It’s been a while since we checked in on our fiberglass and carbon guru who’s spending way too much time building a huge jet powered Blackbird r/c model plane. He’s getting really close to flying the first prototype and instead of fitting it out with $8,000 worth of jet engines, he’s mounted up a couple of rather powerful alcohol powered piston engines with propellers. In his own words,
I’m crazy to be doing this project, but not crazy enough to risk eight grand worth of jet engines on a test flight that might result in a big lawn dart maneuver from 200 feet.
He’s also rigged up a unique system where he can remotely drop weights from the plane to quickly experiment with different centers of gravity. Performance and handling characteristics are greatly affected by CG on a plane and with the odd ball shape of this beast, it would normally take a lot of time to sort out where the CG needed to be if you were having to land and take off for each minute adjustment. Click for more.
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