I built the Awesome Blossom a few months ago.
Due to the drought and county burn bans and such
I didn't get to try it till last weekend. It's the
smallest monocopter I've built to date and was
meant to be powered by a ground blossom firework
which is installed in the picture. I got the idea
for the tubular hub from Art Applewhite's Helix
copters. When I found a tube that's a perfect
fit for a ground blossom, it just had to be done.
The wing is 7"span x 2"chord. It doesn't look it in
the pic, but the wing has about 8 deg of up pitch.
The flybar is a bamboo skewer.
Well, it didn't work.
It spun on the launch pin for about 5 seconds, but
never developed the speed it needed to takeoff.
A ground blossom normally gets lit and is set on the
ground, it then spins madly in a more or less
spherical pattern while the flame changes colors. As
fast as it spins by itself, I had high hopes for it
pushing a small monocopter, but no joy.
I've already built a new T-shaped 13mm motor mount
to plug in to the existing hub tube so that it'll
use modroc motors now, and still have an adjustable
motor pitch capability.
The Awesome Blossom flies.
ReplyDeleteLast Sunday, 6/14/09, I tried it twice. The 1st was on an A10-0T but it threw the motor mount right after takeoff. 2nd attempt was with an A3 [with more tape this time], and the flight was great!!
I still ahve a theory to try for getting the ground blossom powered version into the air.
No new photos, otherwise I would've made a new post out of this.
KK