and thus we had to think of a new

mechanism which took us two more day to search and develop the mechanism.

So we were late by two days again. Once we decided the mechanism it was easy

to mount the motors and servos and that didn’t take much time and thus we

were again in flow with our decided plan and dates on when to complete the

model. Everything was according to the plan to submit the project on 25th

November but just some days before the date our project examiner said the

submission date was 6th December. This gave us the time to do the finishing

work more accurately and modify some things a little and also cover the model

with monokote. The whole model was ready to be submitted on 6th December

but again one of my group member damaged the model as he tried to test the

model if it moves forward with the motors or not and by mistake he applied full

throttle and the model straightaway crashed into the wall. We showed the

broken model to our examiner and convinced him it was a mistake and the

model was complete to which he agreed and said it was fine. That same day

after college we repaired the model and everything was fine only the monokote

was left which was done two days later. So basically we weren’t late in making

the model and were up to date.

Techniques Used for Construction:

Now the procedure of how I made the boom is already discussed above. The

boom was made into two sections, the front and the rear. The whole boom is of

a cuboid shape. So four balsa sheets were used to make the front section of the

boom and four balsa sheet


Figure 71 boom corner

were used to make the rear part of the boom. For the front section the balsa

sheets were cut having dimensions of 40cm x 6 cm x 6cm. the balsa sheets were

cut using surgical blade and then on the sides of the all four cut parts I used

sand paper to make the sides slant so it would make it easy for the four parts to

attach perpendicular to each other as shown in the figure below.

Figure 72 rotating motor mount

Figure 73 rotating motor mount from side


Then the three parts were attached using a glue gun and keep and the fourth

part which was the upper part was left open as the servo mounting and

connections was still to be done.

For the rear end of the boom which is 30cm in length but is conical in shape

which was also cut with surgical blades and the sides were smoothened using

sand paper, the front side was made of 6cm in width and the rear end was made

of 1cm in width. These four parts were attached the same way as the front three

parts were attached.

After these both the sections were attached to each other using a glue gun and

made into one whole boom of 70cm length.

The other issue for my part was the mounting for the motor. As one of three

motors on the model, one motor had to be attached on my boom. The motor

had to be movable by 90 degrees up and down. For this I first though of cutting

a ply wood of 6cm x 6cm and then attach the motor base on that plywood. To

attach the motor base I had to drill four holes on the ply wood. But one of my

group member who was working on the other boom said that the mount needs

to be strong for which we decided to attach an aluminum sheet of 6cm x 6cm

on the plywood. So I cut an aluminum cross section of 6cm x 6cm and then super

glued it with the ply wood. I used the motor base to mark the 4 drilling points

which were needed to screw the motor base with the mount which we made.

After marking the four point for drilling I drilled the cross section and then filed

it to make it smooth. The idea was to attach the cross section from the upper

side to the front of the boom by using a hollow aluminum rod as shown in the

figure below. The mount for the motor will rotate around the rod attached in

the boom. For the rotation of the mount I planned to use a servo and attach the

mount with the servo using connecting rods. As seen in the figure above the

bottom part would have left open when the mount would which I had planned

to cover with a paper in a zigzag manner so that the boom would not be left

open. The above shows figure are the initial design for the boom.


Updated Design

The design for the movable mount of the boom was not efficient and it would

also create a lot of drag. So we decided to change the design and came up with

a totally new idea. We got this new idea as we were searching online for model

aircraft having movable motors or engines. I and my group member Rizwan

who had the same part we sat together and looked for different mechanisms

that people used to move the motor. We saw videos on YouTube and images

over internet to find some efficient and easy mechanism to rotate the motors.

After watching a bunch of videos we saw a similar model having the mechanism

for movable motors. This new mechanism was very efficient and easy but we

couldn’t make exactly the same as the in the video from where we took the idea

from. The image below shows the screenshot of the mechanism in the video

from where I took the idea to make my motors movable.

Figure 74 rotating motor mount shown

For this new mechanism we needed to cut the boom at an angle from the front

side as shown in the figure below.


Figure 75 boom frontal area slanted

As seen in the above picture the motor is mounted on a boom with a slant front

side. The motor is mounted on a small ply wood on whose back the hinge with

a small rod is attached. The ply wood on the boom also has a hinge that

intersects the hinge on the back of the ply to which the motor is mounted. The

small rod which seems to be of metal is passed through these hinges and a semi-

circle shaped connector is attached to the rod. This semi-circle has holes in

which the connecting rod is mounted and the other end of the connecting rod

is mounted to the servo. There is one more rod connected to the semi-circle

which is not shown in the video where it is connected. Based on this design I

tried to search for similar parts but I couldn’t find any. Thus, I decided to make

my own mechanism. I and my group member Rizwan had the same parts so we

both sat and thought of a mechanism similar to this. We came up with idea in

which we used the same mounting method as shown in this video but the hinge

around which the mount rotated was different. For this hinge we made four

holes on the back side of the motor mount and then four holes on the ply

mounted on the boom. Then we cut two iron hangar that are used for clothes,

and made four loops out of that. We passed one loop from each pair of holes

and glued them to the mounts. Then we placed the loops parallel to each other

and passed a carbon fiber rod which would hold the loops in place and also act

as a pivot for rotation. Then we took a ply wood and made a semi-circle similar

to the one seen in the above picture and drilled a hole such that the connecting

rod would fit in the hole. Then we connected the rod to the servo and tested the

rotation and it was almost perfect. The other issue we came up here was with

the servo we used to rotate the motor. The servo was too weak to rotate the

motor so we had to purchase a new servo. The new servo was capable to lift a

load of 10kg thus it could easily rotate the motor.


The figure below shows the mechanism which I and my group member Rizwan

developed to

Figure 76 rotating motor mechanism

rotate the motor. Also, it can be seen in the picture the cavity made to pass the

three struts of the wing would hold the wing. Another part of my boom was the

vertical stabilizer which was to be attached on the rear end of the boom. To

make the vertical stabilizer i took a balsa sheet of 20cm x 10cm x 1cm. the

design of my stabilizer was such that the tip chord of it was of 5cm and the root

chord was of 10cm. I drew the design of my stabilizer on a balsa sheet using a

pencil and then cut it with a surgical knife. Once I cut the outline I started filing

it to give it an aerodynamic shape. This didn’t take much time. Once I gave the

aerodynamic shape I then drew a 2cmx 7cm on the vertical stabilizer. This part

was the rudder. Once I drew the outline on the stabilizer for the rudder I then

cut it with a surgical blade. I then used a thick blade to cut two slots on the

stabilizer cavity for the rudder and two slots on the side of the rudder that was

to be attached to the stabilizer. Then I took two paper hinges and superglued it

to the slots on the rudder. Then the part of the hinges that was outside of the

rudder I inserted in the slots made on the vertical stabilizer and applied super

glue to it. Now this made a movable mechanism and my rudder was ready. The

vertical stabilizer was to be attached to the end part of the boom which passed

through the boom. But I had made the boom solid already and didn’t make any

cavity for the vertical stabilizer. This made an issue for me as the rear end of

the boom was very thin and it was very difficult to make a cavity for the vertical

stabilizer. I placed the vertical stabilizer on the top of the boom and drew an

outline with pen on the boom. Then I took a surgical blade and tried to cut the

boom. But as the boom was very thin at the end the balsa broke apart and now


I had enough cavity to insert two vertical stabilizers. I then inserted the vertical

stabilizer and then I pressed the broken boom against the vertical stabilizer and

applied super glue to it. There was a lot of space between the boom and the

vertical stabilizer which I filled with balsa dust and then applied super glue

which made the balsa dust strong like a stone and helped me to fill the cavity

and make a solid structure. One more mistake I did was that I inserted the

vertical stabilizer a bit slant and as I had applied super glue it was now

impossible to remove it and again place it straight. If I had left the vertical

stabilizer slant it would have caused a yaw effect on the aircraft. To overcome

this issue I cut the vertical stabilizer from the bottom just above the boom and

I filed the surfaces in opposite angles such that when I place the vertical

stabilizer on the cut part it would be straight. Then I applied super glue and

filled

Figure 77 vertical stabilizer completed

the gaps with balsa dust and again applied super glue to make it rigid. Now

the vertical stabilizer was straight and then I filed the joint to make it smooth.

The picture below shows the image of the rudder and the boom attached

together.

The last part that was to be attached to the boom was the horizontal stabilizer

which I made by taking a 50cmcm x 14cm x 1cm. then I started filing this balsa


sheet using a sand paper and giving it an aerodynamic shape. To make the

elevator drew a single line at the rear end of the stabilizer which was 3cm in

width. Then I cut through length of the line and took a thick blade made three

slots in the elevator where I placed three paper hinges and fixed them I place

using super glue. Then I made three slots at the same distance as the slots made

on the elevator and then placed the hinges into the slots on the horizontal

stabilizer and then again applied super glue to it. Then I and my group member

took our booms and placed the horizontal stabilizer in between the booms and

drew and outline on sides of the rear end of the boom. Then we both cut our

booms to place the horizontal stabilizer into place. Once we made the cavity for

the horizontal stabilizer we first placed it between the booms and the fixed it

into the cavity made for it. After placing the stabilizer we applied super glue to

it so now H – Shaped tail with a single horizontal stabilizer and two booms. The

image below shows the H – Type tail.

Figure 78 horizontal stabilizer mounted

After this is done I had to mount the landing gear under the boom. For landing

gear I bought tire from ultimate hobby and took it to welding shop. From there

I bought 1 copper wire and passed the copper rod through the wheel and bent

it forming a L shape. I then asked the worker in the shop to weld one end of the

copper rod and make it thick so that the wheel doesn’t come out of the rod. The

landing gear looked like this:

Figure 79 landing gear not fixed


I then went back to my workstation and decided to fix the landing gear with the

boom. For the fixing of landing gear I took measurement of the area inside the

boom and cut the ply accurately so that it fit in that area inside the boom

perfectly leaving no clearance. I made a 4mm hole in the centre of that ply. After

making hole I took another ply of same dimensions and started cutting the ply

from centre in a line. Later I filed the ply to make it smooth. I cut another ply in

same dimensions. Then I measured the length of the landing gear as required

and bent the excess part of the landing gear to form a L. one end of this rod I

passed through the hole I made in the ply and attached all the 3 ply I made with

this with the help of superglue to form a sandwich so that the landing gear

shouldn’t move. Later I glued this sandwich section with the boom keeping the

landing gear out with hot glue.

After completing the landing gear work I decided to put in the electrical stuff

and for electrical stuff I required calculated centre of gravity. I got the centre of

gravity from online and started putting in the batteries, ESC and wires. I had to

mount the battery, ESC and wires in the boom properly as it should not move

when in flight as these are heavy and needs to be placed at CG or to maintain

centre of gravity properly. For mounting I took 1 small piece of balsa wood and

cut it in my desired size and keeping cg and battery position in mind I glued it

inside the boom in front side of the battery. For the back part of the battery

again I did the same thing and glued it behind the battery so that it should not

move.

Once the boom and the stabilizer were attached then I made the housing for the

servos. I had to place two servos in my boom one to rotate the motor and one

to move the rudder. To make the cavity for the servo I place the servo on the

boom surface where I wanted to place the servo and made an outline using a

pencil. Then I took a blade and cut it to and placed the servo into the cavities.

Then I screwed the servos to the boom and also glued it just so that it remains

in place. Then I gave the connections to the motor and to the rudder. Now my

boom was totally complete and only the monokote was left.

To cover the part with monokote we had decided to give it to someone but were

a little late and all the places where we asked to apply monokote to our model

they said it would take at least week to do so but we had to submit our project

in two days so we purchased monokote from the market and applied it to our


respective parts after which the project was totally complete. The image below

shows the complete internal structure of the boom.

Figure 80 boom inner electrical system shown

Strong point of my part in the project was that I was very conscious about

making my part perfect by analyzing smallest imperfection possible and made

sure that they are corrected in minimum time. I also made some of the strong

decisions and made sure that all of the members comply/agree to the decisions

that I made. Then I used to always make sure that I listen to my group members

and they are happy with the working environment

The negative point on my part was that the time scale was not maintained,

especially I think I have wasted most of my time and not following the deadline

which I made on my own to finish the my part. Another point I think was lack

of understanding about the products, as I have never seen a balsa wood and

other components although I know how to work with them but at the time of

shopping I was not able to decide so I took my whole group members for

assistance. Time management is very bad, all of the assignments, project work

and exams were on our head and the workload was increased unnecessary.


Appendix

Parametric study (1):

Heron TP (Eitan): This is the first aircraft that I am going to do the study on and

the name of the aircraft (UAV) is mentioned above which is used by Israeli

malat division for spy purposes and it is developed by Israel aviation industry.

The aircraft that we are going to make is very much similar in terms of design.

According to this UAV type the wings span is double the length of the fuselage,

the reason is because this UAV is driven by a single propeller so the aircraft

must have the characteristics of glider type wing which can be seen on the

figure while our aircraft will be supported by three propellers which will bring

stability to the aircraft and hence we no longer need the glider type wing

configuration. Instead we opted for wings which are slightly bigger than the

fuselage to achieve lift which will be enough for our aircraft to take off.

Figure 81 heron tp

Another reason our configuration of engines differ is because we are trying to

achieve vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) and horizontal takeoff and landing

(HTOL) from our aircraft which makes us use three propellers and we think this

will provide better thrust distribution across the aircraft to help us achieve

both the results that we will be working on. Two propellers with the fuselage

will provide the necessary functions for both (HTOL & VTOL) configuration

while the propeller at the center will only provide (VTOL) which can be later

turned off to save the consumption of batteries and thus can provide better

range to our aircraft. According to my research the Heron TP can be used as


autonomous aircraft, but our aircraft is not autonomous and we came up with

using gyros in our aircraft wings. This will help us to maintain the level vertical

takeoff and landing and will make our aircraft easier to control while testing.

Another difference that my aircraft will be having is that of altitude. Since, our

aircraft is at small scale and the motors will be relatively smaller when

compared with Heron TP. This difference is major and our aircraft cannot

attain higher altitude.

Another major difference is the specification, our aircraft is much smaller

compared to the Heron TP. The specification of Heron TP and our specification

is mentioned in the table below:-

Parametric study (2):

EADS Harfang: is a drone aircraft used by the French Air Force, This drone is an

unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) which is propelled by a rear-mounted turbo-

supercharged water-cooled flat-four engine, driving a pusher propeller and has

a twin boom tail with two vertical surfaces. EADS Harfang have three-sensor

sphere stabilized by gyroscope, mounted under the forward part of the

fuselage. It contains optronic and IR sensors, a laser designator that doubles as

a rangefinder, and a high-resolution, fixed echo suppressing synthetic aperture

radar. The radar can be used to observe

vehicle movement on the ground under any

meteorological condition. The antenna is

mounted on the center of the body. It

carries an inertial measurement unit with

GPS recalibration, and a differential GPS

that provides for automatic take-off and

landing capabilities. In case of loss of

communications, the drone follows a path

that brings it back to its start point. The

Figure 82 frech spydrone harfang


Harfang lacks electromagnetic sensors and is wanting in terms of

maneuverability. It is limited by bad weather, notably by icing or high humidity

conditions.

Tools:

Hammer

Screwdriver

Phillips screwdriver

Wrench

Pliers

hacksaw

chisel

electric drill

wire

screw

washer

bolt

nut

Sand paper

Needle-nose pliers

Bull-nose pliers

drill bit

jigsaw

rechargeable drill

battery pack

electric drill

chuck

glue gun

tape measure

Clamp

Files

Figure 83 different drill machines

Figure 84different saws


Recommendation and conclusion

Recommendation:

In my opinion the only problem that I see arises in our aircraft is the lack of

gyros. As I can see that the aircraft thrust distribution is about the same but the

problem is that the vertical take-off is not balanced, so gyros will help in

providing greater amount of stability to the aircraft.

Monokote was done by our side but I think that it can be done better as this was

our first ever project and I think it will get improved.

The programming we did in our aircraft took some time this is because this is

first time that we programmed any remote control. Programming in the end

was done and was a good experience. We now know how to program remote

controller in future we will be fluent in it.

Conclusion:

In the end of the project we conclude that the overall project was very good. It

went fluent and taught us to work in a group and how to distribute work

equally. Though dealing with a large group and working in it is a bit complicated

as everybody has their own mentality and coordination usually is main issue in

large groups. Making an aircraft is not easy and requires a lot of calculation and

perfection. We have learned many things in this project and I think it should

this types of project should be there to help the students and it helps in

increasing the technical knowledge. The assignment part was not that

satisfying as we were busy in the project work which was much more

interesting than the paper work.

The calculation part and programming was one of the most interesting part and

also the construction part. The work of the construction was very quick but it

took longer time for us to program and understand the programming. The

reason for choosing bigger propellers is because the required thrust to take off

for the aircraft is around 6kg or 60N to be precise but then if we need to

increase the thrust generated by the same engine then it’s important to provide

the motors with bigger propellers as it provides greater amount of air hitting

the blades and that can covert that takes higher amount of airflow and then

increases the that amount of airflow further providing greater thrust.


This project provides higher level of technical knowledge to everyone in our

group and in future we will further improve the structures of the aircraft.


References

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