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Kasra's
LiteStiks
by Kasra
Naghshineh on 08/10/01 at
kasra_naghshineh@yahoo.com
This article was originally
edited by Gabe Baltaian and posted on
www.airdyn.com
 Those
are Kasra's highly modified LiteSticks in this picture. All of them use
the GWS R4P Rx, Hitec HS-50's, Pixie 7P speed control and a homemade
base-loaded antenna. |
 First modified
LiteStik has a box fuselage made from a 3"-wide sheet of 1/32" balsa.
The GWS drive uses an APC 8"x6" prop. There is a removable landing gear
but this is not shown in the picture. The bamboo rods are supported by
an aluminum tube and the wing is glued together with Pro-Bond. I have
gotten 1 hour flights with 650-720 8-cell NiMHs. It weighs around 7-7.5
Oz with the 8-cell 300s. (It flew out of sight overhead one day but I
had my name on there and I got it back all intact.) |
 The second one
has ailerons and V-tail. The motors are doubled up as you see. I used a
1/16" balsa spacer opposite the existing motor and glued the second
motor on followed by a strap. It will fly inverted all day but it came
out heavy since I got carried away with making the fuselage pretty. It
weighs around 8 ozs. ready to go and it will hang on the prop at the
beginning of the charge. |
 The flying
wing is called Zagi-Stik and it uses all the stock LiteStik parts except
for the GWS 8"x6" prop. I built the wing flat on the workbench with a
wing sweep of 150 degree included angle (15 degree on each wing), so if
one wing is parallel to your workbench, the other is 30 degrees off.
There is no dihedral at the center but the LiteStik wings have a little
washout by themselves. It weighs 6.25 ozs with the 8-cell 300 mAh NiMHs
and I consistently get 20 minute flights (I have flown longer by
catching thermals). It will fly inverted and it does tight loops. Rolls
are very slow and due to wing flexing sometimes it falls out. I am still
experimenting with it and I think you can make one around 6 ozs. but
already it has become my favorite. Right now I am exploring how to make
the it more aerobatic. It loops tightly and some have compared it to a
Mini-IFO but it won't roll very quickly and I think I need to stiffen
the wings.
You can see the size of the elevons in the picture.
They are about 1" in chord at the root and 2" at the tip. I have some 5
degree reflex in the elevons. The reflex varies based on the battery
size used (thank god you don't have to compensate for electrons burned
although sometimes I feel that way.) The nyrods used are Sullivan 1/32"
cable in a tube. I was worried about the cables navigating the curve
under the wing. The servos are at the wing root in the thickest portion
of the airfoil. The servo head faces forward and they push/pull the
cable which goes out span-wise and turns ninety degrees to hook up to
the horns. The bamboo sticks are put on first and wings are joined using
aluminum tubes. The fuselage is a piece of EPP packing foam that was
about to be thrown out. I cut it to a tear drop shape using a saw and
scissors.
The first day after I finished it I ran with it
lightly held in my hand and it felt pretty good so I turned the motor on
and away it went. It has a very flat glide. Ron Fikes told me put a line
at 15% back from each wing LE and where they cross, that is where the CG
should be. The CG point now is 3.75" from the trailing edge but I have
not measured to see if this matches the 15% point or not.
After a while I fried the motor on the Zagi-Stik. I
replaced it with a carbon brush motor which should handle the 8-cell
much better. The motor frying was my fault. I put on a heavy 8-cell pack
(720s) and had the motor full blast for about 15 minutes. When I fly
with the 300s, I am usually at 1/3 throttle stick. I am pretty sure even
the standard motors don't mind that. |
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