u/Swww

Finally happy with how my new plane, the VENOM, flies so I'm ready to share some pictures of the validated prototype.

This aircraft has been through several different aerodynamic configurations, and with so many systems interacting with each other, it's been a real challenge to isolate and understand the effects of each one.

After several iterations, I've finally arrived at a configuration that delivers what I originally wanted from this project. I'm really starting to see the potential of this airframe emerge, and I'm excited to keep pushing its development as I continue flying it.

Current configuration:

Twin 1103 motors with HQ T3×2 props

2S 1000mAh Flywoo LiHV battery

DJI O4 Wide

Matek F405-Wing WMO flight controller

Four 4.3g servos controlling elevons and V-tail ruddervators

249g

Approximately 7 minutes of mixed flight time

The flight characteristics are now really promising. Coordinated turns are easy to achieve, control authority feels good, and the aircraft is finally behaving the way I'd hoped.

There's still plenty to explore and refine, but I'm now at a point where I'm happy to start preparing VENOM for release.

Looking forward to sharing it with you guys soon, along with more flight footage over the coming weeks!

More info on my other aircraft

I've been working on this V-tail design for a little while now, and I'm really happy with how it's flying.

There are still a few things I want to work through before release, but VENOM is getting close to its final aerodynamic configuration.

Keen to hear what you guys think about how it files!

More info on WUDFLY planes here

Here is my latest 3D printed aircraft design. It’s a 600mm wingspan FPV wing targeting around 220g AUW.

It’s running 4x 1003 motors, the same motors I’ve used on a few of my previous builds. One of the things I’m particularly interested in with this layout is that the inner section of the wing is continuously and symmetrically blown by the motors. That should keep a useful amount of dynamic pressure over the centre of the wing even at low aircraft airspeed, while keeping the additional lift nicely balanced left-to-right.

The outer motor pair will then provide differential thrust for yaw. Because they’re relatively far outboard, they have a decent moment arm, and they’ll be working alongside the V-tail ruddervators and the wing geometry’s tendency towards proverse yaw.

The idea is that all three effects should work together rather than fighting each other. I’m hoping that gives it a really locked-in feeling in yaw and makes the aircraft track like it’s on rails, particularly when carving around in FPV. Obviously that’s the theory for now, and flight testing will tell me how well it actually works.

For this one I’m using a Matek F405-WMN rather than the FlyingRC F4 Mini to simplify the wiring inside. It also uses a 4-in-1 25A ESC and a DJI O4 Lite air unit.

I’m starting to print the first airframe now. How do you guys think it will fly? Read more about my other planes here.

Follow-up to the Spectre build I posted here last week. I've been having loads of fun flight testing this one. And by flight testing I mostly mean just having fun with it, as all of the hard work was done on this airframe during its TWIST_DT days.

The addition of the FPV camera really lets this airframe shine because you can fly around things and start linking up some lines. I've been flying loops, split-Ss and other aerobatics with it too, but carving through the early morning air like this is just fantastic.

I'm still running INAV on my builds and, although I have a bit of work left to do on the PID tune for this plane, I'm pretty happy with how it flies currently. Takeoffs are handled with ease by autolaunch and I'm flying in Acro with fairly sensible rates. I could bump them up a little, but for this kind of flying they feel about right and keep the control surface deflections well within what the aircraft seems happy with.

Specs in this flight:

• 215g AUW
• 600mm span
• DJI O4 Wide
• 2S 1000mAh LiHV
• 2× 1003 motors
• FlyingRC F4 Mini flight controller running INAV
• 3D-printed LW-PLA airframe

More info on the plane

Absolutely loving flying this little 215g FPV wing around the trees here.

Early in the morning or late in the evening when the wind drops, it’s just such a chill plane to take out. Cruise around low, carve between the trees, find a few gaps and just enjoy the flight.

Spectre is 600mm span with 8.5dm² of wing area, so at 215g AUW the wing loading is only about 25.3g/dm². That light loading really suits this kind of flying and makes it great fun to slow right down amongst the trees. Read more about the plane here.

The basis for this plane, which I’m calling Spectre, was the TWIST_DT platform I worked on back in May.

I originally designed TWIST_DT as a small experimental testbed for exploring different wing geometries, particularly around bell-shaped spanload concepts. It also ended up becoming a really useful aircraft for developing my understanding of fixed-wing PID tuning.

The final stage of that development was adding the two small vertical stabilisers. For me, that pretty much closed out the original TWIST_DT concept: a very small, stable and forgiving flying-wing platform that I could use to experiment with geometry, control and tuning.

Then someone who had built TWIST_DT made their own FPV version. I thought it was such a cool direction for the platform that I wanted to develop a properly integrated FPV version of my own.

So rather than just sticking a camera onto TWIST_DT, I ended up redesigning a fair amount of the aircraft around FPV. This first version of Spectre is built around the DJI O4 Wide, with support for more camera and video systems coming shortly. The wings are now removable so replacing parts in the event of crashes will be super easy which is something I'm looking forwards to the most as I push the limits of these little planes so I end up crashing a lot!

The complete aircraft is 215g AUW with the DJI video system and a 2S LiHV 1000mAh battery. It also flies happily on a 2S 750mAh, and the battery bay is deliberately fairly generous, so I expect quite a few different packs will fit. For the moment the wiring is a bit of a mess, ok for a first round of testing.

Right now I’m getting around 6 minutes on the 750mAh pack, flying it pretty dynamically through trees with loops, rolls and plenty of time on power. I haven’t actually done a proper cruise flight yet because it’s just far too tempting to keep throwing it through tree gaps.

One thing I’m really enjoying is how little ceremony there is between flights. Landing, swapping a pack and launching again takes about as much effort as it does with a quad. With some short grass, landings are extremely easy too. The aircraft can fly ridiculously slowly, and the propwash over the wing gives it a huge amount of low-speed authority, so approaches can be very slow with a lot of recovery margin available if you need to add power.

Handling-wise it's honestly verging on the divine. The original wing geometry has carried across really well, and one of the more interesting parts of the aircraft is how nicely it works together with differential thrust for yaw control. It makes for a surprisingly composed little FPV platform.

Still testing and refining it at the moment, but I’ll get some flight footage up soon!

The basis for this plane, which I’m calling Spectre, was the TWIST_DT platform I worked on back in May.

I originally designed TWIST_DT as a small experimental testbed for exploring different wing geometries, particularly around bell-shaped spanload concepts. It also ended up becoming a really useful aircraft for developing my understanding of fixed-wing PID tuning.

The final stage of that development was adding the two small vertical stabilisers. For me, that pretty much closed out the original TWIST_DT concept: a very small, stable and forgiving flying-wing platform that I could use to experiment with geometry, control and tuning.

Then someone who had built TWIST_DT made their own FPV version. I thought it was such a cool direction for the platform that I wanted to develop a properly integrated FPV version of my own.

So rather than just sticking a camera onto TWIST_DT, I ended up redesigning a fair amount of the aircraft around FPV. This first version of Spectre is built around the DJI O4 Wide, with support for more camera and video systems coming shortly. The wings are now removable so replacing parts in the event of crashes will be super easy which is something I'm looking forwards to the most as I push the limits of these little planes so I end up crashing a lot!

The complete aircraft is 215g AUW with the DJI video system and a 2S LiHV 1000mAh battery. It also flies happily on a 2S 750mAh, and the battery bay is deliberately fairly generous, so I expect quite a few different packs will fit. For the moment the wiring is a bit of a mess, ok for a first round of testing.

Right now I’m getting around 6 minutes on the 750mAh pack, flying it pretty dynamically through trees with loops, rolls and plenty of time on power. I haven’t actually done a proper cruise flight yet because it’s just far too tempting to keep throwing it through tree gaps.

One thing I’m really enjoying is how little ceremony there is between flights. Landing, swapping a pack and launching again takes about as much effort as it does with a quad. With some short grass, landings are extremely easy too. The aircraft can fly ridiculously slowly, and the propwash over the wing gives it a huge amount of low-speed authority, so approaches can be very slow with a lot of recovery margin available if you need to add power.

Handling-wise it's honestly verging on the divine. The original wing geometry has carried across really well, and one of the more interesting parts of the aircraft is how nicely it works together with differential thrust for yaw control. It makes for a surprisingly composed little FPV platform.

Still testing and refining it at the moment, but I’ll get some flight footage up soon!

Bit of an impromptu formation flight from an early morning at the lake.

I’d arranged to meet up with this guy and his homemade Depron seaplane as we’d both had the same idea of getting some flying in while the lake was still quiet. Ended up doing a couple of flights together with my little 3D printed wing.

On the second one a passer-by stopped and filmed us from the shore, so we actually got a decent outside view of the two planes buzzing around together.

Pretty great way to start the day!

Here’s some flight footage of a bit of close-in acro around the trees with my 3D printed FPV wing.

One of the coolest things about designing aircraft for 3D printing is the amount of control you have over the actual shape of the airframe — the airfoil, twist, internal structure and how everything blends together. Once the design and tune are working properly, you can end up with a really precise little aircraft that feels properly locked in.

It’s been great getting out and flying this one a bit harder, finding more things to fly around and gradually pushing both the aircraft and my own flying.

Flown with a spotter and kept well below 35 m AGL. More info here

Specs:
600 mm wingspan
Sub-250 g AUW
LW-PLA airframe
1506 4200KV motor
4S 1100 mAh
DJI O4 Lite
INAV flight controller

Been a bit quiet on this one but im ready to start testing soon. Im interested to see how it flies with this setup before moving to my plan B V-Tail setup that this platform is begging for!

Next up soldering and flight testing. This time the wings are removable so crashes should slow me down a lot less (useful as I crash a lot).

This plane should be perfect for small areas and be more like a 5inch drone vs Bandit (my other fpv wing) which is more like a 7inch+ if that makes sense to anyone!

Spec:
Matek wing F405 WMO
DJI O4 Wide
Nano ELRS Rx
25A 4in1
4x 1003 motors (little bigger would be preferred but this is what I have)
3x 4.3g DSPOWER servos
1000mah 2s LiHV

I’ve been working on keeping my flying tight and close rather than just disappearing into the distance. This session was mostly loops, split-S manoeuvres and a little proximity flying around the club field.

I’m really enjoying this plane, especially now that I’ve got the settings dialled in.

It runs on 4S, weighs under 250 g and has reached 198 km/h. It can fly for around 20 minutes when cruising, although flying like this usually brings that closer to 13 minutes.

Being under 250 g and easy to keep below 35 metres AGL opens up quite a few possible flying locations where a larger aircraft would be less practical, provided the location allows it and I have a spotter.

Could you fly a plane like this near you?

More information on the plane.

I built this one up out of parts from a few different coloured rolls of lw-pla so I decided to paint it.

I've not painted my planes before mostly because I'm so aggressive testing and flying them that they don't tend to last very long but after painting this one I think I'm going to start! more info on the plane here

Let's see some of your printed beauties 👇🏻

Personally I'm very excited to see that DJI has finally listened and provided us with a wide angle lite air unit. I'm a big fan of the O4 lite and will be updating my builds to support the new version when it's out!

Anyone else going to be building this into your projects? Curious to hear what your favourite cam/vtx combos are

Had to retire my main test airframe after a very hard landing, but that gave me a good excuse to move the electronics into a fresh build.

This is the same sub250g 3D printed FPV wing platform, now rebuilt with a slightly cleaner electronics install. I’m still being careful with the grey LW-PLA because it gets pretty delicate with heat, but the yellow material has been excellent so far.

Hopefully I’ll get some flights in tomorrow morning before it gets too hot and test a couple of new settings.

Had to retire my main test wing after a very hard landing, so the electronics got moved into a fresh sub250g build.

Same FPV wing, cleaner airframe, ready for more abuse. Hopefully flying it tomorrow morning before the heat gets too high.

Anyone else here running drone parts in fixed-wing builds?

Had to retire my main test airframe after a very hard landing, but honestly that was mostly just an excuse to move the electronics into a fresh build.

This is the same sub250g FPV wing platform, now rebuilt and looking a lot cleaner. It uses a mix of lightweight 3D printed parts and drone-style electronics, which has been working really well for keeping the build compact and capable.

I’m still being careful with the grey LW-PLA because it gets pretty delicate with heat, but the yellow material has been excellent so far. Still not completely sure about the colour combination though. I’d love to see more LW-PLA colours available in general, or maybe I just need to finally start painting parts.

Hopefully I’ll get some flights in tomorrow morning before it gets too hot and try a couple of new settings. Keen to see how it feels with a fresh airframe again.

Curious how many people here are starting to use drone parts in their RC plane builds? Flight controllers, mini ESCs, quad motors, FPV systems, that sort of thing.

Had to retire my main test airframe after a very hard landing, but honestly that was mostly just an excuse to move the electronics into a fresh build.

Still unsure about the colour combination. It would be nice to see more colour options available from LW-PLA suppliers like ColorFabb. I’m not really one for post-processing printed parts, but maybe I should finally start painting them.

This is the same sub250g FPV wing platform, now rebuilt and looking a lot cleaner. I’m still being careful with the grey LW-PLA because it gets pretty delicate with heat, but the yellow material has been excellent so far.

Hopefully I’ll get some flights in tomorrow morning before it gets too hot and try a couple of new settings. Keen to see how this one feels with a fresh airframe and a slightly cleaner setup.

Has anyone here used AMS for multi-colour LW-PLA prints? Curious whether it’s worth the hassle for aircraft parts.

This started as a small handling experiment and slowly turned into a proper little park flyer.

I wanted to make a 600mm 3D printed wing that was slow, stable, easy to throw around a park, and fun rather than intimidating. It’s using twin 1003 motors on 2S, LW-PLA, INAV, differential thrust, and a fair bit of twist in the wing to calm the low-speed handling down.

It has taken quite a few geometry changes and tune changes to get here, but it’s now flying pretty much how I hoped: relaxed, floaty, and still lively enough to be fun.

Still refining it, but this one feels like a proper finished design now.

Full flight on youtube
More info

This started as a small handling experiment and slowly turned into a proper little park flyer.

I wanted to make a 600mm 3D printed wing that was slow, stable, easy to throw around a park, and fun rather than intimidating. It’s using twin 1003 motors on 2S, LW-PLA, INAV, differential thrust, and a fair bit of twist in the wing to calm the low-speed handling down.

It has taken quite a few geometry changes and tune changes to get here, but it’s now flying pretty much how I hoped: relaxed, floaty, and still lively enough to be fun.

Still refining it, but this one feels like a proper finished design now.

Full flight on youtube
More info