hoverman
12-01-2010, 09:47 AM
Hello Airshipbuilders,
I thought it was time to make my first post in this forum! I have posted my idea on RCgroups.com before, but I hoped I could reach more airship enthousiasts through this forum.
As a short introduction, my name is Marijn van de Ruit, I live in the Netherlands, and I just finished my Commercial Pilot License. I have been building RC models for more than 8 years now, starting with RC Hovercrafts. Further I have built..airplanes, helicopters up to 1.5m, VTOL's, Hydrofoils, Large Submarines, autogyro's, etc etc, but I could say that my speciality lies with Wing in Ground effect (Ekranoplans). I have posted several of my models on rcgroups and other forums, and I still keep building these models till this day, I just love them:D
Anyway, one could say that I have a passion for airships, I have visited the Museum in Friedrichshafen, have about 23 books on this subject, and I even specially flew to Friedrichshafen with a Diamond DA-42 last summer, so I could see the Zeppelin NT in action. I even got a 'traffic report' from friedrichshafen Approach at 2000 ft, afterwhich I could wittness the Zeppelin passing by above the Bodensee.
So, there is enough enthousiasm:), but as many modellers I know, my dream of building a large outdoor Zeppelin stopped as soon as I started looking into European Helium prices. Nomatter how hard I looked, I never got around this expensive helium. For a moment I considered Hydrogen, but a more rescent experience with an structurally failing tail rotor on a 1.5m BO-105 Helicopter(with me ending up unconscious with 12 stitches in my forehead), changed my thoughts about risky materials on RC models!
So, first I had thought about building an RC Hot air Airship using a simble camping butane burner, but a few calculations showed that such a model had to be extremely large in order to provide enough usefull lift. Not that that is a problem..but it requires professional butane burners, and this is just..well the same story of the helicopter again.:rolleyes:
So, my outdoor airship idea stranded here and has been on hold for quite a while. Then some time ago, when I was looking at one of my VTOL's, I had this idea.."nowadays, everything can fly, with modern brushless engines and lipos" So.. an airship can also fly, using shear overpower. Modern airship hulls can produce quite some dynamic lift at various angles of attack, in combination with enough power I could build an airship that flies without any sort of lifting gas.
So..at first I started looking if somebody else has had this idea, and I found The Martian Spaceship, by Roy Clough:
http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc320/Helipilot/yokota.jpg
http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc320/Helipilot/lg-72116.jpg
http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc320/Helipilot/Jh15540.jpg
So, yes, this works! But, I have to admit that this model above isn't quite what I had in mind. I am looking for an airship, not a spaceship. On the other side, the power to weight ratio of brushless/lipo propulsion is far superiour of what this old design is using.
I thought it was time to make my first post in this forum! I have posted my idea on RCgroups.com before, but I hoped I could reach more airship enthousiasts through this forum.
As a short introduction, my name is Marijn van de Ruit, I live in the Netherlands, and I just finished my Commercial Pilot License. I have been building RC models for more than 8 years now, starting with RC Hovercrafts. Further I have built..airplanes, helicopters up to 1.5m, VTOL's, Hydrofoils, Large Submarines, autogyro's, etc etc, but I could say that my speciality lies with Wing in Ground effect (Ekranoplans). I have posted several of my models on rcgroups and other forums, and I still keep building these models till this day, I just love them:D
Anyway, one could say that I have a passion for airships, I have visited the Museum in Friedrichshafen, have about 23 books on this subject, and I even specially flew to Friedrichshafen with a Diamond DA-42 last summer, so I could see the Zeppelin NT in action. I even got a 'traffic report' from friedrichshafen Approach at 2000 ft, afterwhich I could wittness the Zeppelin passing by above the Bodensee.
So, there is enough enthousiasm:), but as many modellers I know, my dream of building a large outdoor Zeppelin stopped as soon as I started looking into European Helium prices. Nomatter how hard I looked, I never got around this expensive helium. For a moment I considered Hydrogen, but a more rescent experience with an structurally failing tail rotor on a 1.5m BO-105 Helicopter(with me ending up unconscious with 12 stitches in my forehead), changed my thoughts about risky materials on RC models!
So, first I had thought about building an RC Hot air Airship using a simble camping butane burner, but a few calculations showed that such a model had to be extremely large in order to provide enough usefull lift. Not that that is a problem..but it requires professional butane burners, and this is just..well the same story of the helicopter again.:rolleyes:
So, my outdoor airship idea stranded here and has been on hold for quite a while. Then some time ago, when I was looking at one of my VTOL's, I had this idea.."nowadays, everything can fly, with modern brushless engines and lipos" So.. an airship can also fly, using shear overpower. Modern airship hulls can produce quite some dynamic lift at various angles of attack, in combination with enough power I could build an airship that flies without any sort of lifting gas.
So..at first I started looking if somebody else has had this idea, and I found The Martian Spaceship, by Roy Clough:
http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc320/Helipilot/yokota.jpg
http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc320/Helipilot/lg-72116.jpg
http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc320/Helipilot/Jh15540.jpg
So, yes, this works! But, I have to admit that this model above isn't quite what I had in mind. I am looking for an airship, not a spaceship. On the other side, the power to weight ratio of brushless/lipo propulsion is far superiour of what this old design is using.