RCSuperPowers.com - Development of the RCSP SkyRider

SkyRider Development

It started one Saturday afternoon in the fall of 2005 as I watched a Cessna fly overhead making his approach to the El Monte airport. I noticed that the front of the plane had the aerodynamics of a pickup truck! Large hood, steep windshield, prop in the front! It's 2005, can we get something better than this 1930s design please?! I drew out a picture of putting the engine and the wing in the back, and the elevator in the front. I came to find out Burt Rutan built this very plane 30 years ago, the Long EZ!

Since Rutan was about 1000 steps ahead of me, I started to study all of his designs and why he puts his elevator in the front (canard). There are many benefits to doing it this way. Better aerodynamics, won't stall, more efficient, and chicks dig it. It makes more sense in many cases to "lift your nose" rather than shove your tail down to pitch up, if you think about… come on, think about it.

For almost a year I had canards on my "study list" and the many different types of aircraft that used them. How "well" something works is really dependent upon what you want it to do. Do you just want to go from point A to B like a commercial jet? Are you a stunt plane looking for increased agility? Are you a fighter looking for more speed? A commuter plane looking for efficiency?

A canard may be the best thing for you or may not, depending what your mission objectives are… My objectives are: increased lift, increased aerobatics at slow speeds, little to no stall, short take offs and landings and enhanced 3D hovering capabilities.

I then started to learn and study about these "backward" wings. Why do some planes appear to have their wings on backwards? Even the Yak-type stunt planes have a flat leading edge and angled trailing edge. I found from much Googling that what is going on here is the ailerons are stalling LAST in a stall rather than first as they do on straight or swept wings. This gives the plane better control at higher angles of attack. I'll take some of that!

I had conclusively decided that this new aircraft must have "4WD canards" (where all 4 of the elevons work together for pitch and roll) and they must have the reversed wing look to maximize aerobatics and effectiveness at high angles of attack and slow speeds.

So after a few more months of thinking about it I started on Model 1 without any thought of putting wheels on it. As I was designing this plane, my buddy Keith (who was also infected with canards by now) picked up a Multiplex Sonic Liner that he found hidden at the back of the shelf at Hobby People. We built and flew this plane first just to see what a canard can do… we were very impressed.

M-1 flew real good first flight. Pretty much did everything I thought/designed it to do. No tip stall, doubly tight loops, super fast rolls, decent hover. It took me 2 nights to figure out how to lay the servos down so they would work the way they do.

M-1 Video

What I saw that needed improvement right away was larger wing area to absorb the weight of the 5 servos. M-2 was made quite a bit larger and in a typical 3D profile format.

This model may have been the best flying one of them all. Its profile body made it very aerodynamic and easy to knife edge. Its large wing area allowed it to float on demand. It was very aerobatic and fully 3D capable.

M-2 Video #1

M-2 Video #2

Its biggest problem was the front wing would twist the body in flight. I would roll to one side and see the front and rear wing completely out of alignment because the long profile body was twisting. I have seen this problem on other large profile foamies that are sold.

This model was M-2 but taken to the chop-shop. I needed to find 3 things:

1) The right size of each wing. I needed the right amount of wing area to at least glide down when the motor is off. I have to be able to glide.
2) The right ratio of front to back wing. How much larger should the back wing be from the front?
3) Distance of the front and back wings. How far apart should they be? Is closer better or farther better?

I also added about 1.5 inches to the elevons to increase the control and wing area. It flew ok, but M-2 was better, it just didn't seem to have the magic of the 2nd one.

So now I am getting sick of the simple profile body. I wanted to put a real fuselage on it! I drew out a body willy-nilly and cut it out. I guess I underestimated and made it way too small! Worst flying one yet! The prototypes were going the wrong way again! Well, at least I am finding what doesn’t work.

M-4 was very jumpy and would not glide when the motor was off, just fell out of the sky like a sack-a-patatas. The motor mounting was all wrong as well… but I did like the body idea very much! No more Nancy-profiles from here on out.

A big influence in my cosmetic look of it was the Moller SkyCar. I was attracted to the M400 SkyCar because it had two short sets of wings like my design. Of course it had 4 big trash can looking engines on its wingtips where I have little winglets.

Once I had the dimensions of all the wings and such I was pretty much free to put any body style on it. I was thinking about doing a space age looking deal, but I liked the simplicity of a Cessna or Bonanza. Plus, the majority of RC guys seem to like planes they are familiar with. If you get too far out there the majority doesn’t seem like it. So the Bonanza/Cessna body style brought some nice familiarity and simplicity to it.

M-4 Video

Now we are getting somewhere. I went back toward the old wing dimensions of M-2 and 3. Then put a bigger, better body on it, and some wheels! I had a tunable front wheel assembly all made for another project and thought that I would need it to steer on the ground. I didn't think that just a rudder would be able to turn this thing, especially with 4 beefy wheels that don't move, but I thought I would give it a try just for hoots…

M-5 Video

Somehow, someway, the rudder turned it very well on the ground. I was very, very surprised how well the funny looking thing handled. It's nice to catch a break once a year! Out of all the planes and projects I test and develop at our secret Area 51 field (Monrovia high school) this project got the most attention than any other from onlookers by far. It was here I knew I had something good…

Some changes that needed to be made were a thinner and less tall body. I guess it's pretty obvious that the best shape for a fuselage is cylinder. But when working with depron, it's much easier to work with "rounded squares". Just like the F1 Hydro and another project I have coming later, I had to find the right height to width ratio for the fuselage. If it's made too wide, it becomes terribly unstable.

M-6 Video

The other major change was an increase to the back wing. This gave it more lift and stability in the air, flew much nicer now. The test flights are starting to turn into joyrides!

M-7 Video

The wing dimensions, ratio, and distance are working very good. At this point, things are working 10x better than I thought they would, I am very happy now. The changes of this model were a better looking fuselage, bigger wheels, rudder shape and motor mounting. At this point it is now flying so much better in the air and surpassing many other planes in the sky.

I started to turn my attention to the landing gear and wheels. The landing gear needs to be strong enough to take a vertical drop (from a hard landing) as well as a frontal impact from hitting a curb or speed bump too fast.

At this point I was experimenting with various types of nylon screws (that stretched out) metal screws (that were too heavy) and different sizes of aluminum struts. I wanted something that will not come apart ever. So many of the stock landing gear systems on the market just fall off from your first few landings! This plane needs to be built around the landing gear. I wanted the landing gear to be the last to go. I don't want anything to break, just bend. And then I want to just bend them back into shape. I had to try, test, and tweak a lot of set-ups before I got it the way I wanted.

M-8 Video

There are actually some big changes here. The wings were twisting and the wing tips were not sturdy. When the car tips over from going too fast the winglets and/or tips of the actual wings would break off sometimes. This is no good. I want a break away motor mount, not a break away wing.

I changed the shape, size, and hinge of the elevons and made the notches of the winglets smaller. This greatly strengthened the wing tips. Now, when you tip the car over you just skid on the tips, nothing breaks. That is what I was looking for.

Also, the rudder was given more "grab" and this increased the turning ability obviously. I knew I was getting close and did a lot of flight testing on M-8. I flew it like I stole it every evening. Here in LA County we are just running out of places to fly so I had to do most of my flight tests just after midnight in the decently lit, somewhat empty, Home Depot parking lot. Banged it around hard and it would not die. It was becoming very solid. Put a lot of hard flight testing hours on it to further expose, and fix weak spots in the motor mount, landing gear and air frame. Just minor bugs from here…

This is the one that was flown in the video and is pretty much what is sold in the kit. I had a string of bad luck and had 4 real bad crashes right after I painted it (of course). I ended up smashing up the front end real bad when my battery died while I was doing a hover at about 15-20ft up. It came straight down, nose first. I then fixed it up, and my dumb friend broke it again for me. I just soaked it in epoxy and flew the rest of the video with glue and toothpicks holding it together.

I am actually glad I had those 4 freak crashes in a row cause it showed me a weak spot in the front. The motor mount it so solid, the gear is so solid, so it breaks right behind that, right by the front elevons. I fixed this by running the front wood plate farther back and not cutting holes in the side of the nose for air intakes or servos. This worked, it's even stronger now, way stronger. After all the bang-ups, I have nothing but bent aluminum struts, which is what I designed it to do. Something has to give and that’s what I want it to be cause I just bend it back.

So this project took mere 9 prototypes compared to the F1 Hydro that took 12-14. I was able to learn a lot from the Hydro project and all the smartheads on RCGroups who showed and taught me many things that I incorporated in this project. I am so very happy with how it finally turned out and am excited to share it with all RC buddies!

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