Square 9

NEW!
Square9 No 2 for Plantraco gear.
You can download the plans for free

click here to download

Why new plans couldnt I just use the old plans to build a plantraco powered square9? Yes you could. The original plans have a lot of info on them for building a really lightweight plane for IR or the lightest equipment. This is ok if you want to spend a lot of time making the lightest possible plane. If all you want is a decent room flyer then all the other info is not needed. I have made some changes to the design that makes it even easier to build as well as more crash proof. Particularly the wingposts and motorstick. The Plantraco version comes in at 3.85g with stock equipment and domestic tissue. That is a difference of 1g between the IR version. You could lighten the Plantraco system by using watch gears, the shorter pager, use a 20maH lipoly, mak litz wire connectors for the motor, make a lighter actuator, and use lighter covering. I would imagine all this would make a plane at around 3g. I did not notice a huge difference in the flight speed of a 2.85g plane and the 3.85g plane. By adjusting the incidence the 3.85g plane can be made to fly almost as slow as the 2.85g plane. This was very suprizing to me I thought the flight speed difference would be much greater but its not.


News 03-28-06
I have built a new Square9 with a solid motorstick(fuselage stick)  instead of  the 2 part fuse with the tail boom. I like the single stick fuselage  better.
I have been meaning to draw up some new plans for the Square9 and making some plans with notes on building the square9 for replacement of  Plantraco's
Butterfly. I actually designed the Square9 as a replacement for the Firefly.

Tim Wolf  wrote about his Plantraco powered Square9 and linked to this site in the April 06 Flying Models magazine. Thanks a bunch Tim 

Here's a photo of Tim's Square9.

 I posted some photos of Didier Lanot's Square 9 After the specs on mine. Didier also built a Square5.5 that is very nice.


Here are some new old photos of my first Square9.





 
Plans
Specs:
AUW 2.5g
9" span 2.75" chord
RX: Homemade IR RX 350mg
Motor: Didel 4mm 28 ohm short pager
Gears: lightened 0.2modulus Didel 60t spur 12t pinion 5:1 ratio
Prop: hand carved balsa 3.5"x2"
Actuator: 156 ohms 48 AWG wire 4 - 2mmx0.5mm N45 magnets
Covering: HDPE plastic
Construction materials: 1/16" 5lb per cubic foot balsa

Component weights are as follows

20mah lipoly with plug and wires 0.72g
rx with sensor, plug and wires 0.35g
motor,gearbox,prop 0.74g
plane with actuator on rudder 0.7g

Total: 2.51g

Propulsion system weigh breakdown:
28 ohm 4mm motor 0.46g
gearbox 0.18g
prop 0.1g

I weighed another actuator not on the plane at 135mg. I think that is a bit heavy. And the one on the plane might be lighter.
I also weighed the rudder and actuator together to be around 150mg. The plane is not that dificult to build. If you can build Indoor duration type planes the weight of the plane is easy. To get the gearbox weight down you will have to use CF thrust tube and lighten the gears. The lightest Didel RX should be ok for this plane as well as Nick Leicthy AM RX or maybe even he 0.5g Coural RX if everything else is kept light. I have flown a similar plane at 2.85g and rogged off of my coffee table. The square9 will do figure 8s in my 11.5x 13.5' living room. Duration of flight is about 4 minutes.

 


Square 9s that others have built.
Here are some photos of Didier Lanot From France and his Square 9. I think it is a wonderful job.

	I have built a Square9 that fly perfectly. It weight 2.53g with 20mAh lipo and 2.68g with 30mAh bat. The Rx is a modified 351BM (16F630 replaced by 12C509). It is covered with OS Film. The best fly is with the 30mAh lipo (around 15mn of duration !). I am now building a Square5.5 with IRXA261. I use the Shicoh motor as Koichi on its last A6. The remaining work is to build the wings, the propeller and the coil. Everything else is done. It should weight between 1.7g and 1.8g with 20mAh bat. It is covered with OS Film. Current weight status is as follow : Fuselage = 43mg (could be much lighter) Empenage = 26mg Fin = 10mg Rudder = 9mg IRXA261 with sensor = 155mg Rudder magnets (2 x 1.5mmx0.5mm) + small aluminum tab = 13mg Battery 20 mAh with connectors = 712mg Motor (Shicoh 3.2mm) and gea! ring (Didel 0.2mm / 9:60) = 385mg Missing: Wings, actuator coil, wiring and connectors for Rx to battery, wiring from Rx to motor, propeller. I plan also to use on it the last 10mAh battery that Koichi will sell. I hope to fly it in 2 weeks, the most tricky part being for me the coil. Best regards, Didier Lanot France
	Looks like he is connecting the battery plug with a tweezer.