PAST Work in Progress (2005)

XMB= Masterblaster; AS3= Aerodynamic Smart Skin System: get a brief on the Projects

A camera has flown and took aerial photos from a flying wing. Very nice and plenty of satisfaction. Waiting for another engine to improve the wing. The original brushless engine, who served for the whole prototyping phase of any aircraft since february, has definitively broken down (i fixed it twice in the past)

Article 07 S has flown with streamers (ribbon attached to wingtips), see the video here. Beginning to think at framing a machine and show for Haute-Voltige, nothing to do with actual Article 07 S btw.

Muriel hovered Article 07 S

An improved Article 07 built and flight tested from scratch in 3 hours, this is the absolute record of "la maison" for a motorised flying wing. It is just a flying bullet capable of vertical penetration while rolling all the time, has much improved roll rate (more than 1 1/2 roll per second at manouvering speed) does somersaults and flip-overs both positive and negative while hovering, it spins and all the rest, has a much improved steadiness on flight track (a compromise between aerobatic performance and controllability) and does not break away in hard pull ups or "walls" manouvers (it has NO tail!!). It keeps same flight time of standard Article 07 S (same brushless engine and batteries) which is about 6-7 (NOT 4!!) minutes full throttle ALL the time (out of 7.4V 1300mAh LiPO battery, whole wing weighting less than 300 gr all hands up, rolling, climbing and spinning as said, it is a hell of a good performance). This last issue is fundamental for having a decent time for training.

Going back to the exoskeleton and the other hard issues of this R&D initiative

Some time spent in moving home, now there's a 1/4 grand piano being played too!!!

A kind of slower months:
- developed from scratch a Matlab software for parametrical wings analysis: cannot find a software that allows me to put certain design parameters into explicit analysis (at a reasonable cost), mostly variable camber foil data. Developed a data visualisation postprocessor for multivariable equipotential surfaces and volumes: looks pretty good. This software is needed to fix some Clmax issues and perform control-free stability analysis for the MB2. As a matter of fact, control-free stability analysis is not possible with the usual irreversible servo hardware in R/C models, unless some tricks are put into practice. Due to the special architecture of MB2, the issue is critical as pilot induced oscillations (PIO) could gather up with flutter modes of the wing.
- a good deal of R/C flying with motorised A07 S
- a couple of R/C prototypes wing for aerial photography have been flown without a camera. Very nice, some interesting variations on the control surface articulation ( slotted flaps) but still too big.
- late July, some work on unconventional hi-lift devices needed to slow the MB2 if I want to keep the beast very small (about 4m span) and takeoff and land at ultralight specifications (65 km/h). Otherwise MB2 is about 6 meters span and a lot of flutter problems will arise, eventually cancelling the benefits of the innovative architecture.
- wrote an email and a scratch project layout for a special glider to MWP people. Never got a reply (i even called on the phone and talk to their secretary)

Some time lost as usual trying to start collaboration with Universidad de Concepcion, trying to fit into their schemes and timesets (blocks of 6 months for each single step), 2 days stay there and plenty of words, proposing constructive and factual collaboration on a document it took three days to write (not enclosed here for privacy issues), receiving not even an answer . Some more time lost following a path into a venture capitalist "statement of interest", producing this "executive summary" for him to show to others/universities and talking finally to a "friend of him" after months, result zero net.

A talk with a friendly guy who in the past showed interest in helping me with composite manufacture (he's certified technician for composite aircraft), me always offering a legal partnership in the project. He cleared that he is interested in helping me building a mock-up once I fixed the whole design. No way to drive him into the actual design: I tried to explain him that design and manufacture go hand in hand and it would be far better if i could share my thoughts with him on the design but no way, he did not want to loose his time on the design.

On the Articles side (by-products for financing main R&D initatives), first drawings of a low cost remote flying platform for aerial photography, originally meant to be developed for a friendly guy who does aerial photography but never gave me the money to cover the expenses (engine and batteries).

Mise au point of Article 07 S, a 1.2 meter span R/C wing for gliding AND motor flight

Muriel getting the hand at motor R/C flying on 07 S

flying with turkey vultures and other species at the Tunquen ridge with Article 07 S (without engine!!)

A candidate "Masterblaster de seconde espece", MB2, a fully aerobatic motorised flying wing has been conceived, built and test flown. Model is 1/3 scale. It rolls at an astonishing roll rate (probably between 700 and 1000 degree/sec at manouvering speed, and more than 360/sec at stall speed), is capable of flying yawed up to 30-40 degrees beta under full control and can skid through a complete horizontal 360 without loosing flight track and height (!!). Pancakes beautifully and deep-post stall performance is stable and predictable. Clmax is finally back on sound figures.
The wing features an innovative aerodynamic/structural coupling concerning wing twist.
Video available under non-disclosure agreement.

A prototype bilateral exoskeleton has been realised and tested for controlling R/C flying wings. Bilateral control has been demonstrated. Video available under non-disclosure agreement.

3 R/C scale prototypes of Masterblaster have been built and test flown in a month time span. Electrical propulsion system. They proved some aerobatic issues (controllability at post stall alphas, pancaking entry/exits, astonishing roll rates) but showed drastic flaws (poor Clmax, therefore high landing speed, overall structural complexity of the machine if meant to be built by a single person in a short time, as this is now the asset of the venture).
These two drastic flaws determined the end of the original Masterblaster designed in years 2003-2005 and a new design has been initiated.

The strategy for the new Masterblaster ("Masterblaster de seconde espece") is proceeding hand in hand with manufacturing issues, aerodynamics and controllability thanks to rapid prototyping techniques developed in R/C models during the last year.

After some months of work and any sort of singularities, website is updated. I've been working in Universidad Andres Bello in Santiago de Chile (see the resume in Article 06 UNAB)
Tutorials i developed for the teaching in Andres Bello can be found in the download section : Aerodynamic coefficients, X-Plane Maker, X-Plane (flight module)

Activity with UNAB ceased after they proposed me to give another semester course instead of focusing on the investigation proposal i submitted to the dean (managing a formal presentation of my person to him after 6 months of stay at the university AND one year two months after my initial contact directed to talk to him explicitly, i remark the financial situation i had at that time in NOV 2005). The investigation proposal was been set up with a couple of collegues dealing with medical instrumentation, bionics and their glider project: it focused on my skills and previous experience in robotics and was addressed to finalize and patent existing projects in their faculty. This would allow me to pursue a technical investigation on innovative mechanical articulations methods, which goes hand in hand with my project. The administrative framing of my proposal was apparently too difficult to set up for them so that's why they proposed a back-up semester course wishing to at least give me a place and set down things with time. Now, a semester course -and my previous experience confirmed that- implies you are following students all the time if you want to do a good job, which is my case. There is not much place left for R&D. Moreover, the money i would earn does not justify AT ALL all the time i'm not advancing in my direction, even if i'm advancing alone making paper airplanes on a desk. My time with them began ticking in NOV 2005 and by the time it is JAN 2007 (the actual answer came on MAR 2007). So i split

Developed from scratch a valuable Article to sell: Article 07 XS, an R/C flying wing with bird-like appearance and flight behaviour.
Tried to sell the wing through local R/C shops, they prefer standard chinese stuff but they like innovation. Please better shut up and say simply no. To you free thinkers, please buy a lot of 07s so i will be able to continue my true projects

A very fast prototyping method for R/C wings and shapes has been initiated, using foam cores and a proprietary shear-stress stiffening method. Innovation in servo installations and other time-consuming issues. A 2m wingspan flying wing is in flight status after 3 hours from scratch (this includes airfoil template manufactoring, hot wire foam cutting (no CNC machine), wing sheeting, control surface articulation, servo installation and R/C wiring).
This means that i can experiment in real world airfoil/wing combination 3 hours later i thought about them.

Article 01 has a long story beginning in Nov 2005 as an article/creature, and traces back conceptually to year 2003, when i had sort of an intuition that i should move to "aerial sculptures" rather than thinking in "aircraftish". The will-be-famous Masterblaster Strap On Aerial Vehicle came out as a project under this unconscious and fervid optics... unfortunately the only one who got the point and persevered was me. The Article legacy started right in Nov 2005 as an attempt to finance the Masterblaster by my own means.

So now Article 01 prototypes are being flown in R/C, the picture shows the monolithic foam fuselage of prototype #4 or so.... making the actual Article 01 i have in mind is a nerve-hitting process because geometry is stressed to the limit (this said by an architect). And this is the leitmotif of the article (this is me). So that's it.
The fuselage is completely handcrafted and features the interfaces with wings and tails, the sockets for servoes, battery and radio. Overall wingspan is about 0.8 m, 12 dm2 surface, ~150 gr overall weight which adds up for a ridicoulous wing loading and stall speed.

Article 01 will be sold as a R/C glider creature as soon as i manage to fix it. Stay tuned. In the meantime, you can buy Article 02, the transparent embryo of Article 01 (which by the way comes with unique serial number and rigging certificate). So you will have the whole collection. E bravo!

Among plenty of work and things beginning to move, our heroes took a sunday to build a long aspect ratio Zagi -and special texture elevons- for Muriel to learn R/C flying. Muriel flew it after 7 hours from foam block state.

"Sudden Appearance of Ivan Tsarevich", escena aerea en dos actos breves libremente inspirada por el “Pajaro de Fuego” de Igor Stravinski. Palacio Carrasco, Vina del Mar, Chile, 11 Julio 2006 18h

Article 05 tested in free flight, Article 05s ready to test in R/C flight

MAY 2006: Article 05 held in freeflight by Muriel in front of the Pacific Ocean

Article 05 is a no frills manufactured R/C flying wing platform serving different purposes

See it in Articles

Some collaboration begins with Universidad Andres Bello:

• their glider prototype project (providing a flight sim model under X-Plane, see the video trailer)
• a speech concerning "Contemporary Methods in Flying Articles" (providing 60+ slides explaining some software (X-Plane, X-Foil, Matlab, Pro/Engineer) and methods for rapid prototyping/flight testing I developed in my activity)

Visited FIDAE, chilean aerospace fair held every two years... it was here, i went: why not (see 2005 work in progress to understand why i might not have gone).
Talked thoroughly and left full documentation brochure of my masterblaster to Diamond Aircraft and Flight Design. The former never bothered to reply, the latter was actually personified by the test pilot for Flight Design, a friendly and huge guy. We shared a couple of hours talking in the afternoon sun. I came back the other day and showed him some technical documentation of the masterblaster for him to know what to report to the actual Flight Design boss. I trusted him he would have the non-disclosure agreement (i handed it to him) signed from someone when he would go back home (he said he could not sign it for Flight Design and we shook hands in a gentlemen agreement). He was very impressed of the masterblaster as usually people do.

Later on the emails he said the Flight Design boss was too busy to consider another project and therefore no way to have the non-disclosure agreement signed as, as far as i can understand, he never went into details with his boss. To fix the non-disclosure issue, i replied that if i ever have evidence of him passing the information, i would shot him down from sky for true (i decided it was an appropriate airman procedure of setting issues upon gentlemans agreements). He never replied. I hope i will never have to do that :-)

Worked a couple of months in a single person owned activity -a R/C aircraft online shop- dealing with prototyping issues in his workshop (scale model copy). Actually a very kind person but using me absolutely the wrong way: instead of focusing on developing proprietary innovative articles and make quickly ends meet by marking a point into the market, he kept me sanding a Beechcraft Mentor scaled fuselage most of the time (which i was not good at) without giving me any credits to my ideas and proposals. He had everything ready: online shop, a CNC foam cutting machine, and me.

When i quit it was a monday. On the saturday evening (6 days after) Article 05 was flying, featuring 3.5 meters wing span and velcro wing junctions working in shear stress (NO tubes or spars of any sort), and it was the first time i was doing ever such a thing.

Article 03 features Article 01 mock up (the GoldBird) linked to 17 Articles 02. It has been sold as artwork according to the financial asset established in NOV 2005

Article 03 installed

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Better reality:
La vie liquide sur Mars Chapitre 1
Learn to use quantum tunnelling at a macroscopic level while processing reality. Tables provided

Article 02 full legacy: prototype, serial production, commercial distribution

Article 02 is the first Article being produced and sold by Aerial Creatures & Cognitive Integration, according to the financial asset guideline established in NOV 2005: finance main R&D activities by selling Articles

the amazing and magic Serial No 006 being hold on my right hand

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