Mark's Scratch Foam Biplane

Following are some pictures of my scratch built biplane. Basically I took a sheet of foam and started drawing, cutting and gluing. My CG is a bit further back than I would like but other than that, it seems to be a nice plane. My goal while designing this plane was to build something that looked scale but could be flown 3D in a small field. I hope to test fly it in a week or so.

The following week...

The plane flew much better than expected. There is a lot of drag so it does not fly too fast and it is easily blown around by the wind. However, it flies really slow and is not too hard to hover. I used the basic dimensions of my RC Powers Extra 300 for the layout of the upper wing and tail. I made the ailerons slightly smaller as I have twice as many and the rudder slightly larger to compensate for the added drag on the wings. I installed a KF airfoil on the lower wing and left the upper wing flat.

My test flight was flown with a 370 size brushless outrunner motor with a 3 cell 1,300mAh battery. I believe I had a 9x6 prop. The plane lifted off after three to four feet of taxi and climbed nicely. I had to add down elevator trim and a little rudder trim. I was amazed how slow it would fly. Inverted flight was easy as was harrier/high alpha flight. It was a little harder to hover than my Extra 300 but not too difficult. I didn't try knife edge flight as I didn't want to crash it on its first flight. I'm looking forward to more flights. I can tell this will be a fun plane to have relaxing flights with.