So, it's been tough to sit on this one, but Arron Bates has finally unveiled his latest creation, the plane he will fly in the King50 today. I suspect there's going to be a lot of buzz about this plane on the web before the end of today, and Arron will be busy flying it, so I'll post a bit about it.
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As you can see, it is based upon the 87" Extra produced by 3DHobbyShop, and has relatively stock wings, but the rest has erupted from the mind of Arron. He is using a heli tail rotor assembly, driven by brushless outrunner housed under the canopy hatch via a driveshaft. The rotor system, if I remember correctly, absorbs about 1KW at full pitch, and is speed-govered and driven by 4S lipo IIRC. It provides several pounds of thrust to rapidly change the yaw heading of the plane. To put it mildly.
The fuselage behind the cockpit is Arron's own design and fabricated out of thin-wall carbon tube. The tail has been modified by Arron through a lot of testing to give best performance in this new configuration.
The weight, due to Arron's careful build, is under 19 lbs. Power is from a DA-60.
Control is via an Aurora9 transmitter modified with an XPS module and also by the addition of game-controller type instant-on switches molded into the case by Arron. Servos are by A-Main hobbies.
I've been listening and watching this project unfold for months, and it has been amazing to witness. It has grown completely out of Arron's mind and was fabricated completely by him. He's worked his butt off to make it happen in time for K50. It has flown several times and is, ahem, "Extremely maneuverable". Of course, it's a giant experiment, and so who knows what will happen today at the K50, but in my book Arron has already achieved major epicness and no matter how he places, he's victorious. Well done to our resident mad scientist, Arron Bates, who is also a pretty fair pilot, too.
