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The inverted V is simpler (just two pieces and two control surfaces) and has more than enough control authority.

@@billjonesnation definitely trickier than wood. I also found that it doesn't stick well to the PLA, so I made sure the covering was always wrapping around and sticking to other covering prior to shrinking. I also had to be very gentle with the iron to not soften the plastic. I had a couple small areas that ended up slightly warped, but nothing too bad. Also, using extremely light covering is important. This is Aerolite from StevensAero, which I think is about as light as it gets.

Light weight is the name of the game with these. If I were to make another one I'd probably try the foaming LW-PLA. I appreciate the offer though!

@@montagdp Sounds a good point! Do you think is there any chance we can have a further talk about potential collab? We're open to supplying free services including custom PCBs, 3DP/CNC with different material options, for more your project possibilities!

@@zoeyzhang9866 maybe at some point in the future. I have done custom PCBs before, but honestly I don't have a lot of time for projects these days. I'll keep it in mind though in case the opportunity arises.

There are print settings in the thingiverse link in the description. Let me know if there's anything missing that you need.

@@theroburrito it did survive the landing, but I've decided to catch it from now on because the prop (attached with a prop saver) tends to strike the fuselage and cut the covering on belly landings. Regarding the material, I prefer making it as light as possible.

Glad you liked it. I put a link to the design on thingiverse in the video description.

Thanks!

What is your background and what in particular are you trying to simulate? Do you need unsteady Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) CFD or will a simpler aerodynamic model do? The kite itself is modeled as rigid here. The aerodynamics of the kite is simulated using unsteady RANS. The kite string and tail are modeled with a catenary simulation - each cable is divided uniformly into 30-100 segments, and Newton's 2nd law is solved simultaneously for all segments, with gravity, tension, and aerodynamics being the applied forces. The motion of the kite applies the boundary conditions at the ends of the cables connected to it, and the cables apply forces to the kite to affect how it moves. The kite's motion is simulated using a 6-degree-of-freedom rigid body motion solver.

@@montagdp Hello, thank you very much for your quick reply! I study mechanical engineering and try to simulate the following problem: To tow a lure sideways on a boat, a otter board is to be used. This otter board represents the lateral distance from the boat, which should be variable at the end. Now it is so that I have already carried out steady state simulations of the bait. This means that I know all the forces acting on the shear board in the direction of flow. Now I have to ask myself how I have to dimension the area of the otter board in order to be able to guarantee the lateral distance at all and which angles are realistic in the end (otter board in relation to the ship). I would like to clarify these questions by a simulation and this problem seems to me very similar to a single line kite simulation. Since the shear board floats exclusively on the surface, it is ( a bit simplified) a 2D problem. There are already solutions from the fishing industry. I would like to list one here to better understand the problem. For example there is the "Ghost Sideplaner" from "ghost - products de".

@@montagdp thanks buddy...keep up the good work....you do amazing CFD work 👍👍

@@montagdp thank you.

Sorry, but I haven't done anything with ANSYS or Fluent in over a decade, so my knowledge is probably completely out of date. What I do remember is that at the time I needed to make a User-Defined function to prescribe the motion and then compile it within Fluent. I think there was a dialog for that. I used mesh deformation to handle the motion in the model. Hope that helps somewhat!

@@montagdp already helped, appreciated !

It's one that requires you to work for the US DoD or a DoD contractor, unfortunately.

I already have an idea to do a 3D printed one. If I do, maybe I'll make the design available. But it will be a while, because I don't even have a 3D printer yet.

Rockets, airplanes, UAVs, cars, anything where aerodynamics matters.