Tuesday, October 20, 2015

RC Glider Flies By Twisting Its Wings

Remote control gliders typically fly like their full-size counterparts. Tail and wing rudders control the direction of flight — but what if the wings themselves could twist and change their profile, similar to that of a bird? Well, RC glider manufacturer [Jaro Müller] did just that — and it is pretty cool (You’ll need a translation to read it though).

Called the Mini Ellipse, the RC glider is designed to be able to fly in slow thermals and maneuver even better than previous models. The entire wing profile can be controlled by wing flexion — the wing itself is very flexible. Unfortunately we don’t have any info about how it actually goes about doing that, but it’s probably either servo motors pulling wires, or maybe nitinol memory wire… but we’re just guessing. Regardless — take a look at the following video and let us know what you think!

When it comes to anything glider related, we can’t help but remember the awesome adventure of launching a glider from the edge of space — because, why not?

[Thanks Vilhja!]


Filed under: radio hacks

via Hackaday » radio hacks http://ift.tt/1hR1l97

No comments:

Post a Comment