I am building an airborne drone capable of delivering a sausage at 100mph.

Stage 1 of the project is to build and test fly the airframe.

I downloaded a free plan from rcgroups.com – this one is the DS2 wing designed by the user forlack, here:

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showth…

This plan is for a 36″ version but I scale it up to fill a whole A0 sheet when printed, giving me a wingspan of 46″

I bought EPP foam sheet from http://www.flying-dog.co.uk/shop/ – this plane uses 3 sheets of 7mm thickness EPP with 1.9# density (this is the dense, strong but heavier weight). It also has a sheet of 20mm thickness 1.3# density EPP sheet cut out to form the fuselage sections, which I will hollow out to fit the electronics as I fit more to it.

The plane is glued together with UHU Por (this is not normal UHU, it’s a special one glue for foam) and I have used double-sided carpet tape as the main adhesive to laminate the sheets together, as it adds strength.

I opted to put balsa leading and trailing edges on the wing for stiffnes and strength but this is not strictly necessary.

I put a 7mm x 8mm square section carbon spar in the central sheet so it is very strong and stiff.

Elevons are balsa. The plane and elevons have strips of fibreglass – reinforced strapping tape for added strength.

The plane was painted and then covered in a layer of laminating film for added toughness.

I added electronics to get it flying as an RC plane. Initial setup is a Turnigy 2836 motor at 2350kv:

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/st…

powered by 2 x 2200 mah 4-cell Lipo batteires connected in parallel to act as a single 4400 mah 4-cell, and a 60 amp ESC (Electronic Speed Controller)

I have a cheapo Orange reveiver, wired to 2 carbon-geared mini servos, one for each elevon. you really want metal or carbon gears for these things, cheap resin gears will strip on the first hard landing.

Wing tips are made from Coroplast signs I found lying around and cut to shape.

The flight characteristics were very surprisingly good- I maidened it on a very windy day – too windy for a maiden flight really- and it completely ignored the wind. It flew straight and rock steady. I’m confident the wing will take the extra equipment I’m going to be adding to it with no problems.

It will definitely handle more power, so I am planning on uprating the motor at some point soonish.

Next stage will be to set up the wing for FPV- First Person View flying. This is something I have wanted to try for ages.

I am going to add a video camera and a video transmitter to the plane. I will then have a pair of video goggles receivng the video signal, so I can fly as if I was in the plane myself.

I will post an update once this has been given a go!