This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its unique location you'll be able to go to the hyperlink bellow: https://hackaday.com/2026/04/18/electric-wind-up-plane-uses-supercapacitors-for-free-flight-fun/and if you wish to take away this text from our web site please contact us [ad_1] There’s one thing to be mentioned for a easy wind-up, free flight mannequin airplane. With no controls, it should be constructed very nicely to fly nicely, and with solely the restricted energy of a rubber band, it wants a superb, high-lift design with out a lot superfluous drag to maximise flight time. There’s additionally one thing to be mentioned for modernity although, and prolific hacker [Tom Stanton] places them along with this supercapacitor plane. If that sounds acquainted, it’s as a result of [Tom] did this earlier than again in 2023. But for that first try he transformed a business R/C toy somewhat than a aircraft optimized for low-power free flight. Just like with the very best rubber-band machines, his aim for the brand new manufacturing is extra flight time than winding time. Plus numerous views on YouTube, however that goes with out saying. Thus this machine is smaller and lighter than the earlier iteration. Rather than balsa and tissue just like the free-flight plane of our youths, [Tom] is utilizing 3D printed plastic for the construction. But he’s bought a neat hack inbuilt: he’s printing the wings and management surfaces straight onto tissue paper, eliminating the bonding step. Of course meaning his wings are printed flat, however a bit of warmth and a few bending and he has a single-surface airfoil. Single-surface airfoils are regular on this utility, anyway: closed wings add an excessive amount of weight for too little achieve. If you wish to attempt the method, he’s got files on Printables. Another fascinating factoid [Tom] found is that the power density of supercapacitors decreases sharply beneath 10 F. As you may think by the square-cubed regulation, larger is best, however the sharp drop-off dictated he use a single 10 F cap for this construct, together with a micro motor. Using the wind-up generator from his earlier construct, he’s capable of get 45 seconds of flight out of simply 4 seconds of cranking, a superb ratio certainly. [Tom] appears to love enjoying with other ways to energy his toys; other than supercapacitors, we’ve additionally seen him finessing plane air motors — together with an try at a turbine for a mannequin helicopter. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4X6KYlQ7YQ[/embed] [ad_2] This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its unique location you'll be able to go to the hyperlink bellow: https://hackaday.com/2026/04/18/electric-wind-up-plane-uses-supercapacitors-for-free-flight-fun/and if you wish to take away this text from our web site please contact us