Stuttgart - Day 1

We arrived safely in Stuttgart with an undamaged airplane. The youth hostel is very nice. Thursdaynight we went to the city center, there was a nice event going on, the Stuttgarter Sommerfest. It seems the hottest day in Germany since ever, 37 degrees.

The planning was very strict; we had to get up at 6u30 this morning for the presentations and technical inspections.

We saw some very interesting models, including the Chinese box wing and the Municher biplane with double flaps.

After seeing the presentations, it was clear that we were the underdog. But nothing is proven yet. We know our model flies :) Most other teams were much bigger and started to work two years ago. Some of them were very professional and were supported by their professor.
Our plane passed the technical inspections, so now we are ready for the first official flight.

This is our official proof of flight which we showed at the presentation. The model is rather difficult to control, but it flew after all. Tomorrow we'll start with a modest payload of 1,5 kg, but we plan to increase the weight later on.

Stay tuned!

Rudder and Elevator

We've finished the tail! Check out the video above! Last thing left to do: finish the outer parts of the wings.

Getting Ready To Fly

Hello everybody!

After a little break, we're now getting ready to fly our airplane. As the challenge is already in a few weeks, it's time to get serious. The electronics had to be connected to the batteries and the receiver had to be binded to de transmitter. The latter was fairly easy: we just had to follow the instructions in the transmitter manual. But to connect everything, we needed to make extensions for the servo wirings.

None of us had soldered before, so that was already challenging for us. But as it turns out, it was not that hard. Everything seems to work: our airplane can already "drive" on campus.

Check out the video below!

The result!

Here it is! Our aircraft in front of the department of Mechanical Engineering, completely assembled. Today was our presentation for the university, so we put the aircraft completely together. All it has to do now is fly the way we want it to.

Next up: the exams! We will return to you at the end of June :)

Final report

The deadline for the final report is here! The 4 copies have been sent out yesterday. Don't they look pretty? :)

Another visit to Dejond

Last Monday we paid another visit to Dejond, to place the Tubtaras in the fuselage. They placed 11 Tubtaras in total. These specific Tubtaras are also the ones Airbus uses in their aircraft designs.

Yesterday at the KU Leuven fair for first year bachelor students at the Engineering faculty, we showed off our aircraft. Hopefully some of these students are up to the task of participating in the future editions of the Air Cargo Challenge!

Landing Gear, Fuselage and Flaps

Things are finally falling into place. In the above picture you can see the total length of the fuselage. On the left side the motor and propeller are attached to the fuselage by a piece, 3D printed in FabLab.

The Tubtaras will be used to attach the fuselage to the landing gear. Next week we're paying a visit to Dejond again to help us. The picture above shows the placing of the Tubtaras on the fuselage.

We are still working on our final wings, but that doesn't keep us from playing around with the styrofoam wings we cut out at the very beginning of our project. Last week we tried to cut out flaps, so when we have to do it for real on the real wings, it won't be the first time we have to do it!

It still needs some tweaking, but this is what the lading gear will look like more or less. Of course the carbon tube of the back wheels needs to be adjusted, but it can drive already, hooray!