B. E.

PROJECT REPORT
On
RC PLANE

DEPARTMENT AEROSPACE ENGINEERING

Chandigarh University, Gharuan, Mohali, Punjab
 RC PLANE

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the

Requirements for the award of
Degree of Bachelor of Engineering in Aerospace

NSubmitted By
Name : Md Fayez Sk
UID:18BAS8010
Team Members:
1.Ajay Kumar (17BAS1181)
2.Hemant (17BAS1183)
3.Yogesh Prajapat (17BAS1169)
4.Aaryan Parghi (17BAS1184)

SUBMITTED TO:

Department of Aerospace Engineering

Chandigarh University, Gharuan, Mohali, Punjab
April, 2019
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I have taken efforts in this project. However, it would not have been
possible without the kind support and help of many individuals. I would
like to extend my sincere thanks to all of them.
I am highly indebted to Sandhu Sir for their guidance and constant
supervision as well as for providing necessary information regarding the
project & also for their support in completing the project.
I would like to express my gratitude towards my parents for their kind co-
operation and encouragement which help me in completion of this project.
My thanks and appreciations also go to my group members in developing
the project and people who have willingly helped me out with their abilities.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
1. Introduction
2. Overall Design
3. Prototyping Results
4. Proposed Improvements
5. Cost
6. Conclusion
INTRODUCTION

The main aim of this project was to design, analyze and build an RC plane. This
involves understanding the various aerodynamic forces and moments acting on the
plane, choosing the right motors, controllers for its operations and hence making it
fly. Hence this project involved optimization of various parameters for an
enhanced flight. In order to achieve the stated objective, extensive literature review
was done in determining the various parameters for building of the plane.
Based on all the literature review and available knowledge, it was decided to
systematically design, analyze and build an RC plane. In addition it was decided to
develop such a plane, to maximize the aspect ratio, minimize the wing loading and
optimize the weight.
Basic terms like lift coefficient, tip, root chord, taper ratio etc help understand the
aerodynamics of flight while movement of air over the airfoil help understand the
behavior of flight in air. Keeping these considerations in mind the design and
optimization were done. The aim of this paper is therefore to explain the
systematic methodology followed for designing, analyzing and building the RC
plane including details of optimization. The following are the major steps in this
process:
• Selecting various design targets
• Selecting the type of geometry
• Optimization of parameters to obtain the best performance
• Determining the stress points, critical points on the wing and fuselage (for
example - neutral point on the wing)
• Designing the fuselage, wing, elevator etc (using the appropriate airfoil)
• Analyzing the structure for its parameters
• Analyze and reiterate as appropriate
 REMOTE CONTROL GLIDER :
A glider is a heavier-than-air aircraft that is supported in flight by the
dynamic reaction of the air against its lifting surfaces, and whose free
flight does not depend on an engine. Most gliders do not have an engine,
although motor-gliders have small engines for extending their flight when
necessary by sustaining the altitude ( normally a sailplane is on a
continuously descending slope) with some being powerful enough to take
off self-launch .
There is a wide variety of types differing in the construction of their wings,
aerodynamic efficiency, location of the pilot, controls and intended purpose.
Most exploit meteorological phenomena to maintain or gain height. Gliders
are principally used for the air sports of gliding, hang
Gliding and paragliding. However some spacecraft have been designed to
descend as gliders and in the past military gliders have been used in
warfare. Some simple and familiar types of glider are toys such as
the paper plane and Depron glider.
Overall Design
This project weights 600 grams without a battery. We already had an ESC,1800kV
motor and a battery lying around so we used them. Following are the materials
used:

• ESc

• Transmitter and receiver

• Brushless DC motor (2400kv)

• 2200 mAh Lippo battery

• Servo Motors x 4

• Propellers

• Push rods

• Depron sheet

• Flex bond

• Duct tape

The design consists of the following main parts:

1. Fuselage

2. Wing

3. Horizontal Stabilizer

4. Vertical stabilizer
1.Fuselage

The fuselage is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, and
cargo. In single-engine aircraft it will usually contain an engine, as well, although
in some amphibious aircraft the single engine is mounted on a pylon attached to
the fuselage, which in turn is used as a floating hull.

The fuselage is made totally out of depron sheet. The design is taken from the
above image. The chord length of the wing is taken 22thcm. The length of the
fuselage is taken 118cm.

The cutting of the pieces was done according to the design. This included the side
walls of the fuselage. The side walls are made using 3mm depron sheet to provide
optimum strength and reduce weight. They were attached with the internal frames
to provide support. The parts were then aligned and joined by the flex bond.
Reinforcement of the fuselage was done to provide strength to it.
2.Wings

A wing is a type of fin that produces lift, while moving through air or some other fluid. As such,
wings have streamlined cross-sections that are subject to aerodynamic forces and act as
an airfoils. A wing's aerodynamic efficiency is expressed as its lift-to-drag ratio. The lift a wing
generates at a given speed and angle of attack can be one to two orders of magnitude greater than
the total drag on the wing. A high lift-to-drag ratio requires a significantly smaller thrust to
propel the wings through the air at sufficient lift.

In the plane we have taken

• chord length
• thickness
• length

The wing is a non-symmetrical wing with a dihedral angle of 15 degree.

At first the ribs were made to provide stability to the wings. 20 ribs were made. These ribs were
then attached by the spar, leading edge and the trailing edge. Therefore a wing skeleton was
formed. Taping was done to provide a skin to the wing. Duct tape was used to do so. After that
we cut ailerons of width 5cm and length 68cm. The ailerons were attached to the trailing edge by
the use of x-ray sheets. These sheets provide good strength and free mobility to the joint. After
this the whole wing was ready.
 3.Vertical stabilizer

A vertical stabilizer provides directional (or yaw) stability and usually

comprises a fixed fin and movable control rudder hinged to its rear
edge. Less commonly, there is no hinge and the whole fin surface is pivoted
for both stability and control.
When an aircraft encounters a horizontal gust of wind, yaw stability causes
the aircraft to turn into the wind, rather than turn in the same direction.

We have used depron sheet of thickness 5 mm for making the vertical

stabilizer. The height of the vertical stabilizer is 15 centimetre. Rudder is
attached with the vertical stabilizer with the help of X-Ray sheet. These xray
sheets provide good hinges to the rudder. The rudder is made up of 5 mm
depron sheet sheet with height 15 centimetre and length 5 centimetre.

4.Horizontal Stabilizer
A horizontal stabilizer is used to maintain the aircraft in longitudinal
balance, or trim.
It exerts a vertical force at a distance so the summation of
pitch momentsabout the center of gravity is zero. The vertical force
exerted by the stabilizer varies with flight conditions, in particular
according to the aircraft lift coefficient and wing flaps deflection which
both affect the position of the center of pressure, and with the position
of the aircraft center of gravity.
The elevator serves to control the pitch axis; in case of a fully movable
tail, the entire assembly acts as a control surface.
We have used depron sheet of thickness 5 mm for making the horizontal
stabilizer. Its length is 46 centimetre. Here also, x-ray sheets are used for
joining the elevator and horizontal stabilizer. The elevator is made up of length
46cm and breadth 4 cm.
Prototyping Results

After analyzing our project problem and determining the team’s execution
plan, we decided that given the scope of our project, we would be better off
building quickly and performing large amounts of field testing rather than
large amounts of prototyping and relatively less field work. This is due in large
part to budge constraints, as we used almost all of the $1200 budget on our
large aircraft, and thus did not have the funds to buy parts for a scale model
before moving to full scale.
As such, our testing methodology was to perform subsystem tests on the
ground to ensure systems were working in the manner which we expected,
then integrated system tests on the ground to ensure they were working
together properly, and then finally field testing of the aircraft to test
controlled flight and the functioning of all integrated systems together. We
began by performing load testing of the structures that we had built, to
ensure they would be able to withstand the loads placed on them during
flight. For the wing, this meant we placed distributed weights along its span
to represent the distributed weight of the aircraft being felt by the wing as
lift over its surface. We determined that the center of the wing was not strong
enough, as the balsa in that section had begun to deform, and thus we
attached several 1/8” balsa sheets to give more longitudinal stiffness to the
wing. This increased weight slightly, which is one of the primary reasons we
included extra power in our powertrain selection – we wanted to be able to
overbuild the frame to ensure it had the necessary strength, without worrying
about weight. One of our primary concerns was the proper functioning of the
electronic systems, as none of our team members had mechatronics or robotics
experience.
To this end, we began bread boarding the circuits for our motor-ESC-battery
systems and performed static thrust and spin testing of the motors. To test
the circuits, we initially spun up a motor to ensure connectivity, then attached
the motor to its motor mount and ran thrust tests, plotting throttle position
versus rotation speed of the propeller, measured using a tachometer. From
these tests, we were able to measure how the gain of the controller affected
the motor thrust response, which we would have been able to use for
tweaking of the controls had we had more time for testing.
Proposed Improvements

As with many projects, there is a great amount of room for improvement with
this UAV. Most importantly would be the addition of PID control in pitch,
roll, and yaw. The control system design for this aircraft was a minimalist
proportional control, which is what the radio control system purchased was
capable of delivering. While this is what is found on most model airplanes, this
one could use a bit more stabilization purely due to its size and operating
realm.
Since it is designed to operate at moderate to low Reynolds numbers, low
airspeed dynamics became an important factor during flight, and some aspects
of airplane response in this realm are not very desirable. As such, adding a
system of sensors and a processor such as an Arduino or Ardupilot, and
programming a PID algorithm could reduce undesirable responses, and make
the airplane easier to fly. However, since this is a large amount of work, we
think that this could be done as another senior design project in the future.

The other major improvement for the project is the addition of tilt rotor control
or variable-pitch propellers. Tilt rotors or variable-pitch propellers allow a plane
to achieve thrust vectoring, and more helicopter-like characteristics for takeoff
and landing. Successful implementation of either of these and proper
controllers would allow the airplane to achieve stable hover, eliminating the
need for a parachute as the primary landing system. This means that vertical
takeoff and landing is also possible, and controllable. If that were attempted
with the current design, instabilities would arise and the plane would most
likely crash. Furthermore, the resulting elimination of the parachute would
save space and reduce weight, allowing for more control equipment to be put
into the design. As with the implementation of a flight stabilization system,
we believe this could be implemented as another future senior design project.
Cost

S.no. Material. Amount (Rs)

1. Depron Sheet 1000

2. BLDC motor 950
3. Servo motors x4 600
4. Propeller. 300
5. Lippo battery 1500
6. Adhesives. 200
7. Tape. 200
8. Transmitter and 5000
Receiver
9. ESC 350
10. Other materials 500
Total 10600

Conclusion

An attempt has been made to systematically design, analyze, build and fly
prototype RC plane. This project provided the team an insight into basics of
aircraft design, engineering, building and testing albeit on a small scale. The
team also could learn aircraft technology fundamentals and use design and
analysis tools. The project also provided an opportunity for multi-disciplinary
team to work together and understand the interactions. The teams also have
been able to document the lessons learnt to be further used in the upcoming
aerospace projects by the same team.