V-22 Osprey Project - Nearing Takeoff

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After going back and redesigning the wing to use two servos instead of one, I was very pleased with the results.  I was able to salvage the right wing that was built for one servo and modify it to the new design without scrapping it.



Satisfied that the dual-servo design would work, I sheeted the wing with veneer and began construction of the left wing.


Before sheeting the left wing I setup the digital servos to mirror each other and used a digital angle meter to set the 90 degree end stops of the servos.


I completed the sheeting of the left wing and then moved on to designing the foam board fuselage.  I'm not satisfied with designing foamboard bends in Fusion 360.  The final result admittedly left inaccurate A & B folds with lots of trimming and fiddling to get a usable result, but it should function:



The lower section that houses the landing gear on the scale craft has a complicated shape as it curves up to the fuselage in the rear.  Instead of trying to bend foamboard to the shape I had modeled in CAD, I chose to 3D print the fairing using a thin-wall method.  The fairings are only 2 layers of filament thick and shouldn't be too heavy for what is merely a decorative piece.


I finished up the foam board fuselage and took a few beauty shots:




The next steps will be to finish all the wiring from the wing.  I did not terminate the collective and ESC signal wires as well as the power cables to make sure I didn't make them too short.  I plan to cover the wing with Monokote or similar before the first flight, and I need to epoxy the flaperons in place once the wing is covered.  I also need to figure out battery placement for proper CG and run some extensive ground testing of all the control servos before the first flight.

This has been an exciting and challenging project.  I'm glad it's finally starting to take shape and hopefully take flight!

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