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April 15, 2008 11:27 AM

Categories: Dragonfly

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NoroBiik

Member
Joined: 12/08/2007

My wife took one look at my dragonfly's wings & said "you can make one of those" - and as usual she was right :) Found this video on youtube - material looks like light foil. Note that the tail is also modded.

Discussion:    Add a Comment | Comments 1-5 of 5 | Latest Comment

April 15, 2008 2:37 PM

Looks like aluminized mylar to me. The sort of stuff party balloons or "space blankets" are made of.

Tough stuff, if it's not torn. It tears with almost no force at all once there's a nick in the edge.

I've used a Dollar Store space blanket to make lightweight model rocket parachutes. 

ScottE -- Member (always) & Moderator (when needed)

April 15, 2008 8:11 PM

wow, i dont know if he's just a good pilot, but that's the steadiest flight of one of those that I have seen. No swooping up and down or anything.

April 15, 2008 10:45 PM

altwolf said: wow, i dont know if he's just a good pilot, but that's the steadiest flight of one of those that I have seen. No swooping up and down or anything.

       That's the effect of the tail mod, it should be in one of the Dragonfly threads in the forum.  One makes it go faster & the other stabler. 

April 15, 2008 11:15 PM

Found my old post on the mod , original thread below :
http://www.robocommunity.com/forum/thread/12519/Tail-mod/
 
Pic of tail mod here (not my creation !) , you can find the original link to the diagram (actual size) here :
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1192340
 
Stable tail mod

January 20, 2008 2:30 AM
Outpatient said: With the small, light tail it's just too darn fast to fly indoors.

I found a similar hack on RC groups - the first tail mod made it stabler to fly indoors, pic here :

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1183007

But the second hack was a triangular design angled at 30 deg that made it a better flier outdoors but a poorer one inside :

   
Live to ride... and fly!

Tres Wright's Avatar

Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Forney, TX
Posts: 12,586
Quote:
Originally Posted by mlbco
I added a smallDepron (1mm) tail to my Dragonfly and it flies much better indoors. The pitch oscillations are much better damped and overall it is more stable.


Steve


I tried flying mine outside this morning (with ribbon) and could not get it to stay up more than a few seconds, the pitch oscillation was back with a veangance! This evening when I got home it was really calm out, so I rigged up a horizontal stab similar to yours. Basically I just quickly cut a triangle out of card stock, cut a slot in it to go around the prop and taped it onto the tail. I also removed the ribbon. I bent the end of the card stock down about 30 degrees and it works fantastic!! The pitchiness was completely gone at anything above half throttle and as a bonus it climbs MUCH better than before. It climbs out quickly now, so fast in fact that I was having to drop to less than half throttle to keep it from getting away. When dropping below half throttle, it does oscillate a bit, but not as bad as before. It also seems to dampen the turning, it doesn't react as harshly to turn inputs as it did before. I tried flying it inside the house and it's flying too fast, but for outdoor flight this mod is a definite must! It would seem that the stock tail is angled upward too steeply and this mod compensates for that.

Triangular (outdoor) tail template here :

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1192340

original message here :

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=639277&page=7

April 15, 2008 11:29 PM

MrScott said: Looks like aluminized mylar to me. The sort of stuff party balloons or "space blankets" are made of. Tough stuff, if it's not torn. It tears with almost no force at all once there's a nick in the edge. I've used a Dollar Store space blanket to make lightweight model rocket parachutes. 

        I'm going to look for similar material over here - spare Dragonfly wings aren't easy to come by & I've already broken my original set. 

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