Schreiner F-18 Construction

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The construction started out by obtaining the missing parts...fans, motors, batteries..etc. The plane was difficult to get, the fans were almost equally difficult to aquire. These fans are also made in Germany by Schubeler Jets. They are 90mm fans, made out of carbon fiber, and are literally functional pieces of artwork.

This plane needs lots of cells. I chose to go with the 4/5 sized, sub-C cells, the Sanyo CP-1700. I did some motocalc calculations running a 90mm fan, with a Hacker B50-15L, and came up with 22 cells per motor. By going with the 4/5 sized cells, I was able to save 16 oz (a whole pound!) of battery weight over using standard sub-c's.

The Schreiner F-18 is not designed to carry landing gear. It is designed to be a trolly-launched, belly flopper that you land on a grass surface. Since I wanted to be able to ROG, I cut holes in the bottom, and made these landing gear mounts. I mounted SpringAir 305 retracts in the plane, and used 1oz glass cloth, and epoxy resin to mount the gear into the airplane.

I made a custom fan mount out of 1/16" lite-ply, with a basswood base. The fans are each cradled in one of these mounts.

The fans are secured to the mounts, using high-temp RTV, and the ductwork is held to the inlets and outlets using duct-tape.

Here is a shot of the battery tray mounted in the plane, with batteries in-place.

Here is a bottom view of the retract, mains. The cutouts were made into gear doors that close when the gear is retracted.

Since the plane was designed to be a belly flopper, it needs LOTS of angle of attack when rolling on the ground. The first flight was less than successful because I did not have enough AOA. I couldn't get off the ground and crashed into the grass off the end of the runway. There is excellent video of the first flight attempts in the video library.

Here it is...all finished and ready to fly. WOW!

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