Unstable EDF Racer Project

[gbar7217]

I've dabbled in a bit of quadcopter frame design before but I've always had my eye on fixed-wing design. I've always been fascinated by everything on the leading edge of technology and I have never been too interested in mainstream aircraft. Unfortunately, this means that my first fixed-wing design is going to be quite hard to complete as no-one has ever done something quite like it. 

Essentially, I'm working on a cross between the X-29 and the X-36 optimised for small-scale flight. It will have the wings of an X-29 (forward-swept with close-coupled canard) and the yaw stabilisation of the X-36 (no tail, use split ailerons for yaw). I will go a step further and add thrust vectoring for pitch and yaw so it can hover and perform crazy maneuvers like the Kulbit. A quadcopter-style flight controller will be used to stabilise it since it's unstable in all axes.

It should be very efficient and fast but still ultra-agile. Hopefully, I'll even be able to race it against quads on tight FPV race tracks but still put on trick shows while flying LOS

It sounds crazy but I think it can work. Armed with an array of free professional-grade CAD and CFD software, I think I can handle it. Here's the early concept images for the top view, wing cross-section and ducting cross-section:


Next step is the design of the EDF inlet and exhaust. I'll draw it up on Fusion360 then analyse it in a simulated wind tunnel on SimScale. All the software I'm using is completely free on the condition that I don't make significant profit off it

Good one Liam, I have flown jets with thrust vectoring and have found them very responsive. Using the push/pull system on the wing surface might be better than using 2 servos, as one servo could faulter causeing the other servo to labour and burn out. Overall the concept is good, what material are you considering using in construction??