citabria Archives - WIND CATCHER RC

Posted on January 26, 2019March 11, 2019 by Lee

January 2019 update on Spec Wing kits and more.

We have a several exciting things to tell you about this month.

We have not made any announcements in the past few weeks due to a lot happening and couldn’t talk about it until we were sure. A lot has come together this past week. We are excited to now be able to tell you about it.

Spec Wing update

Full kits of the Spec Wings are being put together this week.
FPVWRA recently let us know our kits meet spec requirements. Hurray! Thanks FPVWRA! Discussions are now taking place to have our kits carried in their store so they will be certified for racing. We will also sell the kits directly on our website. You can find the link HERE.

We sent out several kits for review with Shelby Voll (link) and Rotor Ranch (link). A huge thank you to those gentleman for accepting our request to do a review. I encourage everyone to click on the links and subscribe to their channel.

These kits are targeting the beginner pilots. We designed these planes to take several hits and hopefully stay together well enough so you can pick it up and keep on flying with no repairs needed. We are using #1.3 EPP foam along with a carbon fiber spar system that we developed between myself and Donny at ThrustFPV (link). I have purposely crashed my Spec Wing over 20 times in various ways to test the rigidity and durability. I’m not saying they are indestructible, however they should hold up well to various crashes. In time they will require some maintenance, however it is our hope you will be flying longer and repairing less.

Website moved

Due to unreliability, we moved to a new host provider recently. We hope the website will be more reliable and provide a better shopping experience for our customers. Please let us know if you notice anything not working or if the page does not load properly.

Live broadcast with ThrustFPV

We did a live broadcast on 10 January 2018 with ThrustFPV talking about our new Spec Wing (link). You can see what the kit will look like and all the details about it. Subscribe to Thrust on Youtube and check out their other videos. They are also doing some build videos for this kit.

Toledo Show

We will be at the Toledo show (link) on Friday and Saturday (April 5 and 6) in the swap meet area. Come check us out! If you have any special requests for kits, foam, carbon fiber, or anything else I can provide, please let us know so we can have it ready for you. Spec Wing kits, several different sizes of sheet foam, and carbon fiber will be available.

Custom Wings

Recently we have been getting a lot of requests for custom cut wings. I will design a form for people to fill out to help expedite the process. Yes, we do cut custom wings. Due to how my CNC hotwire cuts, there is a deviation of about 0.0625″ from actual dimensions. Most of the time I can get this down to less than that. I do my best to get on target with the expected dimensions. My CNC can cut up to 48″ long x 24″ wide. Contact (link) me for a quote.

#1.9 EPP

Two inch (2″) #1.9 EPP sheets will soon be in stock. The sheets will be 36″ x 24″.

Other kits

Our next kit we are working on will be a combat wing setup to take the hits and keep on flying with minimal repairs and maintenance. It will be designed for full contact combat in mind. The combat wing will use the same sparing system as the Spec Wing, however where it will be different is the combat wing will have a thicker asymmetrical air foil. The first few prototypes will also have a foam live hinge we will test. The name for this combat wing is not finalized, however for now it’s code named Das Krieger, which in German means The Warrior.

The Citabria is still in the works. There has been a lot of interest in this plane. We didn’t forget about it. The Spec Wing was the easiest kit for us to get ready for sale and there was a huge demand for it. We wanted to have it ready for the 2019 racing season, so the Citabria had to be put on hold until we were finished with the Spec Wing. The Das Krieger is very similar to the Spec Wing, so that will be a quick kit to design and get ready too. After those two are readily available on our website, we’ll focus on the Citabria again.

New Logo

Wind Catcher RC now has a logo. Let us know what you think. We will update our website with the new logo soon.

Posted on September 21, 2018 by Lee — Leave a comment

Update shipping EPP foam, Spec Wing , and Citabria

UPDATE

I’ve been quite busy over the last month. Thank you to everyone for your great support and words of encouragement. My friends and family are wonderful to help me get through the first stages of starting up a new business selling EPP foam. Special thank you to my wife for understanding and allowing me to store all our EPP foam in the…. dining room and spare room. 🙂 She is wonderful! We are hoping in a few more years to build a new house on our 10 acre field we bought outside of town. This will provide a better space for the foam business and a nice field for testing.

SHIPPING EPP sheets

I know one of the biggest difficulties for my customers is the cost of shipping for the EPP foam. This is out of my control. I wish I could provide a less expensive option. I’m open to suggestions. I looked into Greyhound, however I read a lot of really bad experiences. If a customer really wanted me to use them, I would, however I am putting a huge disclaimer that I am not responsible for any damage or loss due to Greyhound’s terrible customer service and practices.

Another option I have is to cut the EPP foam 36×24 sheets down further to fit in a smaller box.

Do you have any other shipping suggestions?

SPEC WING

The first EPP Spec Wing prototype flew at the ReadyMadeRC FPVfest a few weeks ago. I heard from my test pilots Donny and Bob at ThrustFPV that the wing did well overall on building experience and flying, except that the EPP foam live hinge was not strong enough to pull out of the turns. I have balsa trailing edges on order and in transit for testing on prototype #2. If this works out, then I hope to have the kits available soon.

A huge thank you to Donny and Bob for testing this out for me and giving me great feed back. I hope to provide the best possible build and flying experience.

CITABRIA

The EPP foam Citabria flew again after an improved firewall was installed. I learned how to better use my light duty mill on my CNC to accurately cut light plywood. Using this technique I was able to accurately cut a new firewall that also better tied into the front of the fuselage.

On the initial launch I was dealing with some tail heavy issues, however after adjusting the battery I was able to get a lot of great data from the flight. I flew it in about 15-20mph winds and it surprisingly did okay consider the EPP wing is a huge barn door and the entire plane is light. It really likes to float in the air at lower speeds.

I am working out the details of prototype #2 along with building techniques that should speed up the build process for the end user. I would like the entire plane to go together, if using a hot glue gun, in less than an hour. The electronics would then need to be installed followed by optional paint/film covering.

Posted on August 24, 2018August 24, 2018 by Lee — Leave a comment

FPVWRA Spec Wing and Citabria update

FPVWRA Spec Wing Class
I was contacted recently if I could make a Spec wing for FPVWRA. After looking into this a bit more I realized this is something I could do relatively quickly. This might become my first production plane available. I made an entire kit and sent it out for review to Bob over at Thrust FPV. I am not satisfied with my current motor mount. I might beef it up a little more. I’ll wait to see what Bob says after he flies it. I’m hoping he’ll have this plane built and flying in time for the ReadyMade RC FPV Fest in September. I will wait for his feedback before I start making more to sell. Keep an eye this website in the next few weeks for updates on the Spec Wing.

CITABRIA
Research and development of the Citabria was put on hold recently in order to work out the details for the Spec Wing. I was able to fully assemble the Citabria and give it a toss about a week ago. I’m using a PowerUp 480+ electric motor on a 3s-2200mah battery. I think it is over powered, but I didn’t have enough time to really know for sure. 🙂

I knew the motor mount was weak, however I was in a hurry to get it out to the field for testing. I didn’t realize just how weak until about 10s into the flight I gave it up elevator and hammered the throttle. The plane didn’t go very far, but the motor sure did! haha The plane then flipped over inverted and amazingly floated gently to the ground. There were only 2 small pieces of foam that came off the plane where the motor ripped out. I already have a new plan in place to have my CNC cut out a proper firewall with reinforcements that go back into the fuselage like it should have been in the first place. This will most likely happen sometime next week. I might even get proper landing gear on the plane too.

Posted on August 5, 2018 by Lee — Leave a comment

EPP Foam Citabria Prototype

The Citabria Prototype is now completely cut out with the CNC. I have a few minor adjustments to do before I cut out the next few planes. I will be giving some to friends for beta testing. I am also documenting the process with both video and pictures. This picture are all the foam parts ready to be assembled. The total weight of the foam is 10.3 ounces. The wingspan is over 52″. I can’t wait to fly this later this week!!!

I’m still planning to use a 480 plus electric motor on a 3s-2200mah battery.

Posted on July 25, 2018 by Lee — Leave a comment

Citabria Wing Design Finalized

I finally finished the design on the Citabria wing.

Wing is hotwire cut on my CNC from #1.3 White EPP Foam.

This was challenging due to the wing tips having a compound taper. My CNC was at it’s limitations for the majority of the hotwire cut. It took a lot of CAD work and tinkering to finally get the wing tip to fit in the machine and properly cut out. I think I cut over 10 different wing tips before I finally got it. I also had other challenges like buggy software, loss of files on my computer, and in general several (I’ll spare you the long story!) unexpected external events that pulled me away from the project.

I’m really excited about the Citabria. It is finally coming together and I can’t wait to fly it. I’m still shooting for a target of about a 480 size motor, 3s-2200mah battery, and the wing span will be 54″ with a removable wing. If you want a clipped wing version, then don’t add the wing tips to have a 48″ wingspan. Or just cut off the ends of the main wing to make it shorter. I think this will have some silly STOL capabilities with a 54″ wingspan and flaps. I can’t wait to play with it.

I am now getting over a cold, so the fuselage may take a few extra days to complete. I’m trying to decide exactly how I will make it. One thought is to do a clam shell style design with a left and right shell that is hollowed out with my mill. The downside of this is that the entire fuselage will need to be cut out with the mill which means rougher cuts and longer CNC time. The other option, which I might actually go for, will be to have the fuselage made in three different sections. We’ll have the main center section sandwiched between a thinner left and right sheet. This will allow me to use the mill to hollow out the center section, but the outside pieces from the sheet will leave the outside of the fuselage smoother. Do you have another idea? Let me know.