Recently Richard Hame! attended the Toledo Show in Ohio where he entered this model that he designed and built from scratch. His model took the top prize - best in show. The model 'aeroplane' is very unique. It is a scale model dragon that actually breathes fire! Richard explains... This is an all composite structure is comprised of Nomex honeycomb in a post cured epoxy glass sandwich. It has a 9 ft wingspan and is just over 7 ft long - weight is approximately 30 lb. Powered by a JetCat turbine with 22 lb of thrust. The wing starts at the root as a Clark T aerofoil (to provide spar depth) and morphs to an Eppler 385 aerofoil to provide huge amounts of lift. Wing loading is in the high thirties. Incorporates Kevlar-carbon fibre flex plates for shock suppression on the gear; rear wheel brakes (required on jets). The Dragon uses aileron and V tail for control and also (to help coordinate through the turns) the head is slaved to the rudder function through a Futaba 14MZ 2.4 GHz radio - the head actually has two modes, ground mode and flight mode; ground mode - as it steers on the ground the head swings in the direction of turn in an exaggerated fashion, and in flight mode it turns just slightly to help with turning. The head can also be turned off completely.
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