the Armin Wing: part 4 - Making the Control Surfaces

Part 4. An easy and economical method of building an actual airfoil for an RC airplane wing out of inexpensive foamboard, hot glue, and packing tape. Almost as easy to make and much better lift and stall characteristics than a KF or flat-plate wing. This is just the wing construction - overall airplane design is up to the builder! I hope to see some innovative airplanes using this wing design.

[@spencerboaz2385]

Ed you have been a super inspiration to the DIY (poor guy , like myself) RC model builders . Your wing and experimenting design work has made the world of RC planes within everyone's price range . And your videos are the greatest to follow with ease . I have watched these four over and over . Thank you so much .

[@SayedAli-gq8bl]

Just amazing! You saved my day. No hot wire cutting no non-sense. Just pure foam board. Thanks a lot.

[@gregzeng]

Instead of my foam RTF model, I'll try to do the same, but with corrugated plastic, canned fluro spray paint, and thicker adhesive fibreglass tape. Not just the wings, but the whole plane. Good ideas - I'll shave or sand the non-square edges, as you did, then cover them with my thicker tape. Thank you for inspiring me in this easy, stronger, low-cost direction.

[@RC-DownUnder]

Thanks Heaps for a thoroughly informative explanation. I started making balsa models in 1976. I have so many designs in the pipeline... I'm currently making a styrene foam cutting table but now with your ideas I can save even more time.

[@pauldude0008]

Using two spars, this is a heck of an idea for cheap/easy to replace/strong lift style wind turbine blades!

[@jps99]

Great tutorial, I love your wing process!

[@ExperimentalAirlines]

You could glue in the spar if you like to. Most of my models either have a removal spar or have a stable arrangement where the spar won't move anyway. It's easier to remove after a crash.

[@winstonsmkr]

Great video, just found you recently and am going to give it a try , thanks so much

[@BudgetFPVRC]

Great building techniques and good job with the instructional video. I really like your peace drone design. Good Job!

[@ExperimentalAirlines]

@ExperimentalAirlines result in a maximum thickness at about 40% chord (from leading edge, airfoil only) which is a good general purpose low to medium speed airfoil. In the 3-former version sometimes the upper wing skin will only touch the corners of the upper former, the front one on the way up the camber and the rear corner on the way down towards the trailing edge. This is particularly true if you don't curve the upper former. So far working pretty well for me

[@ExperimentalAirlines]

trailing edge section parallel with the lower surface of the wing, and then fixate it there with some glue and tape. It sounds like you know what's going on so trust your knowledge on the aerodynamics. I personally like to have full-span control surfaces and dial down the rates as needed. The Peace Drone does benefit from pretty generous control surfaces for roll in particular, so if doing elevons I'd probably recommend at least 1/2 span and 1 1/2" control surfaces if that's your build.

[@Danimal-3D]

Great videos! Just watched all the build videos. I'll have to try this on my next scratch build!

[@carljohanbarnekow7730]

Thanks great idea and video! Im going to make my first one in an hour!

[@ExperimentalAirlines]

@schnellschnells Very nice, looking forward to seeing your creation. If it was a short control surface, like 1", you could just not hinge the fixed part and tape it as you like. But the way the upper surface naturally cambers over the top and then down the trailing edge would make any longer a trailing edge section kind of like a fixed flap. I guess you could either just cut that back towards the airfoil and finish the edge or score where the hinge would go, flatten out the single-surface

[@hasanisiklar9793]

thank you for your online free courses . Now I have 2 foamboard rc airplane.

[@ExperimentalAirlines]

@ExperimentalAirlines but feel free to play around with it to get other results you may desire. You can usually test fit the camber and profile prior to gluing just by moving the formers around and folding down the upper wing skin and checking the fit.

[@ExperimentalAirlines]

@mackenzierob1 It was a little complicated to join 20" sections to the tips of a 30" section with about 10 degrees polyhedral. I joined the lower, inner surface with gift card sections glued inside, in flat configuration. I then wedged out 1/4" of the upper surface of the outer wing. The inside cells of both sections were buttressed with stiff plastic. I raised each wingtip equal amount above main wing horizontal plane and glued it all together, filling and bridging gap

[@ExperimentalAirlines]

@MultiSavedbyHisgrace Very kind of you. I hope you'll share some video of your upcoming Peace Drone and any other creations. Be well!

[@NorthFloridaOutdoorsman]

great video man you inspired me to do my first scratch build

[@ExperimentalAirlines]

@Searchworlds See the new video on "Armin Wing: Two-tone color scheme". There are many ways you could customize it. I usually use a two 1" formers in the 5" chord wing and three 2" formers in the 7" chord wing. The formers are applied 1" behind the paper/peeled transition in both cases. I usually squish down the top former in each type with the side of blunt, smooth object rubbed back and forth so that the upper wing surface engages the curve better. In both wings this will

[@ExperimentalAirlines]

@ExperimentalAirlines Please note the overall configuration of the formers may differ depending on whether you use spar or not. But in general the forward-most former is usually placed 1" behind the paper/peeled transition.

[@ExperimentalAirlines]

@Crazyinventor5531 Colored packing tape, although clear packing tape works fine too. Many online sources. Search for "packing", "sealing", "carton" tape. Also see Armin wing part 1 for more details.

[@loonypics6938]

Hi Ed', at 2:26 --- If you carefully wipe a small amount of white PVA glue along both sides of the hinge line and allow to dry. The hinge tape will adhere very securely

[@diylove5896]

@ExperimentalAirlines Well explained , infinite thanks!!!! I will try to make the first wing in the next days ;)

[@diylove5896]

@ExperimentalAirlines Thanks and congratulations for your channel, it is truly fantastic! If I can ask you another thing, how do you adjust the thickness, size and distance of the foam that you use to create the profile of the wing? there are specific proportions to follow if you want to make wings of different dimensions from those you've shown?

[@Spike-be9hr]

Nice Video

[@ExperimentalAirlines]

@mackenzierob1 (cont) with hot glue and a final piece of gift card. The physics of the situation are kind of complicated. The lower surface bears lateral tension, the upper surface lateral compression, and the plane of the joint up-down compression. I think an angled, rigid spar members would work better than the way I did it on that twin sailplane, which is the only time so far. It did fly nicely though.

[@ExperimentalAirlines]

@Searchworlds I use low temp glue.

[@jorgenelsonfelix52]

Muy bien felicitaciones

[@grazi393]

can you make a tutorial for how to wire all the receivers, motors and all the other electrical work and how to connect the receiver to the controller. please i am a beginner and there are no videos on youtube on how to do it.

[@wordreet]

My guess is that the resulting 'gap' in the smooth surface is preferable under the airfoil shape, as the airfoil works by effectively making the air travel faster above the wing than below. Any interruption of that effect will increase the chance of turbulence forming above the wing and subsequently reduce lift. Check out centennialofflight dot gov/essay/Theories_of_Flight/drag/TH4.htm

[@javieruriel]

i see a lotof tapes in brother and i dont know which is the right tape could you help me just giveme the link thanks very great vuideo

[@cocemojoe]

durable thanks

[@LucasWeakley]

@ExperimentalAirlines Thanks, I really like you videos by the way :)

[@diylove5896]

Hi! Do you use low temp hot glue or regular hot glue? Thanks

[@LucasWeakley]

What is the covering tape you used?

[@womackke]

why would u not want to glue in the spare?

[@TheConakry2]

will all this tape not get heavy

[@zomnbvc]

how thick is the foam board?

[@jorgenelsonfelix52]

Desde Bs. As.

[@ExperimentalAirlines]

@zomnbvc 5mm