Antonov AN 124 Rusian

The thing that really amazed me was how well it flew as a conventional RC plane. It did have a 'gyro' rx fitted which was probably a good idea to prevent anything too dramatic on take off but once in the air it flew perfectly well with it switched off.
Although the full size A4b was built as a way to extend the V2 's range in Von Braun's mind it was to be the second stage of the inter continental 'Amerika' rocket which in turn was part of his dream to put a man in space.
You can see why the US were so keen to get his services after the war.
It is understood Von Braun was instrumental in persuading Kennedy to give his "man on the moon" speech to Congress in May 1961.

Some actual progress on the Antonov
Positioning and starting to wire up the ESCs

Those on the left are for the outboard pair and will connect to the LH battery and vice versa.
Each ESC is held in its own 3D printed mount.

As these are OPTO escs (no BEC) there will be a stand alone UBEC as well.
It may be wise to connect the UBEC to both batteries but through diodes so 'in extremis' it can be powered by either battery on its own.

The final problem is the balance of both the replacement CW motors is actually worse than the one I manually balanced. Doh!
So now I have to think (but very slowly!) about what to do with 4 more drone motors! :woohoo:

C/H said it,,, I agree.

All four ESCs and the UBEC installed and wired up.

Rather than change to my preferred Deans I decided to use XT60 connectors as they were already on the Hobbyking batteries.
A very short video of the first 4 motor run up using the 4s batteries.

I make no apologies for the nervous look. A sudden failure that cut full power from any motor would almost certainly wreck the nacelle.
It makes quite a noise and pulls hard too.

Install the rx next and organise the final wiring layout.

That looks & sounds very impressive I take it that you managed to balance the motors ?

Crash
When I got the 4 identical 'replacement' motors none of them were actually any better balanced than the 'poor' one I had manually balanced so they were all put to one side!
To make matters worse the 'bad' ESC proved not to be (I suspect it was due to a poor soldered joint) so the two 'replacement' ESCs were also set aside. I thus ended up using just the original motors and ESCs. :ohmy:

I shall have to build a suitable balancing rig to 'improve' all those replacement motors and eventually build a scale something to put one or more in, but one thing is certain it will have 'proper' prop(s) and be smaller then the AN 124. :woohoo:

[quote="Quorneng"

I shall have to build a suitable balancing rig to 'improve' all those replacement motors and eventually build a scale something to put one or more in, but one thing is certain it will have 'proper' prop(s) and be smaller then the AN 124. :woohoo:[/quote]

A Connie isn't exactly small! :evil:

I am intrigued by a 'one off' 4 engine pusher.
It apparently still exists but very badly damaged. First by a tornado when parked outside and then further damaged when the building the bits were stored in was demolished by another one.
Unlucky huh!

The Lemon stab rx installed in the wing.

The only connection to the 'outside' will be to the elevator servo!
I am waiting for a neat 4 to1 servo connector for the ESCs and have still to make up the long extension leads for the aileron servos. Then at long last it should be possible to 'close up' the wing.

Eric wrote: A Connie isn't exactly small! :evil:

All he said was " smaller than the AN 124" !

I thought it was about time I weighed all the bits of the AN124 now that virtually everything is installed.
With the 2 x 1400 mAh 4s it looks like it will weigh close to 50 oz (1.4 kg) although any paint may add a touch more. The wing centre section alone constitutes 63% (32 oz) of the total but that of course does includes the motors and batteries.
It should have just over 32 oz of thrust.
We shall see.

To paraphrase "It may only be a small step but it is a big step towards the completion of the Antonov".

The ailerons connected and tested, including that the gyro works in the correct sense.
Just the 4 into 1 fork? lead for the ESC throttles to go.

Spot the planes!

Not that many there! If you came here, there is only a narrow walkway through to the kitchen, and only one chair accessible, all the others are buried under models! (and a cat!)
One of the advantages of living alone - there is nobody to complain about anything (except the food dish is empty again) or move, tread on, or REmove things. [badass]

I count 5 in the picture apart from the AN124 wing.

But there are another 21 in the room out of view! :woohoo:

I coupled up the ESCs to the rx via the 4:1 fork lead and nothing worked :woohoo: I had tested each leg of the 'fork' using a servo and servo tester.
Removed 3 of the connections and still nothing except when I opened the throttle a touch and the ESC emitted all sorts of musical tunes. After a while it just beeped until I closed the throttle completely and then it worked normally.
Was this a case of the ESC needing to reset the throttle range? I had previously used a servo tester to run the motors rather than the rx. I seem to remember servo testers use the full 125% range.
After quite a bit of fiddling I managed to get all four ESCs to make the same sort of musical tones all at the same time so they worked normally. Just to be sure I unplugged the batteries, waited 20 seconds and checked everything still 'armed' properly when reconnected.
These Little Bee ESCs are for drones and seem to behave rather differently to normal aeroplane ones. There is of course no manual included with them.

Encouraged a start was made adding the rear of the wing skin. The skins were actually cut out 2 months ago.

Up till now virtually any/all of the electrics or wiring could be extracted and replaced - but not any more! :woohoo: