Causemann ALiX Delta Wing Build

[Jarron]

A couple months ago, @Wayne discovered a newer company in Germany called Causemann Flugmodelbau. They make CNC milled EPP or styrofoam airframes of many, many different types, from gliders, to jets, helicopter bodies or you can have them cut out any other airframe of pretty much any size: https://shop-rc.causemann.de/
We ordered a few different kits, one of them being the ALiX, a unique and versatile EPP Delta wing designed for streamer combat and other fun shenanigans:

More info on our site: https://alofthobbies.com/collections/new-products/products/alix-funfly-combat-wing

Of course, being the weirdo of the flying field I had to build one..

Here's what you get, there isn't much to it:
Here are the foam bits:

And here are the rest of the components. There's a manual (in German), some pushrod materials, a small GFK sheet with the motor mount, control horns and eyelet (for attaching a streamer), a spruce spar and a one meter strip of carbon that goes around the leading edge:

Let's get started! The first step is to join the two wing halves, this was done with some BSI Foam Cure. I used T pins to hold it all in place as it cured over the weekend. Don't put glue in front of the spar slot like I did, the motor mount goes there:

Next the spar goes in and look, we're in my room now! I had to chop a few mm off the end of it to get it to fit properly. More Foam Cure was used.

And I put the closest heavy objects I could find on top of it as it cured:

The motor mount is assembled from these three parts. They had to be cleaned up with a small file and some sandpaper for them to fit properly, use thin or medium CA to bond them together. Note the notch for the spar to pass under the mount:

Back at the shop now for build night, with the motor mount glued in place..with moar Foam Cure.

You'll need to bevel the elevons, use a FRESH razor knife for this.

Then I closed the aft end of the fuselage pod and installed it onto the wing, but oh no, I forgot to take pictures!

 

[Jarron]

These slots needed to be opened up slightly for the vertical fin to fit, you've probably noticed my obnoxious fluorescent yellow/black paint scheme:

The fin gets jammed in there with some E6000:

Now I got to play with the carbon leading edge spar. It wraps around pretty much the whole leading edge.
I used lots of little strips of masking tape and some more E6000. Make sure the wing is straight and not warped. It would be a better idea to do this step BEFORE installing the fuselage pod, that way
you could put some books on top of the whole wing to keep it flat, but I got lucky this time.

The carbon leading edge spar should have roughly 97mm of space on each side.

Time to prepare servo pockets, they want you to put your servos here, with the forward edge of your servos 10mm aft of the motor mount.

There. The fuselage pod is hollow inside, so your ESC, receiver and servo leads can be tucked inside later

 

[thenated0g]

Cool. You going to build the other vertical take off little plane too?

 

[Jarron]

I decided to do laminate hinges, so I cut out some strips of DI-3, they're the same width of this ruler:

Iron on the upper strip:

And the lower. Then trim off any excess with a scissor or razor knife:

That looks nice and clean.

 

[Jarron]

Cool. You going to build the other vertical take off little plane too?

Oh I built one last year! It's fun! But that's another thread lol

 

[Konrad]

To these aged eyes your colors look good. Heck, it looks great period.

 

[Jarron]

On with the build!
Look now it's got two elevons:

I'm not going to use their linkage setup, they want me to use pushrod and heat shrink tubing like this. I'm sure it works, but I prefer to go the traditional way:

I'm using my own control horns, just cut a slit and push them in with some medium CA.
My servos aren't glued in yet, so I can fabricate my own pushrods with Z bends on each ends:

For a powerplant, I'm going with a DYS SE2205 2300kv motor, the same motor we sold as an option for the Slow Stick.

For mounting, I found this cross mounting plate thingy in one of my parts stashes, the holes already drilled in the motor mount on the AliX lined up pretty good, but they needed to be opened up a bit to accept the M3 screws I used:

I'll be using a Hobbywing FlyFun 20A ESC, I've always loved these for their small size and robust quality:

Got the motor leads soldered straight to the motor phase pads on the ESC, I could've cut them shorter but is ok:

And then it all lives in the fuselage pod. I'm going to extend the access hatch further aft so I can get my receiver in there and route the servo leads. The blocks I cut out will be held in with a few drops of glue and some laminate, that's the plan anyways:

 

[Wayne]

Looking good. Can't wait to see it do silly things in the air.

This thing really does look good sitting in the shop.. Hard not to see it with those colors!

 

[thenated0g]

do this one next

Gnats VTOL by Fancy Foam

What else can I say, the Gnat is just one of those super fun planes to fly, bar none. Slow flight combined with the ability to take off and land vertically allows the Gnat to be flown in places you couldn't fly most RC aircraft; like in your back yard or a large gymnasium. The construction of...

alofthobbies.com

 

[Wayne]

Jarron has been flying the Gnat for a while, it is a good flying model. Pretty sure he took pictures for a write up.

(I'm always bugging the staff to share their builds here.)

 

[Jarron]

Here's what I did this past Friday evening at build night!
Well, I told you I was going to make the hatch bigger. This let me mill out two servo wire passthroughs:

Here is how the receiver and ESC fit in the pod. Nice and snug:

I used lots of T pins to hold the hatch in place as the glue holding it on cured. Make sure you don't stab any electrical components:

The servos were then glued in place and linkages made out of 1mm music wire, with simple Z bends on each end. Any slop was taken out with medium CA dripped into the servo horn and control horn holes used:

The airframe is now complete, except for the battery compartment, that's made from this foam block here. I put down masking tape and traced out a rectangle the same size as my battery. I'm using a Tattu 3s 1050mAh, this one: https://alofthobbies.com/products/tattu-3s-1050mah-75c-xt60

Cut out the tape in the area I would be removing:

And then I milled out a compartment that is just a little deeper than my battery and allows for a snug fit:

Then I went outside and painted the battery holder black, to match the vertical fin. But then it was time to go home, so Saturday, I extended the ESC power leads, soldered on an XT60 plug and installed the battery compartment. The power leads are held with some strips of Blenderm:

 

[Jarron]

This 3mm carbon rod through the nose block and a rubber band lock the battery in place:

And this was a last minute idea to keep the XT60 plug away from the prop, right before the maiden:

And that's it! AUW came to just over 250g with my 3s setup, it was kinda needed to get the CG, which is at 80mm FORWARD of the spar:

How did it fly? Perfectly. I put in some reflex, but it turned out that the ALiX didn't need any.
It's got gobs of power, just how I like it. It's very agile and responsive, with a very high roll rate and tight loops, just what you want in an air combat machine.
It slows down to a crawl too and doesn't glide bad either for a flat airfoil. Pancake VTOL style landings are indeed possible, especially with lots of elevator to kill all of your airspeed.

Anyways, here is a video of the maiden. I would've done more fun stuff for the camera, but my choice of cameramen was...limited:

 

[Wayne]

Impressed by this plane - I like the looks and the plane flies really well.

Well done Jarron, thanks for sharing the build!!

 

[thenated0g]

wow that flies really slow and full vertical nice!
is that the petaluma club @Jarron ?

 

[Konrad]

Background commentary, "Sounds like my employee". What the whine?

 

[Jarron]

is that the petaluma club @Jarron ?

Yep!