Scratch Built Maiden Flight Today

[davidk]

Marcus, a senior student at the University of Toronto in the aerospace engineering program, contacted us and asked if we would maiden his scratch built aircraft which he designed.  Maybe Marcus will fill in a bit of into here about why, what, construction, etc.
 
Michael volunteered and today he flew Marcus' build.
 
Specs:
 
Take-off weight = 4.5 kg  (10 lbs)
Wingspan = 9 ft
Fuselage length = 5 ft
Runs on 2 6S 5000 in parallel for a total of 6S 10,000mAh
Prop at the tail, 12 x 12
 
After a general inspection, Michael's first test was a limited throttle test on the grass.  Without moving a ¼ inch the front gear collapsed.  You can see by the pictures that the gear is very long and would have exerted tremendous forces at the fuselage.  We knew this was going to be an issue.
 
Marcus fixed the front gear (yes... epoxy) and he then did a taxi test on the runway... all good.  The front gear was not tied into the rudder, but rather on a separate knob.  Not a great approach but Michael made sure the gear was straight, got the aircraft up to speed and relied on the rudder from that point.
 
Michael started at the north end of the runway, almost at the end, and off she went.  Down the middle of the runway, to full throttle, a good speed, a touch of elevator and she was in the air.
 
Michael was making solid, essentially flat, turns for 2 full circuits and brought her in for a landing.  Although the landing was good, the gear attachment did not survive as it was only tied into balsa at the fuselage.  The landing gear itself did survive quite well.
 
Still, the fuselage had no damage, and the wings no damage.  The lower vertical stabilizer and rudder will need some repair.  Michael relayed his thoughts about the gear and generally about the aircraft to Marcus who, at this point, was very, very happy his aircraft flew.
 
Everyone was very pleased with what can be considered to be a 100% successful flight.  Great take-off, great flight.
 
Nicely done Michael.  Nicely done Marcus.

Flight Video : https://youtu.be/OFd8fhAonyk