Pizza Box Flyer

You can watch my Parkzone F4U Corsair crash and burn here.



I am now without an RC plane so I'm building my own. This will be a PBF aka Pizza Box Flyer. Here is another example.

Here is my original drawing and idea.


I decided to keep it simple and go rectangular. I bought 10 sheets of depron foam each sheet 14" x 40" in size and 6mm thick. I glued and taped 3 of those pieces together and taped on two flaps.



I'll be able to tell top from bottom by how many strips. Two strips is bottom, one strip is top. There will be no vertical stabilizer. This PBF will have no rudder and will therefore not be able to yaw. The two flaps will act as both the elevator and aileron, aka known as elevons.



I'll purchase some stiff but light weight rods to stiffen the structure.

I'm going to take the guts of a Parkzone F4U Corsair to drive it. I broke down the cost of my Corsair part by part here. I'll use the following for my PBF.

• 480 Brushless Outrunner Motor, 960Kv: T-28
• 2 Blade Propeller
• Propeller Hub
• 11.1V 1800mAh Li-Po Battery
• SV80 Long Lead 3-wire servo: T28
• 30-Amp Pro Switch-mode BEC Brushless ESC
• AR500 DSM2 5-Channel Sport Receiver
• Servo Y-Harness: 3D2, T-28
• Pushrods with Clevis

I plan to use zip-ties to strap the engine to the foam. I'll use some kind of flat strong material on the top and bottom so the zip ties won't pull through the foam.

I'm trying to dream up some kind of launch system for example a sling-shot to help get the PBF up to speed. If I can quickly get it high up, I can react and correct issues. If it's close to the ground, a mistake could lead to a crash.

I am not sure how to balance this plane or if it will be too heavy to fly. If it is too heavy, I can always trim the foam back and make it smaller. I'm considering cutting a rectangle about 3" deep from the front center, wide enough for the propeller. The purpose would be to protect the propeller from a front-end crash.