The roof, again, plus rear frame . . . again

Design evolution, ie coming up with better ideas. The whole roof situation has been giving me a headache. I have been trying to incorperate a roof into the trailer design, which would be simple if it only had to protect from the rain, but it also has to give a significant amount of shade so the projected image can be seen.

After messing around with different designs, I have come to the conclusion that currently avaliable erectable marquees are a much better solution and come in cheaper than a custom made cover anyway. I can still incorperate attachments so it can be errected on concrete and doesnt need pegs, and guy ropes. Some images for an idea of how it would look with and without side walls:

The rear framework has had the initial glass layers put on, which has stiffened the whole rear area very well. More glass is needed on the side bar to add the load bearing strength. The aluminium foil in the pictures is what i have been using as a (almost) non sticking layer so i can put clamps and weights on top. A side benefit has turned out to be the way I can shape it and hold the setting glass in position. A lucky find though it is a little tricky to get off!

The roof

Have gone through a number of different ideas for the roof. Origionally it was a hard roof, but this is extra weight to tow around and doesnt give the coverage needed to protect from sun and rain. So now it looks like it will be a roll out awning. It will still need some sort of side covering though, to reduce the amount of light inside.

Will start glassing in the rear frame this afternoon. Photos when it's done.

Rear framework

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

In hindsight, I would have tried to cut about an inch further back when we went through the LS7. This would have save me a whole lot of grief.

The problem was finding anything towards the rear of the glider strong enough to take some load. The whole rear is very flimsy.






I have got around this by using the framework in the picture. This is design beefs up the weak bottom and spreads the passenger load all across the floor and up the sides to the (relitavely) strong seatpan mounts. The whole lot will be glassed in, giving a lovely strong and rigid structure, and most importantly, it fits under that seat pan!





Also the welding problem has been solved. Have gone from 0.8mm gasless to 0.6 gassed and it is making a huge difference. I think it is the smaller gauge wire needing less power and so not blowing holes in the steel. Just gives more time to build up material and get a better weld. Still not perfectly neat, but they are perfectly strong.

Welding

I never used to be very good at welding. But after hours of practice . . . I'm still not very good. It is thin wall galv steel and I can't seem to get it quite right. Removing the galv helps but I'm still trying to get the feed and power just right. My welds are strong enough, but not very neat. The term chicken sh*t comes to mind! Good thing no one will see them.

I have been using a gasless wire on a MIG welder. It also comes with gas and another spool so I might give that a go and see if it's better. Other than that, practice!

Final flight test

This is the final setup which combines all the techy bits. From here in I am really looking at design and construction, which is good since a lot of what I've done so far is not particularly relevant to my Uni course.

So, things to notice: I'm not wearing a hat to look cool (I dont need a hat for that). It has on it the sensors for the head tracking. The hardware of which can bee seen as 4 glowing red dots just in front of the laptop. The headtracking has been setup with a dead zone, so normal movement of the head does not move the view. The view moves when you look to the edges of the screen. This does feel natural, since the cockpit is out of the field of view. I found it particularly good for flicking left and right before turns. I need to tweak it a bit to get the up and down feeling right.

The instrument panel is my laptop taking streaming data across the network as I showed in a previous post. There is no precievable lag as far as I can tell. Next time I wil set up a shadow screen so the projector does not project on to the instruments.

All the other controls are working. I would love to know if there is a way to reduce the strength of the wheel brake, since using it causes the glider to nose plant.

The projected image is about the right size. It is not as high a resolution as I am hoping to have, so the detail quality should come up. And it obviously isnt curved.

There are a few bits that still need finishing up, but I will leave that till it's on the trailer.