Falcon's Perfect Landing!

I must say while I am a big sci-fi fan (which is odd to say, considering I actually cannot be bothered to go watch the new star wars), I'm not really that into real space flight, though I do read up on them and get excited when they pop up on my news feed. Anyways, this is just superb. Beautiful. Go SpaceX!

Side note: I've always wondered what "lox" was in 2001: A space odyssey. I've always wondered why the heck they had salmon in the emergency rations. Was this a some futuristic British thing? Finally, thanks to this video, it has been answered. It also proves how much of a space nerd I am not!

Z3 Day 2. I'm lovin' it.

I don't get it. Comparing the Sony Z3 to the Samsung S6, I can't fathom why I'm loving the Z3 so much more! I think this is the 2nd android device I really like, the first of which is the Xperia ray. Never really got into the Nexus 4, and the android tablets I have/had? Blargh. No thanks. IOS ftw there.

To me, Z3 vs S6:
The ergonomics on the Z3 are poorer.
The hardware feels cheaper.
The screen just does not compare at all.
The camera is pretty crap compared to the S6.
The charger that came with the phone evidently doesn't supply enough current to charge the phone (I have to use my Nexus 4's charger lol)
Opening the waterproof flaps to charge the phone is fiddly.
Instructions on how to insert the sim card are practically non-existent.
The torchlight is an epic fail.

But somehow, the UI and feel of the phone is just right. I really like the included widgets, they just align on the home screen just right. THE BACKGROUND SCROLLS! And best of all, I didn't have to waste time "rooting" the phone or going through the app store to find replacements. It just frakkin' works!

So glad the S6 is sold. Hope the new owner likes it :)

Goodbye S6, Hello Z3

So after a week of using the S6, I decided that I really do not like it, and put it on ebay, and got a Sony Z3 instead. Originally, I wanted to get the Z3 Compact for the size, but the prices on ebay had the Z3 for cheaper, so hey! Buuuuuy. Z5 was out of the run - price wise, and I didn't want something with a processor that's mainly for marketing to compete against newer iphones.

In the meantime, I've been using my alarm clock, aka a used Iphone 5S for my main phone. I was very surprised it actually worked since I've never put a sim card in it. Heck, it somehow even got a lte signal. Samsung, Sony, LG, still haven't got a clue how to include good alarm tones like Apple. 

Haven't used IOS since IOS 1 on the very first iphone, and it was not as annoying as I remembered. If not for the weird love/hate relationship I have with Itunes, I would probably use an iphone, but I really, really like plugging in a usb cable and downloading my food photos which I never upload. So there.

Well first up, things about the Z3 that I liked:
- Alarm has adjustable snooze (yesssss!)
- Adjustable size clock widget (much win!!!!)
- Background now scrolls as I scroll through the home screens (YEAAAAH!)
- The "old school", "dated","bloated" Xperia UI that reviewers like to mention, I found very nice to use, not the gelded annoyance that is TouchWiz.

WIN! It does everything I want that the S6 does not!

That said, there are things about it that I think could be better:
- Screen: S6 is the winner by far, it's damned good. The iphone 5s arguably has a better screen than the Z3, but it's not something that's heads and shoulders better, like the S6's screen.
- Z3's Torchlight is a weak, pitiful thing. The S6 and 5S have kickarse torchlights.
- Ergonomics: The S6 my personal winner here. The S6's power button is exactly where my thumb falls, and the volume controls balance well on the other side to be managed by my index and middle fingers. The Iphone 5S's power button is my main nitpick. The 4S's power button is fine where it is, due to the shorter phone. The 5S requires more leverage to push. The Z3 has the power button where my thumb falls, but it's rather small. Also, the volume controls are below the power button, I find my finger movements rather restricted, attempting to change the volume.

I must say, I do miss having a physical switch for the sound/vibration like the Iphone, but with my day job, it's rare I need to quickly put my mobile to silent mode.

Now apps wise, I appeared to have bought a phone for UK's EE Carrier. There are some EE apps, which I haven't yet gone through to disable. Lots of Amazon apps, which I've gone through and disabled (can't be removed.) Several sony apps, but I'm a sony fanboy for now, so I'm just leaving them there for the time being.

Now I have to compare the Kindle app on IOS vs Android. IOS's version of the kindle app definitely just feels better to use. No irritating "please re-download this book to read it" crap. The Kindle app on the Z3 already gets this crappy warning the first time I loaded it up. Grrr.

Oddly enough, there is no notepad or to-do list on the Z3 (why, Sony, why?!). Had to use the app store. Blargh.

Other things is the Z3's screen is a super finger oil magnet. The S6's screen was somewhat better, but the ios screens in my experience can handle the oil so much better.

The biggest thing I will miss from using an Iphone is Siri. I like that I can ask her to (I've configured my Siri to speak with a sexy british accent, btw) turn on my 8am alarm, and she will ask me, which 8am alarm to turn on. Now that's damned useful. I can even get her to turn on *and off* timers.

Google now can do it all (and google now can actually turn on the torchlight, which siri can't for some reason), but it's hit and miss. I had to try several times just to get Google Now to set a 15 minute timer, and I have given up trying to use the voice commands to get it to clear the timer as it just brings up timer suggestions in a google search >.>

Guess you can't have anything.

The camera doesn't seem to be as solid as the S6 or Iphone 5s's, but that's through the live view. Lots of bloom, and not as much manual control as the S6's camera. I've got to test it more, but the S6's camera is just *that good*. Iphone 5s _appears_ great, but as mentioned, I have zero interest in pulling up itunes just to download photos. BLARGH.

Now with the Iphone 5S, I'm able to get almost 4 days of battery life with my usage patterns, though I usually charge it on the 3rd day before bed. It's a nice quick charge too, about 2 hours, on some random usb charger. The S6 charges just as fast with its QuickCharge 2.0, gonna miss that. The Z3 is appearing to take *forever* to charge up, so we'll see. What I'm looking forward to is the "stamina" modes that promise a really long battery life. If it can give me 4-5 days between charges, it'll be great!

Got a Galaxy S6... mixed feelings

Somehow or other, I came into a small sum of money, and as luck would have it, my Nexus 4 is having some weird issues like causing the charger to spark (!!!!) when charging, so I thought it was time to get a new phone.

I really wanted to get a Sony Xperia Z5 or the Z5 compact as I've had my best android experience from Sony's interfaces, but not only is it rather expensive, the many reports of the overheating of the Snapdragon chips just do not endear it to me. Nexus 5x was another option, but somehow I was not enamoured to its design. Enter the Galaxy S6. Originally, I was going to get the Sony Xperia M4, but due to events, suddenly had the budget to consider a "flagship" phone, and the S6 was one of them.

I've never really liked the touchwiz interface, and it's quite horrendous on my Galaxy Tab 3. A quick test at the mobile phone kiosk told a different story. The S6's interface is now much more to my taste, and it felt _really_ nice in my hands.

So, having the budget for a top-of-the-line phone (the S6 edge I thought was too flashy, iphone 6 for some reason turns me off.  LG G4 - curved screen I was uncertain of its suitability for VR use), I decided to get the S6. Unfortunately, here in Canada it's not quite that simple. Visiting the virgin mobile shop, I was told that I couldn't buy the phone outright (?!) even though it was priced at the stall. I had to get on one of the month-to-month plans in order to buy the phone. Several phone vendors I visited told me the same thing. No monthly contract, no new phone.

?!

I really didn't want a more expensive contract as I rarely use more than a few minutes of talk time a month, so I went online and found a S6 for the same price on amazon, and, it was unlocked. Boom!

I must say it's a very nice device, much lighter than I though, and the power/volume buttons are positioned perfectly. The fingerprint unlocking is great! Doesn't always work, but a slight shift usually gets it right.

Lots of crappy apps were installed, thankfully most could be uninstalled or disabled.

Now while reviews online are falling over how amazing the screen is, I really can't say it's that big a deal for me. It's good, it's sharp and can get bloody bright, but honestly, unless you've got the eyesight of an eagle or something, I really can't say the super high res screen is useful for day to day use. The only real reason I can see the screen being useful is for use with VR applications with the Gear VR or google cardboard.

The 720p screen on my Nexus 4 definitely shows the pixels up quite clearly when used for VR. However for what I use the phone mostly for, like using the Kindle App, I honestly can't say the S6 has a definite advantage over the Nexus 4 - apart from the larger screen size.

Had to use the phone app, and I must say, it's a disappointment as usual. Much prefer the phone app on my iphone4s. I mean sure, I could probably download another phone app, but given that I use my phones mainly as very expensive alarm clocks, I just suck it up.

Speedwise, the S6 is a speed demon. I was testing the Unity 5 PBR workflow, and my test scene on the nexus 4 was averaging just over 30fps. The S6, was clocking in roughly double the fps... but at QHD resolution. Totally mindblown. If I were to render-to-texture the test scene at 720p to match the Nexus 4, it'd hit 200fps, probably.

Now as mentioned above, I use my phones mainly as very expensive alarm clocks. So, the alarm function is rather important. One again, the Iphone 4s takes the cake as my primary alarm, and the S6 will get relegated to my secondary backup.

The S6 has the exact same features I need from the iphone, but the snooze function (oh I snooze much) has a quirk that annoys me - to snooze the alarm, I needed to press a very small, specific area on the screen (?!). In addition, it only snoozes 3 times before it turns off for some reason.

The Iphone4, to snooze, I just tap the screen (which I can do with my eyes closed!), to turn it off, I slide. Easy, and it works. WHY SAMSUNG YOU CUSTOMIZE IT SO!? Even the Nexus 4's snooze was so much better >.> I actually spent some time browsing the android app store for a clock app, but gave up as there were soooo many choices. Time better spent drinking tea.

Other smaller nitpicky reasons why I got an S6: The android phones prior to this, the Xperia Ray and Nexus 4 had a very nice clock that was rather customizable, and doubled as the alarm app. I like those clocks as they are nicely offset just to the right of the screen. Unlike the iphone, which has the damned clock right in the damned middle of the screen, which I think looks horrendous. The S6 unfortunately, I can't seem to adjust the clock the same way :( Once again, visited the app store and OMG, too many clock apps. I'd much rather clean my bathroom than look at those apps.

So yeah, winners here are: Nexus 4 and Xperia ray for clocks that I like. I actually went so far as to install the Google Now Launcher, but sadly, the clock just wasn't the same.

My wallpapers also don't work very well now. On the Xperia Ray and Nexus 4, when I switched between the.... desktops of the phone, the background would scroll to follow. Not on the S6! OMG WHY SAMSUNG?! The Google Now Launcher *does* scroll the background, but not in the same way as my older phones.

For example, my Nexus 4/Xperia Ray has a middle screen which is the home screen, and I had two additional screens on either side of it. The Google Now Launcher appears to have the main screen on the left, and I could only move to desktops on the right.For the wallpapers I enjoy, this means that I have to have the subject on the left, not in the center.

I promptly uninstalled it and went back to Touchwiz, because, I can legitimately complain about touchwiz, if I actually use it. 

One thing I'm really looking forward to the S6 is the ultra power saving mode. I'm rather sick of having to carry a battery to charge my Nexus 4 as it's battery's getting quite old, and lately the battery pack can't even charge it up to more than 60% before it runs out of juice so...

Oh yes, the camera app. I think this camera app is my favourite to date. Very minimalistic layout, AE compensation is right up front without needing to go into a menu, and the best part: Double pressing the home button brings up the camera app. The app launches in perhaps a second and a half. Really really love it.

Of course, I have to complain about the camera. I wish they didn't put in a 16 megapixel sensor. When I saw the resolution, it's such a joke - it's even higher-rezzed than my dslr. But we all know who will kick butt when it comes down to quality. I wish Samsung had it around oh... 5 megapixels? For me anyways, if I do use my camera to upload stuff, it's only to facebook and maybe this blog. Which I'd downrez to fit the page.

But all in all, I'm honestly looking forward to using the phone. The bigger screen is nice for reading, and.... hmm.... well I dunno. I have this feeling I really should have bought the Xperia M4 and call it done. I don't subscribe to the mobile lifestyle, and this phone is honestly overkill for my needs. One of the excuses I used to justify this purchase is Gear VR, and I can tell you honestly it's very unlikely I'll buy into it. But we'll see. Oh well XD

DIY Canard Airframe 08

Woo! The wings are all done, and I've completed my glide testing too! The Canard CG Calculator I'm using is rather spot on, at least for the glide testing. I added a few more grams of weight up front though and the glide improved a fair bit.

Right now, with the weight it's up to about 380g, frankly quite surprised it's able to glide as far as it did (15 meters? 20? ).

Actually, when I first did the test, I was just throwing it, and it just kind of tilted to one side and nosed into the ground. Only when I ran a few steps before throwing, did it do a nice glide.

Next I'm going to have to see what the current CG is, the begin installing the electronics. From what I gather, the battery will definitely be moving up close to the nose. Hopefully I can get the cg right purely from moving the battery.

DIY Canard Airframe 07

The 3 sections have been connected, and the wings are being constructed. The front canard didn't take too long, just a single 40cm wide kfm3 section. The rear section though, is made up of two pieces, and has the carbon fiber rod going between them to strengthen the wing.

DIY Canard Airframe 06

The 3 different sections of the fuselage are now ready to be connected.

From what I see, this design is really really weak. The section housing the motor is actually not bad, takes torsional forces well as there is not only the motor plate holding it up, but another piece connecting the parallel sides to give it rigidity.

Not so with the front two pieces. Individually, I think they will stand up to the rigors of compression and tension in flight. However, torsionally, there is nothing to resist such forces. There will be a layer of wood used to connect the sections, but again these are not that strong against torsional forces.

What I do have, are rectangular pieces that fit in during the gluing process to make sure everything is square. I intend to drill out the center of these pieces to allow wires and connectors to go through, then glue them into place inside the frame to provide some torsional resistance.

This has been a good learning experience so far. Will defo have to keep this in mind for future designs! The fuselage in the photo above is also resting on the left/right sections of the main wing.

DIY Canard Airframe 05

Woooot got the airframe laser cut properly this time round! This time I figured out the settings to get the pdf to import and be properly converted to vector line art. Things went smoothly after that, took just slightly over an hour to get all the pieces cut. Total time on the laser was 13.5 minutes, and I was charged just over 23cad for it (1.50 cad/min, rounded up to nearest minute).

The photo above is the properly sized laser cut out, versus the 88.8% scaled version. It's actually a rather big difference in real life, I'm now wondering if it's really able to fly! Weight of the chassis alone is 185g, and that's without the square dowels to provide extra torsional support.

To make sure that things stay square, I've cut out some square temporary supports that fit inside the fuselage while it dries. So far, things _appear_ to be going well, apart from the weight. I've also cut out the main wing from the DTF, but I'm going to take this build slow, as Vancouver's suddenly entered the rainy season. Rain started around 10am, and it was still coming down lightly when I got home in the evening. Even if I finished this build early, I will still need to get a calm-ish day to maiden her.

DIY Canard Airframe 04

Woot! First time out with the laser cutter. Unfortunately, the holes that I meant for the bracing to go through were too small for the piece of wood meant to go through it... looks like I'm going to have to make another trip down. If not, it was a very successful run.

Edit:

I spoke to hastly. The holes were too small, because the entire object was printed at about 88.8% of full scale! Darn it. I was wondering why the battery fit so snugly when I had planned for lots of space. Only then did I measure it, and realized that there was a size discrepancy.

If so, then the weight for the full fuselage will far surpass my original design estimates, and if I continue down this path, will have an airframe with much higher wing loading.

I need to think how to proceed. Very likely I will just proceed, as I do hope to learn more about creating a canard.

The original idea behind the wood frame, is to have a strong underlying structure, as the foam weakens significantly with holes cut into it.

Let us ponder.

Edit 2:
Didn't want to make a new post. I stuck the whole thing together with Titebond III .As I didn't have any clamps, I just relied on the thick rubber bands used to hold down the wing to hold the pieces together.

Titebond is a pleasure to work with, while the working time _could_ be longer, it was good enough for the few pieces I had to cludge together. In addition, it clean up with water! Some people have mentioned that it doesn't sand as well as Titebond III, but I don't think I will need to sand much as it just wipes away with a damp paper towel. And it washes off in the toilet, easy!

The strength of the glue is extremely impressive. I did some test with some waste plywood pieces and the glue of the veneers gave way before the glue bond. That's extremely impressive. The assembled fuselage otoh feels extremely rigid, and that's before I even put in my extra bracing.

I think I will just go ahead with the build. My motor is theoretically able to give about 600g of thrust with an APC 8x4E prop, and if the aircraft comes in about 800g, the thrust to weight ration _should_ be fine.

In the unlikely event that I would need more thrust, swapping to a 9x3.8SF will give over 800g of thrust, at the expense of flight time. In my limited experience so far, all my designs have take off at perhaps 60-70% on the throttle, and I can usually fly around half throttle, so it's very likely I will have enough thrust on just the 8x4E.

Quite excited to see how this build goes, but I am also very tired as I could not sleep well last night, kept waking up ever so often. Argh.

DIY Canard Airframe 03

Laser cutting this design tomorrow :3

After some thought, I decided to just do the whole fuselage. Alot of the material will be removed anyways, and the estimated weight is about 130g? I've added lots of structure at the points between the 3 "pods" that should be rather strong.

The DTF will then be more of a protective surface and less a structural thing. Which is good, as I really have my doubts of the longevity of the fuselage once holes are cut for equipment.

Securing the battery down is another story that I'll think about later :)

Google Cardboard & Unity

Eh, got bored waiting my turn for the laser cutter. Only can get time on it on Friday. Sooooo bored!

DIY Canard Airframe 02

I was introduced to OnShape.com last week, and it's very eye opening to see how much can be done inside a browser! I'm really not sure how heavy they will weigh, and I haven't yet figured out how much offset I need to give the pieces to accommodate the laser's kerf.

I'll stew on this for a day or two, then hopefully I'll have some laser cut pieces later this week.

In other news, I have also been experimenting at making a strong fuselage out of DTF (Dollar Tree Foam/Readiboard). While Experimental Airlines has a great way of making a strong fuselage, I do not have the space nor tools to do what he does, so I've been trying out various ways to get a strong fuselage.

It seems like without cutting a hole in the fuselage (for putting in batteries etc), I could get a very very strong tube by leaving the paper on, and constructing a tube similar to the way Flitetest does their swappable power pods.

However, once a hole is cut, the structure weakens immensely, and you can see that it won't take torsional stress very well. For a canard planform that relies on a strong section connecting the front and back, I thought this would be a major weakpoint, something I had to figure out.

Experimental airlines deals with it using additional pieces of DTF to strengthen the walls, in additin to some bracing to keep the tube square, and this appears to work well. I tried this, and it didn't seem all that strong, when I realized... perhaps I was using the wrong kind of glue?

Being the need for strength, I pulled out Foam Tac as it's been very strong so far for bonding many many materials, and I really like that it's rather flexible after it's dried. It was this flexibility that I was concerned with, and did a quick test, gluing two pieces of DTF using Foam Tac and Gorilla Glue.

Gorilla Glue was the clear winner in this case, the material broke first before the joint - heck the joint is still there and everything around it is all broken up from my attempts to pull (shear) them apart.

Foam tac unfortunately didn't work as well in this test case; I pulled it apart really easily.

This further reinforces the need to test various adhesives in various contexts. Hot glue, for example, I haven't used much as it's so heavy, but perhaps it may prove to be an even stronger joint.

In addition, with wood-wood adhesive joints, there is still one glue type designed purely for wood that I haven't tested: Titebond III. This is supposed to be *the* ultimate wood-wood adhesive. Have to test this shortly.

DIY Canard Airframe 01

After much calculating over the evenings this week, I decided to go back to my roots and build something simple. I really wanted to build a twin boom pusher airframe, but it seems like my ideas were very heavy and not good for flight.

I then watched some flite test and experimental airlines to get some ideas, and the Ansley Peace Drone came up, and I thought hey, why not, let's build something similar.

To keep things more on the lighter side of the spectrum, I'm going for a fuselage mainly made up of DTF (Dollar Tree Foam/Readiboard) , with plywood used to build sections that need to be rigid. For example, the motor mount.

VR Take 2 - it works!

So after returning the previous headset I got from amazon, I was still curious about bluetooth controllers for gaming, so read up around reviews and found this particular one that garnered good praise in its "Red Samurai" guise, as marketed by gamestop. Thankfully, it's a generic controller produced by Lemon, aka the S600. Browsed amazon.ca, and came across it under the Vigica brand, and decided to go for it.

It also came bundled with a vr headset for a few dollars more, so I thought, why not. Now when I first put this headset on, it worked pretty good! As good as the sunnypeak I tried, or even better, as I felt the rectangular screen was closer. For some reason, I took the phone out of its protective casing when testing. I then put it back into the protective casing before slotting it into the headset, and.... it made the experience very, very blurry. Seems like 1-2mm of distance between the screen and eyes is a BIG thing for VR this close.

The bluetooth controller also paired with little drama, though it's rather annoying to have to disable it as it appears to be a keyboard to the OS, thus the virtual on-screen keyboard does not show up. I haven't yet found any games I want to play with yet, but a gamepad testing app showed that all the buttons were working, which is well and good :)

VR - maybe not for me

Bought a pair of "3D VR Glasses" - basically a plastic version of google cardboard to give it a go. I've always regarded VR to be a gimmick - back in the 90s, I tried some "VR" googles for flight simulators and while it was cool, I really did not think it added anything. Of course, back in the day we were limited to low quality graphics and, IIRC, no head tracking. Tempered by my past experience, I never really got into the VR craze.

Skip forward to today, I gave it a go, but I think it's not for me. First, I think the glasses are probably not paired well to my vision. The image is only somewhat in focus, and I think it's the reason why I'm getting a mild headache.

The headtracking works great, if there's drift, I don't think its an issue at all.

My main issue is the apps for VR, while quite immersive, are just not my cup of tea at all. I think that for maximum use of VR, a dedicated game controller would be required. My version of google cardboard didn't have the magnetic button, so I have to use the included bluetooth controller. Which, unfortunately I can't seem to make it work in gamepad mode, only mouse mode (which works great!)

Probably gonna sell it soon. Urgh, have this pulsing headache on my temples. Graaah.

EDIT:

So I tried my friend's SunnyPeak VR Headset, and it works great! It came with resin lenses, and had the ability to change the interocular distance, and I had a much better time. The pictures were sharp, and I did not get any headaches. Seems like if you're nearsighted, not all work the same?

RC Annular Wing

Getting back to this build! Finally decided to build it with rudder and elevator, instead of just rudder alone as I was planning to.

I've also no idea how things would work, I'm just going to use what I've learnt from building the 3 previous aircraft.

The only thing I know is where the approximate CG for this wing is, so I'm keeping the rear end as light as possible and keeping the weight up front. Hopefully it will all work out!

Kfm3 flying wing post-mortem

Maiden'd the Kfm3 flying wing this evening, and while it does fly, I really don't like the handling characteristics. It's rather pitch sensitive (expected) but for some reason it does not turn as well as I hope. It rolls well enough, but doesn't track as well as my Kfm4 wing. I wonder if it's because of the vertical stabilizers....

In addition, it has difficulty penetrating the wind. Even at full throttle it appears to move rather slowly. But more importantly, it's handling characteristics in a crosswind are rather poor. For some reason the Kfm4 wing dealt with it better. Maybe the wind was much stronger today.

Finally, the stick mount is just not working for this design. In order to have the thrust line aligned with the middle of the wing, the motor actually juts out under the wing. I've made a foam block to shield it, but hard landings can bend the mount.

In any case, I think I'm done with this experiment, and going to use what I've learnt so far to build another design. This one will be a swept wing with a pod, and the wing sweep will be a bit more than my first wing in order to make balancing the CG easier.

Kfm3 Flying Wing Build Log 05

I was surprised when I received a small parcel today, containing the Cobra motor I ordered from the US last weekend. It's a Cobra 2204/58 1080Kv motor. This motor weighs almost half the weight of the Emax I was using, so I decided to rebuild a new, lighter weight pod. In doing so, the AUW of the wing is now 346 grams!!!

One advantage of having a pod (or fuselage) is that adjusting the CG should be much easier now - all I need to do is slide the battery forward and back, and use some foam spacers to take up the space.

On the flip side, there are now far more things to go wrong, and the wiring is more complicated. For example, the pod is attached to the wing with rubber bands. I've never crashed this airframe before, so I'm not sure how well it would take damage.

If the motor pod _does_ get destroyed though, it won't take too long to rebuild. In fact, I will probably have to create a new one when if I decide to put a camera and fpv gear on it.

The previous pod had the thrust line running more or less directly through the middle of the wing. In a sudden burst of randomness, I decided.... hey, let's try it with a high thrust line. And then I attached the motor with the mount flipped up.

 I can't wait to test her out on her maiden flight Sunday evening!

Kfm3 Flying Wing Build Log 04

 Eh, didn't update the blog as I was struggling to figure out how to attach the pod to the wing.

I'd experimented with several ways of folding the tube after watching various vids only, and decided that I do not have the tools to do it, and came up with a sort of kludge solution that I _think_ kinda works.

So in the end, it started with the motor mount. It's basically a square basswood section sandwiched between two thin slices of basswood, with balsa filling in the gaps. I'm not sure how durable this will be, but it appears to be quite firm. Zipties are threaded through the wood section into the tube.

BBQ skewers are then pierced through and supported by hot glue from the outside. While this actually holds the wing very well - I'm rather surprised by how tight the wing is joined - I fear any crash will simply force the skewers backwards, tearing up the pod.

I'm also not exactly sure how I'm going to mount the electronics inside the pod, or how to strap the battery in. Oh well, I'll figure it out. This is what makes it fun anyways!

Kfm3 Flying Wing Build Log 03

 Got the flying side of the wing taped, and the leading edge taped with heavier duty gorilla duct tape.

Folding the wing was much more difficult than I thought. I didn't have enough heavy objects to put pressure on the wing, so I placed what I had in the middle, and held down the left and right sides manually with pieces of unused foam.

Also, I got the pod built. It's slightly warped, and I'll probably cut off the warped area.

I've removed the electronics from the Kfm4 wing in preparation to fit them in tomorrow!