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Thread: Fly Baby Made of aluminum like a Aerodrome WW-1 Replica?

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  1. #1

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    Fly Baby Made of aluminum like a Aerodrome WW-1 Replica?

    I like the lines of a Fly Baby, but I also like the way the Aerodrome planes are made and ease of building. I was wondering if a Fly Baby could be made like the Aerodrome plane but maybe a little smaller like Ultralight size with about a 24' to 25' wingspan and about 16' or 17' long fuselage. And have a main wing USA27 airfoil for slow speed and high lift, and a 0009 airfoil on the tail feathers, to reduce drag and help a little with lift.

    Maybe use carbon fiber for the ribs, if not carbon fiber, aluminum.

    I read all of 'Building a Nieuport 11' by Frank Giger and like the way the Aerodrome planes are put together.

    Could the Airframe and wing be made like the Aerodrome Nieuport 11 plane but shaped like the Fly Baby?

    I checked out Ron Wanttaja's Fly Baby site and didn't see anything about an aluminum Fly Baby.

    Did anyone ever see or hear about an aluminum Flybaby?

    The engine will be a Kawasaki 440 for the ultralight version.

    Best regards,

    RonK

  2. #2
    rwanttaja's Avatar
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    It's much easier to design a biplane than a monoplane. Bracing the wings is a lot simpler when you have two panels with struts between them. The Fly Baby has a rather high percentage of wing failures, and casual modification is fraught with danger. Several of the Fly Baby cases were the result of the builder making a change that SHOULD have improved the wing structure, but had unintended consequences.

    I occasionally get emails along the lines of "I want to do **** to a Fly Baby, can you re-run Pete's calculations?" Whatever calculations Pete did on the Fly Baby were probably on a single page, and ended up in a landfill 60 years ago.

    With only one major supplier of spruce left, the Fly Baby community has been discussing alternate construction methods. Carlson Aircraft sells aluminum wing spars that could probably be used. However, this snowballs....a whole lot of changes come out of that apparently-simple choice. Metal ribs then seem logical, but how do they attach, how does one handle the cap strips, how does one build the false spar for the aileron, what substitutes for the top bevel on the spars, do you design the ribs with integral capstrips, what do you do for a wingtip, etc.

    It's not difficult to make the big decisions...metal C-section spar N x M in dimensions, ribs bent out of 0.020 2024, etc. But there's a lot of fine design detail on the stock wing that must be addressed, and it's tough to do that without intimate knowledge of how the stock wing is built. You can find details on the PB100 Companion Guide for the first EAA construction article:

    http://www.bowersflybaby.com/PB100/Guide_1.pdf

    Skimming through that might give you some indication of the subtleties of the wing design.

    The hard part is finding a modifier who will actually BUILD the wing and fly the aircraft. The hardest part is finding a modifier not only willing to build the modified wing and test it in flight, but also share the details with others.

    There has been less discussion about alternate fuselage designs, probably because the 3/4" square spruce used in the fuselage is easier to find that 3/4"x6" spar material.

    Ironically, of course, the Fly Baby stemmed from the Story Special... which has a steel tube fuselage.



    Ron Wanttaja

  3. #3
    robert l's Avatar
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    Of course I know absolutely nothing about design, calculations or strength of wood compaired to aluminum but I have built the wings and tail grooup for a Zenith CH-701. The spars are aluminum with lighting holes and an aluminum angle for a cap strip. It also has a doubler where the strut attaches. It's pretty simple and doesn't weight that much but how it compaires to a wood and fabric wing, I have no idea. I think someone designed a VP-I out of aluminum many years ago but I don't know any more than that. I guess I could have just kept my mouth shut !
    Bob

  4. #4

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    A nice true aluminum ultralight that WILL 'fly', baby.

    http://www.airdromeaeroplanes.com/Fo...4scale%7D.html

    lol

    Not what you may want but sure beats trying to re-invent the wheel.

  5. #5

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    Aluminum ribs should be lighter. But don't stand on the ribs like Pete did.

  6. #6
    rwanttaja's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bill Berson View Post
    Aluminum ribs should be lighter.
    I dunno. 0.025" 2024 weighs about 0.36 pounds per square foot, just about the same as 1/8" plywood. The capstrips will add a bit of weight in comparison, of course. But scratch-building a plywood rib is easier than a metal one.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bill Berson View Post
    But don't stand on the ribs like Pete did.
    You HAVE to wonder how Pete got there. They had to have had a ladder or something next to the wing to let Pete climb up and (gingerly) step onto the wing. But did he come up from the trailing edge and step over the aileron (seems unlikely) or step off BACKWARDS from the leading edge (seems even less likely).


    The other thing I wonder is if the words "Hold", "My", and "Beer" preceding the taking of this photo....

    Ron Wanttaja

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