Behold the Brooklyn Aerodrome at Burning Man 2011

We start humbly enough, with the gear we loaded into the container splayed on the desert surface.

Note the Crown Victoria Town Car that was our rental. We told people that we paid a car service to drive us to BM–there was a hurricane after all. For non-New Yorkers the black town car is the classic car service mode of transport in Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx and sometimes Manhattan.

Above is our camp, pristine, not completely built but the state of affairs on Sunday before opening the gates in the afternoon. Still a lot to do.

This is the view out of the Monkey Hut (Pseudo Quonset Hut) onto the construction of the Trojan Horse–yes we looked at horse ass all week long until they burned it.

Above is camp built and at night. Klieg lights are pretty cool at the end of our runway, edge lights working pretty well.

More as I get images/video uploaded.

Breck

So, I will provide the “rainbows” I got out of the world and the “turds” which is the other thing that comes out of rainbow shooting places.

• Rainbow: Three weeks before the start of a sold out Burning Man we ask for and get esplanade placement with Nyrvanna. That is followed a week later with early entry passes, tickets and insanely good deals on plane, car rental (really $260 for two weeks Alamo?), Grand Sierra hotel.
• Turd: NYCcontainer was sold out and I was really causing trouble trying to make something happen. Rainbow to turd conversion about to happen until magical space frees up and bribes are well administered and all around goodness established.

• Rainbow: We conjure a really good camp design, with the help of Philip Riley–aka Slime Hag–that rocks airplane goodness.
• Turd: Wha? $200 for tarps and tape, $300 for lighting it just goes on with a generator at the end of the materials list. Not cheap

• Rainbow: This is personal, but my wife, Karen, is the reason we went for it. Splinter sent me email wondering if Brooklyn Aerodrome might want the 50 feet of Esplanade that just opened up. I, with full dismissive sarcastic voice suggested that we re-experience the collective worst two weeks of our relationship pre-marriage over two Burning Mans in another attempt at some fun and she said, without a moments hesitation–yes. Next morning the same. Let it be said you don’t know who you married until you have.
• Turd: Planning a last minute Esplanade facing camp is a ton of work and it enveloped our lives. The last minute nature meant that we could only wreck out August. It had its seriously non-fun moments.

• Turd: (Yes some times the turd leads the rainbow) We are geared up, most prepared ever to execute THE PLAN, but a thunder storm that preceded the major hurricane threatened our timely arrival in Reno.
• Rainbow: I check the delays around noon for a Newark 5pm flight because it is raining and see disaster in our Salt Lake City connection. A call has us hustling to JFK for a 3:30 screwing all last minute arrangements but we get the flight due to a very good cabby who was tipped very well for knowing “back way” to JFK. Yeah, we missed the real fun with the hurricane Saturday/Sunday.
• Turd (unresolved when written–but read the rainbow): Our lighting for the runway was sent late from the vendor but arrived on time to our hotel. But it was sent attention “Wedding Chapel” which meant that when I attempted to verify that I could get the lights the chapel was closed until the next day. GROAN. We will see if 9:30 am Saturday morning a rainbow flies out of our project plan and we can head to playa equipped.
• Follow on turdlet: Wedding Chapel folks are nice but no lighting. Off we go to the playa without crucial bit of infrastructure.
• Rainbow #1: Whiskey & Whores (thanks Nichole and Dan) gift us 72 ft of rope light as we are heading in on Saturday early arrival. Saves camp design.
• Rainbow #2: Raneq (apologies for spelling) and Christina (apologies for perhaps getting that totally wrong) show up with our wedding chapel lights when I send a last minute missive to the NYC list for anyone to bring the lights to us.
• Rainbow #3: Whiskey & Whores really needed some lighting and so we gifted the 150 ft back to them that we just got delivered on Playa. That felt gooood to return the huge favor with 100% interest. Plus those “Wedding Chapel” lights totally belong at W&W, yee haw.

And on it went. I think this was my 11th Burn and I have never experienced such support and such push back. Now I just have to figure out how to get my stuff off of the container while I am at Maker Faire in Queens.

Thanks to all that pitched in.

Breck

Yes this is the plan.

• Trimming the Towel is very important and it is hard to know how to trim the plane without experience.
• The Towel is very responsive and quite acrobatic which I think is a good thing if you have a coach but a frustrating handful if you don’t.
• The Towel does not self stabilize like a training airplane does. With self stabilization–typically with aerodynamic mechanisms– learning to fly is easier because recovery happens if you just let go of the sticks in most situations.

The big problems with trainers is that they typically fly like crap, cannot handle winds over 10mph and are quite expensive.

The Multiplex Easy Star

The Easy Star is a classic that comes in a ready-to-fly version (RTF) which uses a radio that can be used for a Towel when you are up for for it.
Easy Star Electric, RTF (colors may vary)

It is expensive but it gets the job done in a tough, reasonable flying form. It of course flies in the face of all that the Towel is: Completely built vs scratch built, ugly vs angular goodness and all new materials vs recycled materials.

Some photos:

The template

It has about the same square inches as a regulation Towel, 500 or so, but I was really worried about center of gravity issues and the performance of the wing with such a big cut out.

The heart parts cut out of foam and covered in purple metallic covering

I had balloon fabric in purple that I thought would look good so used 3m77 to attach to foam before cutting. These are the initial cutouts for the wing and stabilizer. I usually do a prototyping pass without decoration for “radical” models but I was pretty sure this would fly and was low on time.

Will it balance or not? CG test with major components attached with tape.

The CG issues proved manageable. A bunch of logistic details were handled on the fly–NASA this is not. Like how to get the tail to not be a huge issue on landing. Also, reinforcements for a pretty floppy airframe.

It all worked out–here is the first flight:

Post flight interview, turns out I was not so confident that it would fly after all. It is weird but my hands still shake to this day out of nervousness on test flights for radical designs. Usually the second flight is when I get the shakiest. First flight is all business, but the confirmation flight is a different matter. Interesting experience.

Awesome yes?

66 cubic feet of container goodness at NYC container loadin.

Brooklyn Aerodrome at Load In

10 Airplanes ready to go

We got it sorted folks in less than a week. Grander than we could have imagined. Praise the community. Looks like we are getting 25 feet of the prime real estate with great neighbors. Thanks to all that pitched in.

We have been given 12 feet of prime real estate at Burning Man this year and want to make it happen. We were not planning on going but this is just too sweet.

Please get in touch if you have tickets for sale. We need two tickets. breck@brooklynaerodrome.com

Lay out is as follows:

Brooklyn Aerodrome at Burning Man as visualized by an artist

1) We fly sculptural remote control planes night and day.

We really add some sizzle to the night sky.

We put the Unidentified into UFO. In 2005 it was a masonic eye, flying
sperm 2007, 2009
alien spores, it goes on. This year bats, flying hearts and a jelly fish.

2) We teach people to fly our planes. Some witches from Burning Man:

3) New this year is a Pilot’s lounge where you get a drink after you
have flown with us.

4) We video from the air:
Container Load in: http://youtu.be/kzIB6Whqwys
Burning Man: http://youtu.be/hErT4HALw0g

In any case, there is always next year.

Web site is http://brooklynaerodrome.com

We decided on doing a pointy heart which the first flight is shown below:

Second flight, took an ounce of lead off the nose, better footage of plane:

Very relieved builder/pilot interview:

Way better flying footage with higher kv motor and other issues sorted out.

Breck

Shipping from Hong Kong is very expensive. Between 30-50% of the cost of the order and it can be very slow. Customer service can be spotty but for us the cost savings is worth it. A towel would cost two to three times as much if we used US distributors–all the gear is manufactured in asia in any case.

This parts list is optimized for price at tolerable quality and convenience. I will provide alternative links for higher quality/speed of delivery as well if there is demand.

Transmitter/Receiver

HK-T6A v2: A good news/bad news situation:

Good News: Our workhorse setup is the very good value for money HK-T6Av2 transmitter. It is an amazing transmitter for the money and is perfect for large groups since learning to deal with its foibles is better motivated.

Bad News: The transmitter is often out of stock, a real hassle to program which is a requirement to fly the towel and it burns through batteries very quickly. Occasionally, also, there is a dud.

You can get the
Hong Kong HK-T6A v2 for less than $25 but high shipping.
You can also get the HKT6A v2 from the US warehouse. Shipping is faster, cheaper but the transmitter is around $30. Which source will likely depend on which site has them in stock.

The transmitter requires programming cable that is only available from Hong Kong. Programming information here–read before you buy!

Alternative Transmitter/Receivers

I don’t recommend that the lone hobbiest take on the hassle of programming the HK T6A v2 unless they are very comfortable with computers and glitchy software. What to buy then?

You can easily drop more than $1000 on a radio but I don’t recommend that because those radios are very complicated to program. What you want is a simple radio to get you flying without frustration. The Towel is a flying wing that requires elevon mixing. This in turn requires that the transmitter have mixing capability or that there is a mixing capability on board the aircraft. The perfect choice, which I would buy lots of if spare receivers were available is the HK6DF from the Hobby King Hong Kong warehouse for $28.

Prop Saver

More expensive prop saver.

For almost the same price you can get 10 prop savers.

Servos

You will need two servos per towel. But they can break/strip so ordering a few spares is not a bad idea.

The standard HXT900.

As an alternative we have had good luck with TG9e

The propellor

Get at least 5 props per towel, they break all the time.

You can also get a 6 pack. Choose based on what is in stock.

Speed Control

The motor/prop/battery combo draws around 14 amps. So A solid 15-18 amp speed control is what you want.

Alternatively the 18-20 amp speed control from the US warehouse is a good choice.

Yet another option is the more expensive Turnigy speed control

Motor

The classic Tower Pro Outrunner. This motor is often back ordered. I am looking for alternatives.

Alternative Motor

We have used the earlier versions of these motor/speed controls back in the day and they were great. Get the 1400kv model. Note that they come with motor/speed control connectors installed!

Motor/Speed Control Connectors

The standard 3.5mm connector Enough for 3 planes with one spare connector–you need 3 male/female per plane.

Another version is 3.5 mm gold connectors.

Battery

You will want at least two batteries. 6-10 minutes flight time per battery.

1750 mAh

Alternatively a US warehouse 1800 mAh pack is an option.

Any of the LiPo packs with 2 cells in parallel (2S1P), a 10c rating (max discharge is 10 times the capacity of the pack), jst charge connectors, XT60 speed control connector should be fine in the 1500 to 2200 mAh range. The 1750′s are chosen because they are a good value and 7 minutes in the air is plenty of time.

Battery to Speed Controller Connector

Male battery connectors, enough for 5 speed controllers.

Charging Options

Cheap, runs off of household current, 1.5 hrs to charge

A decent looking multi-pack charger should be considered by groups building towels. You will need to get a separate 12-15 volt power supply or you can run it off of a car battery with a trickle charger.

There are tons of alternatives for charging. I have identified the easiest/cheapest solutions. Ping me if you need to know more.

Misc parts

You will aslo need

• 4mm/5mm heat shrink or electrical tape
• 30 small zip ties
• 2 wire coat hangers
• Credit card
• 1/4 inch coroplast 16 x 11 –suggest you look for an old sign etc.
• 1 sheet 1/4 inch DOW fan foldHigh Performance Underlayment (HPU) insulation with plastic bonded to both sides (Plastic/Plastic (P/P)). Alternatively a big sheet of cardboard, presentation board, be creative
• 8 inches sticky sided velcro tape (3/4 inch wide)

A few tools are required for a reasonably easy build. They include:

• Razor blade/razor knife
• Ruler
• Felt tipped pen
• Soldering iron
• Solder
• Needle nose pliers with wire cutter
• Soldering station helping hands
• Small philips head screw driver
• Drill with various small bits (1/8 inch, 1/16 inch)