Homemade Electric Airplane MK4

this video is sponsored by cubico all right diy airplane mark iv video part number two so a lot of things have changed since that last video [Music] i say i'm feeling pretty good about this the wings are on they don't feel too heavy right now it's 14 pounds on each side i'm really only expecting to maybe add another eight pounds to each wing and that's being pretty generous so if i come out with that i'll be really really well set as far as the olive weight of the airframe [Music] wings are sanded everything's finished we're attaching the vinyl covering and this is highly unorthodox but that's why i look kind of like experimental aviation and that's kind of also why i'm different reinforcing and sticking to this a bit that i'm not releasing plans for this because this is definitely interesting this could potentially be fairly reliable wings for maybe like two or three years or they could be completely disastrous if you move out in the sun and then you know it's all over in a couple days this is fun like i like this because like i don't have a lot of money wrapped up in this it's just really the aluminum that's the most expensive part and maybe the hot wired foam so yeah experimental aviation yeah although we're in the ultralight class [Music] all right now the vinyl's down i'm actually gonna slightly melt the foam and the vinyl and try to fuse the adhesives together as much as possible i think this is really going to keep this thing in separate stuck down i actually made a test piece a year ago and it's actually still very hard to kind of separate this kind of method from each other so this is working out pretty well well it definitely doesn't look good but hopefully it stays attached because like i'm more concerned about cheap and effective versus you know a high speed finish this is not a high speed finish this is not a high speed airplane i'm curious about this vinyl covering too and how much it'll weigh so let's get a weight of the wing first 198 pounds that's actually not bad at all this is a lot lighter than all my previous wings hopefully the vinyl covering i'm only maybe expecting like three pounds per panel so hopefully a flying with 23 pounds per panel i will definitely be on track to making it's my life ultimate uh 21 pounds even so 20 pounds so it looks like we're going out maybe around like maybe a pound a pound and a quarter so far that's just not that bad in just vinyl covering so yeah these will be very light wings when i'm done all right now we got the others other side covered it looks like it's 22 pounds on the scale this is officially the lightest completed wing i've ever made for one of my crappy homemade airplanes all right let's do the other one and then we can move on with the tests these are the same sandbags i used last time i stretched my third airplane design [Music] it is now time for the wing loading test because i did a bunch of tlar engineering which is that looks about right which is horrible for airplane design but luckily i have an airplane building experience and i had some actual aero friends come and look at this thing plus i've actually used basic components that are used off of other traditional ultralights with the same weight class so this should pass with flying colors because everything is a lot lighter on mine than what i'm using we're going to figure it with this out everything that's not lifted weighs about 100 pounds and then i weigh about 150 pounds to save it on the safe side so that's 250 pounds so if we get a 250 pounds in the wing that's one g so that's basic normal flying if we double that we'll get the two g's and that's still okay it's whatever it's good enough 750 3gs 3gs is actually kind of a lot for an old flight that flies on a calm evening so we'll probably stop sitting around here we may go a little beyond 750 depending on how much sandbags we have i don't think we'll get to quite to 4g because that's a thousand pounds and that's a lot of weight also we're actually doing this a little bit differently this is sort of incorrect but i have a block here that we set an airplane on because the only thing that we're not really going to get a good test on is the fuselage itself because the members that hold the wings up they're going to be in compression rather than tension so if my original plan was to submit it to the ceiling however i couldn't really get stuff up there to do that so we're gonna have to do it this way and just stress test the spars the wing struts and the center part of the fuselage we just won't be able to actually test the strength of this right here which is the center part of the fuselage because a normal flight it would actually be pulling itself apart rather than be compressed all right let's begin the test [Music] all right well that's one g that's very obvious it's going to survive that let's go to cheese this is two g's this is probably what the most i'll ever really logically load it in flight to i'm looking for a compression here too because this is loaded incorrectly like this thing is being squished right now right typically it will be being pulled apart in flight so this is a little different than where how it would actually be loaded setting down the wing and it's hardly deformed at all no real flexing at all so we're gonna it's getting heavy now so we are at 900 pounds so we're not quite at four but we're over three this is good enough for me i'm happy i'm gonna measure deflection and then take the sandbags off and let's see what we get okay now let's meet support fully that's a lot of weight for some styrofoam and some living room i see some stuff going on in here a little bit look it is bowing because that's why this is like yeah that's why that's flexed out this is this isn't compression but luckily it's not it doesn't look permanent so when i take this off it should just go back to the way it was but the windscreen is being pushed out all right i'll just take everything off well the wing looks back to normal just covering a little bit of sand actually that was a good test of the foam itself too because there's actually no ribs or any sort of wood in here and all that force was localized like within the center of the foam where the spars are actually out here but the sandbag was here so all that was actually being sunk straight into the foam so that's really impressive that with that pattern cut out in it the truss shape it was still able to survive that very easily and not buckle or crack or rip right out from the bottom so we're definitely more than good to go because a normal flight when it's stressed out it will be dispersed almost evenly across the surface it really depends on your angle of attack but that's just more airplane complexity stuff there but i'm very very satisfied with what i see so far don't get ideas about doing this yourself yet i have no idea how long this is actually going to last this is a very very big experiment lurking around the comments on the internet it looks like i actually found some more information about this engine it turns out someone actually got like communication from veterazi which is the manufacturer's motor and turns out this psru or prop speed reduction unit does not like being pulled on such as my airplane because it's in the tractor configuration so unfortunately this is not going to have to work so i had to pull off and start from scratch basically it turns out i actually have a friend paul from open pbg he's been working on a single motor electric pair motor and i thought um that's kind of cool maybe i should do electric again especially because you know things have advanced in like the last four years since i did an electric ultralight so now we're going to use something that's electric [Applause] i don't want to do much more than that because my crappy motor mount i installed all the electronics and stuff and far off the motor it does work nothing exploded fortunately but i did find out i can fit the tiny propeller on the really big motor the reason why i'm not using the propeller is i'm still waiting on the motor mount so i'm gonna check to make sure the amp meter works and i'm gonna put a small load up by putting this propeller it's gonna push the air backwards moving the wrong direction but hey at least i'll get to see the meter do stuff and confirm everything works before we go to the big engine we are currently drawing one amp one amp at 92 volts 130 watts oh here's the cool thing to come over this side one thing i did just in case the uh let's say the motors are running away oh no oh no i don't like this pull it just complete disconnects the system so it's no longer running now however you do not want to get the smart idea of plugging this thing back in because 92 volts without a spark suppressor oh it's going to make a big spark i got the motor mount get some use out of that winch all right here we go that was full power i can't even pull it back it sounds very smooth i'm actually very happy it doesn't terrify me the funny thing is i didn't really mention this but when i was using the old moisture 185 this thing was like shaking this is really smooth crisp and clean with no caffeine [Music] it's done a lot faster than other planes cotter pins are in basically it's one two three four five six seven eight nine ten ten bolts and you're done i don't really count the uh fairing to you know close the wing tips up so it's literally just ten bolts put the pins in them and we're good to go i'm gonna pre-flight it because obviously this is the very first time flying us and you should really pre-flight any aircraft but this one needs a thorough inspection because it's been trailered now so i need to make sure everything's set and then i'm going to start the taxi test or the low low altitude flying test probably i'm just applying it if it's too windy because uh it doesn't have air on so i literally have to just go for it to keep the wings touching the ground all right one last thing don't forget the eye fat kit in case i have a blow out because the propeller comes back and smacks me in the face clip clip yeah yep all right batteries are locked trying to put on the aerodynamic bolt holder that's what i'm calling this it just weather vanes and it should keep it from spinning if i think this works the way i think it's gonna work the thing with this point is has no ailerons if this was an aileron airplane if i start getting too high off the ground the wing starts rolling i just flatten it back down with a better run and just fly you know adjacent like crabbing across the runway this was another round so i if i get to that stage i'll probably have to correct the water but gain more altitude to keep the wings from touching the ground so at that stage i'm probably flying so i'll either fly to the end and put it back down or if it's too high i just fly it and go around planes all right we're ready to go well it flies [Music] [Music] i forgot how to steer the airplane i'm trying to i was like oh wait yeah rudder it's always better inside of a nose-heavy airplane for the first couple of flights but i think i could probably put a few pounds in the tail so i'm gonna put this in the tail i always try to make them just a little bit notice how you right off the get-go no i won't fall off i'll be way different i'll barely probably notice this but it's something what i do is i need a gun so when i'm flying if the plane is too tail heavy i look back i shoot the water bottle the water ball empties out its fluids and then i become a resume nose heaviness and i can kidney flying [Music] all right y'all already see me fly [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] it was at full power the entire time this thing does not make any thrust once it starts going kind of fast i was like max car's like just flying the virgin so i was like yeah we're going round and round back on the ground getting out the ground i want to be on the ground okay we're back from the first flight um yeah that did not go as well as i wanted to the pitch beat the propeller was a little bit too flat meaning i couldn't really accelerate even with the throttle pegged at full power the power's basically just turning as fast as it could possibly go however the oncoming airspeed was too quick also one thing that i found really interesting because i've never really flown a aileron less airplane which is this is basically a two axis control was the rudder is extremely sensitive in like roll control as well a lot better than i thought it would be especially like if you look at one of these tests here you'll notice that when i kicked the rod over it rolled a lot and that was actually just induced by the coupling of the whole dihedral thing and where the rudder is and so forth so it actually flew very well and actually satisfied my kind of requirements for control the second thing that i noticed was the leading edge of the elevator which is the surface here was fluttering a little bit this made me very very very nervous i knew it might have been a possibility i just didn't think it would happen at this kind of sort of airspeed which is around like 35-ish miles an hour so what was happening was i couldn't see it during the taxi test because i was more pre-occupied just flying down the runway now climbing away from that and actually getting some time to kind of pick up some speed i noticed it was probably fl fluttering maybe around three inches from center line of deviation it's a bit much for me it makes me a little bit nervous so i was like okay need to slow down fly it on the edge of sort of the minimum kind of flyable speed i could fly that and just slowly bring it around and put it back down the ground because we need to make some changes so now that we know we need to change we're going to do it the first thing i'm going to do is lop off the old wing i'm just literally going to hot wire the foam cap off then add three feet onto it it's actually very simple because the way i've designed this wing since this is two lumens to bars it's typically it's like a ladder style ultralight wing so i literally just machine some spacers slip the aluminum tubes in put some glue on top and there's just literally add more vinyl and then the wing is done that's it i added a three foot extension onto the link panel so it's got a higher aspect ratio now so it should fly better because there's hardly any penalty for adding any extra wing on except for extra wing structure but i did that by taking more aluminum tube and simply shoving it in we've done a little bit more modifications i added the wheel to my tail skin because i'm probably do more taxi testing this time because i just hate dragging around when i actually fly though i'm taking them off because uh i like the brakes and by being brakes i mean dragging the tail on the ground we have a three blade propeller now for better performance propeller has more pitch because last time we were flying a plane in first gear if you can kind of imagine this it's basically trying to ride a bicycle at 30 miles an hour in first gear you got to pedal really fast but you're not really making any extra speed there's a little resistance but the merge is turning very fast because i've watched the amp draw go way down also it's worth noting i flew on 11 kilowatts of power to put anything into perspective because those are just numbers my first plane had 25 available kilowatts of power and i probably flew over maybe around like 20 ish of that so it's pretty good that it flew on 11 kilowatts it should be even less with the increased wingspan and with this prop with more pitch i should get more kilowatts and i put on the meter and i can generate i think it's around 18 kilowatts now at full power so that's better [Music] all right i think we're all set and my flight plan pretty much just to fly we'll see if it feels really good i'll probably just continue to climb and we'll just fly around all right all right all right well it's not really quite that simple so i did think about this ahead of time like high ones specifically handle a low speed low performance airplane because a lot of you guys have pointed out you need to fly that thing to a thousand feet and then some so you can use that rocket parachute well yes but also kind of no the weird thing about my airplane is it operates like in such a low performance category it's like simply it's below like 25 knots lying and that's like flying fairly well too it's not the fault that specifically kills you when you jump off a building it's the sudden deceleration and there's not a whole lot of energy you have for potential energy that needs to be absorbed somewhere if i were to simply have a complete structural failure like below 50 feet i'd probably give myself a 75 chance of survival maybe the rudder falls off or some something catastrophic maybe even a full full wing collapse which is highly unlikely in this case 75 chance there of me surviving that now here comes the issues like climbing from beyond like a hundred feet to a thousand feet this puts me in a very weird area because it's high enough where i can get enough velocity to hit the ground very hard and suddenly stop and also probably scramble my brains also low enough too that i have no time to literally throw the hand toss parachute which probably needs a little bit more than 500 maybe even a thousand feet to really successfully deploy so i kind of give myself like brackets on how i'd survive and this is all if the plane does not climb very very quickly i'm going to stay kind of low because i'm thinking if it doesn't climb super well i'll just stay low because i know it's safe down here and i know i have a fairly good chance of walking away because a lot of guys are using this metric of like a composite airplane or something that flies at like 80 knots at like liftoff speed anything below like 1500 assuming the plane has a ballistic recovery system which is a rocket parachute or something similar to that you would have a very very very low chance of surviving if anything would happen and having altitude is your friend specifically in this case because it gives you more time to think if you were having like an engine out or something like that but a structural failure all the energy's got to go somewhere it's probably not gonna end well for you that's why i really have a slightly different flight plan planned for my ultralight we should fly now [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] do it wrong [Music] [Applause] so [Music] [Music] [Applause] that flies really good i'm so happy with that oh cruz is around like 80 90ish amps or so flies at a nice comfortable 30 miles an hour it is the dream machine [Music] it flies good oh we still got plenty of battery life too oh i'm so happy fly so good yeah that was much better much much more satisfying perhaps the most satisfying old flight i've ever designed in and flogged still didn't have as much power as i thought it would i think i needed to advance the pitch of the props a little bit more however man this thing flies great i wasn't really sweating at all it was more just like a nervous laughter flying around like ooh i'm flying and this is great so obviously i decided not to climb very high because while my climb performance wasn't anemic so i couldn't really climb out of that safe bracket because within that bracket of time i know you need to gather very quickly to be safe so i figured let's just fight on low i like to fly low and slow anyways and that's what this airplane's designed to specifically do so anyways it's a two axis design a lot of you guys keep freaking about that i noticed it's like yes yes yes aerons are great and all that however if you look back in the days of like the 1970s and early 80s a lot of ultra flights were two axis his name with a few designs the sky pup and the weed hopper they were both incredible airplanes and i haven't really heard anything bad about this so i knew it would probably be okay and well it's okay it flies alright alright so future mods there are a few more things i want to clean up such as like putting aerodynamic struts on there and sealing the gaps and stuff but that stuff costs money and this project was a very expensive project considering all the batteries and electric motors and stuff that's why i really would like to say thanks to kiwiko for sponsoring this video and making this possible so a lot of you guys asked me peter how'd you get so good at making things basically when i was a kid i tinkered around a lot tricopter thingy this is the veto i've been working on and that's why i'm very happy to have kiwico sponsoring this video cubico mixes basin crates tailored around science technology engineering arts and the maths otherwise known as steam these crates are awesome everything that you need is inside the box so you don't have to run to the store i was actually impressed because they even gave me the a battery to complete this robot the cool thing about kiwico is they make all sorts of different crates depending on your age group and the subject you want to cover once you complete your projects they even have supplemental information in the books to modify your project and to learn even more or make your robot fly fireworks not included that's why tinkercrate and kiwico is a great learning opportunity if you've got kids or if you want to experiment or learn something new or just peel around some stuff these are actually great supplemental information you can give to your kids or yourself if you just want to learn something at home so these products are kind of great hands-on experiences because you know at the end of the day i learned best by tinkering and just getting my hands involved with this stuff if you're looking a great way to get started sling try these things out i'm impressed with these and they have all sorts of cool ones and hopefully they actually send me a few more to play with these products are a lot like things i work on everything's included in the box though and there's a lot less fire involved than all sorts of dangerous stuff we gotta be kid safe you know all right so these things are really cool if you check out the link below you can save up to fifty percent off your first month of your kiwico subscription check the link it's kiwico.com and get you one of these things today so this has been quite an adventure man i'm so happy with it it flies so great if you guys want to see more flight footage of this and more raw stuff ahead of time check out sam's channel he's been kind of doing his own thing lately especially if you want to see early stuff because like you can see this thing flying like weeks in advance but anyways thank you guys for watching enjoy some more of the smooth b-roll and i'll see you next time [Music] foreign [Applause] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: PeterSripol

Views: 1,254,979

Rating: 4.9538412 out of 5

Keywords: homemade airplane, diy airplane, aircraft, 103, ultralight, electric plane, airplane, electric airplane

Id: hp7JcmwKQcU

Length: 29min 24sec (1764 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 25 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/oneskinnydave]

Sripol is my People.

​

I love him and the FliteTest crew as well!

[u/kevingattaca]

Wait ? So he's still alive at the end?

[u/huddsie1087]

That’s so interesting. This kids going places

[u/KathleenR]

Looks really cool ....... genius! Great idea!

[u/BatmobileOver9000]

Which is bigger, his brain or his balls? What a badass.

[u/BattleRapJunkies]

Crazy shit

[u/onestopmedic]

And it’s his 4th one

[u/irish91]

That's incredible.

[u/Carstoned]

Hey guys, I think this might be his 4th plane that he built himself!