Blue Noodle 1000mm

Introduction:

The desire to build this came after I pancaked my fpv camera on my 800mm rainbow wing during an unsuccessful launch. It basically crashed and the battery pushed the tiny camera into the dirt upon impact. Needless to say, I was not happy with my wings for that one reason (hand launches can be unpredictable at times). I know that they get easy with experience, but to be honest, I spend most of my time building planes and not flying them. Most of the planes I've built are flown less than 6 times. I've flown the wings more than that, but in reality even less than that if you could the number of changes I've made to them between flights (switching motors, etc...). Every time you change the configuration, it behaves like a brand new plane. Anyway, to make a long story short, I wanted to make something larger that I can go high with for fpv while being easy to launch and also being able to protect my fpv camera in case of a crash. Enter the blue noodle. I call her that because the fuselage is made from a blue pool noodle.

Components (~$30):

• Racerstar BR2212 1400KV (9040 propeller)
• 3x TowerPro SG90 servos (& push rods)
• XXD HW30A ESC
• OrangeRx R618XL 6Ch receiver
• 4x bamboo skewers
• paint stirring stick from the Home Depot (keeping the noodle stiff)
• Dollar tree foam board (2 sheets)

Conclusion:

This was one of my larger builds. Before I decided on this plane, I knew that two things were mandatory for this build. First, I would use a pool noodle and second, it would have to be a pusher. I was originally toying with the idea of a noodle on a flying wing, but I decided I wanted to take a small break from building wings (I'm glad I did). I decided to go with a design I found on RC groups called the "Big Easy". It's actually an older design, but let's face it...these things don't really age. :)

The build was fairly easy, but I did make a mistake with the wing. To make a long story short, it's not the most efficient wing, but it does the job and gives a lot more lift than necessary (causing drag and a negative toll on battery life). In addition to the bamboo skewers inside the wing, there is also a paint stirring stick connecting half of the fuse to the wing for overall stiffness. There are only 3 servos as I didn't need yaw for a FPV plane. The great thing about building larger planes is that you don't have to count grams as much as you do with micros. All said, it came out a little heavier than I liked at 385grams. All the components I used were super cheap as I don't see a point in using expensive stuff for experimental planes. I was especially surprised at how little the motor and escs cost ($10 for both!). Throw in a $20 micro fpv camera and you're still under $50 for a fpv plane! All you need after that is a transmitter and lipo battery for the plane (goggles as well for fpv, of course).

Maiden : The maiden didn't go perfectly. The plane flew, but not well because the motor was mounted too low. The great thing about flying large planes is that they have SO much lift! Basically, with the motor mounted low, the nose of the plane would go vertical every time I gave it throttle. So imagine flying a plane horizontally while its nose is pointed to the sky. Needless to say, the flight lasted about 40 seconds before I decided to bring her down. Amazingly, with so much lift on the wings, I was able to land her like a feather without a scratch. When I got her down, I also realized that the motor was a few milimeters away from breaking completely off from the 3d printed mount (needed screws with bigger bite). If I kept her up any longer, it would've been a disaster for sure.

2nd Flight: Before taking her out again, I shortened the fuselage and used part of the noodle to build up the back of the fuse to raise the motor mount. My original 3d printed motor mount didn't work out as well, so I switched to the tried and true method of using a wooden mount. After these changes, she turned out to be an amazing plane. The most amazing part was the power. This thing was a lot faster than my 800mm rainbow. I guess I was expecting less because of the aerodynamics of the plane? I guess I was wrong on this part. My original worry that the bamboo skewers were too pliable for supporting the tail were completely unfounded as well. There were no issues whatsoever with pitch response as she is capable of all types of aerobatics and can turn on a dime. Roll rates were amazing and inverted flying was easy as well. Still, the raw power was most impressive of all. I used a 2200mah 3s lipo, but that lasted me only about 5 minutes of flight time doing crazy aerobatics. This is to be expected as the motor pulls almost 20amps giving almost 1kg of thrust and the plane weighs under 600grams with the battery. That's almost a 2:1 thrust ratio. In short, I misjudged this plane from almost every aspect. It is an amazing flier and I can't wait to trim her out and put in the fpv gear.

Update 3rd -4th flight: I trimmed her out during these flights and performed some crazy rolls and stalls to see what she was capable of. In short, she is capable of a lot, but I did find the breaking point and was able to enter a stall which caused a nose first crash from about 60 feet. The reason this was important was because I got to see how crash resistant she is. Well, she completely passed the test. No damage to the fuse whatsoever and the tip of one wing that got hit only had a minor dent. The force of the impact was so hard that it broke one of the motor leads though. In short, it can take some good abuse!