Flying Machine Design

oh no...... pocket drones.......

I would go with tiny carbon fiber tubes. Use them on my crossbow arrows and the weight/stiffness ratio is crazy.

Ahh the wrist launcher....

Maybe vertical launch....

When I was in college in the 80's, some of the technical journals in the library, they had write-ups on Shape Memory wire. I always felt was pretty cool and thinking about you post, that could be used as actuators on control surfaces.

Good stuff....

I remember shape wire too. it worked on the principle of heat bending a bimetallic wire. I felt at the time that it would not be a low energy design.

It would also be at the mercy of ambient conditions changing its internal heat and in so doing change its flex. Imagine going thru a pocket of cold - or hot - air and losing control.

When I first read about it, this was about 30 years ago........ I was curious at the time of the load it could carry........\

If my memory serves me.... ;/ they give examples of possible applications which was basically robotics .

As far as activation, it was from a small current being passed through it.

But there sure should have been developments since then.....

I still treat it as an interesting oddity. Yes 30 years ago it was new and exciting, but now that time has passed and there are few if any ( I have no idea ) applications in the eye of everyday man, I must assume that the stuff has yet to find one. Robotics may have been the target of such muscle wire, but robotics also has a very strong motive to be energy efficient. I simply doubt that muscle wire fits. Certainly Possible but less likely Practical. ( IMHO )

I like the Parrot 4 rotor design for stablility. Maybe not really what you want and certainly not an original idea, but doesnt need a side rotor or opposing rotors either. I think 4 rotors is overkill but it probably has something to do with x-y direction ease of control. Its simpler to control x-y when you have 4 but I believe it can be done with 3. Something following conventional aircraft makes me think how to manage the control surfaces for turns and pitch. I get the idea a conventional airframe might be more electronically complex than controlling 3 or 4 rotors for the same effect, plus the rotor design can hover. Big advantage.... The Parrot design covers that. ( and it looks and feels a lot like the war machines in Terminator. )

This will be a single engine device that will fly as long as it is in direct sunlight....no controls...like setting a bird free...

something like a 'micro stik' perhaps?

Well, kinda, but extremely light and no controls or batteries, and an interesting design...when the pv cell gets sunlight, it's on....no sun, no run....no fun...

What about making the wing surface out of a thin gage solar PV cell?

Leonado Da Vinci drew an airscrew that is often called a helicopter. It isn't of course but his airscrew could be powered around it's outer edge with several of these motors and then it may well fly. Would be good experiment.

Yes this is something more like I had in mind...only without the frame, just the screw wing thingy...I guess you would need some sort of structure to mount the motor and pv cell onto...maybe two connected together, one cw and one ccw rotating...that it seems would require minimal support...

I was thinking about them being pods on the peripheral edges and on the same plane as the surface. They would need to be an outrigger style pod, like on the airships, so that the props could clear the edge.

Jim

Spectra is a pretty light material for it's strength. You should be able to access this fabric and other parts through the Orthinopter Society.

http://ornithopter.org/

Yes excellent.....Orthinoptimization....