Rhino RC BreakdownRhino in a Suitcase___

This all started because I was taking a holiday to Darwin to visit my brother. He's an avid RC flier and I wanted an aircraft that I could put in my suitcase and travel with. Obviously, a ply/balsa aircraft would have a tough time surviving the trauma of travel, especially the baggage handlers (no offense to them, they have a job to do in a very short time). I've been using aluminium spars and leading edges in my last few projects and had been very pleased with the results. I was definitely headed for an extensively aluminium aircraft and the two ideas fused, an aluminium aircraft that could be dismantled for travel. So was born the Aerotuff SF1 (Suitcase Flier) Rhino (tough).

I wanted to keep the aircraft as basic as possible. The longest part of the aircraft would be the fuselage and a large suitcase could take about 80cm (31.5 inches) so that was my starting point. I decided this was the length of a 3.2 to 40 size aircraft and selected the electric running gear to suit. The fuselage was designed around a Turnigy 4000mAh 3S 30C lipo pack and a Turnigy D3542/5 1250KV brushless outrunner motor. This turned out to be a good combination although I’ll keep experimenting with others. (That’s part of the funJ).

Previously, when working with aluminium spars, I realised that, with the right configuration, I would be able to adjust the dihedral. This had a lot of influence on the design of the Rhino. The Rhino can be configured with 0° to 10° dihedral... from sports flier to stable trainer. This is simply done with spacers under the wing mounts.

The aero-foil was selected to compliment the aircraft's ability to transform with an almost symmetrical aero-foil, the lower section being slightly shallower than the upper, between aerobatic and training configurations.

I incorporated plenty of control surface on all controls for those who want to throw the aircraft around.

After her maiden flight I am confident that she will turn out to be everything I had hoped. Weather permitting we will be putting her though her paces in Darwin. I will post the results on this site and Facebook. As an old friend use to say, “I’m Excited!!”.

Rhino RC Aircraft facebook page

Crash Testing__

embarrestApology
I have just discovered that the site had stopped sending emails from the contact page. A quirky problem with the platform I’m using. The problem has been fixed and I hope you’ll forgive me for not contacting you and ask that you resend any emails.
My Sincere Apologies, Neville

Flight Testing

Flight Testing__

Aerotuff Video

Aerotuff__

Making It Tuff__

FPV Rhino__

Rhino FPV

The first Rhino production aircraft has been fitted with a FTP camera. The video 'We're Going to Crash... Crash Testing the Rhino' was shot entirely using this system.

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Plans

Once the SF1 Rhino has been fully tested, Plans will be made available through this site.