Here shows my own design, the Aurora, or 极光. It's an incredibly cool FPV cruiser that offers high speed and agility.

The design of Aurora is inspired by the IJN J7W Shinden and XP-55, with the addition of modern aircraft elements.

Including full-span canard, strakes (although they serve mostly as decorative elements), and winglets.

It comes with a servo gimbal (included in this model, remix from FLY_101) and cooling system for the DJI O3. So great if you wish to use a headtracker on it.

The flying speed is fast, with a cruising speed of 70kph (20m/s), and it can easily reach 100-130kph, pulling 3-4g maneuvers. A large area is required for flying, and it is completely unsuitable for park flying. When the flying speed exceeds 100kph, noticeable vibrations occur in the gimbal, severely affecting the flying experience, necessitating targeted optimization in the design.

Here are some basic details:

• Wing Span: 1030mm
• Weight (4s 18650, no gimbal & FPV system): ~1000g
• Weight (with 4s18650 battery, with gimbal & FPV system): 1170g
• Estimated endurance time: 30-45 minutes (theoretically, still testing)
• Cruising speed: 20m/s-30m/s, 70km/h to 110km/h

Tested avionics:

• Flight Controller: SpeedBee F405 Wing with BZ182 GPS.
• ESC: Any 30A ESC is OK
• FPV system: DJI O3
• Servo: Kingmax KM0940MD*4 (for flight control), and GDW DS014MG*2, 280deg/180deg (for servo gimbal)
• Motor: SunnySky X2216 KV1400
• Propeller: APC/Gemfan 8*6-9*6, this may push you to 100kph or faster.
• Battery: Sony VTC6 18650 4s1p

Extra components:

• Carbon fiber pole:
  • 2*6x4x550
  • 1*6x4x585
  • 1*6x4x935
  • 3*3x250
  • 1*3x150

Four 6mm (diameter) x3mm (height) magnets for battery and flight controller canopy.

The core design concept of Aurora includes:

• Appealing aesthetics
• Decent endurance time
• Relatively high speed.

Printing

Suggest print material:

Fusrock/Bambu PLA Aero.

I use Bambu PLA-Aero white for Wing, and FuskRock Gray PLA Aero for Fuselage. Use PLA-Aero from two manufacturer just because colors.

BE CAREFUL GO SETUP CORRECT PRINTING SETTINGS FOR FILAMENTS!

Default setting is for PLA-Aero, change it according to your own filaments. Strongly suggest print Aurora with PLA-Aero.

3D printer

Tested on Bambu Lab X1CC, suggest Bambu Machines with size=256mm

Print profiles:

Fuselage, wings and extra component are placed in different print profiles. They have different slice settings.

Flying Video:

(Click to watch if you see video unavailable)

对于中文用户，可以观看bilibili和简介中的介绍:

Gimbal system of Aurora is remix from https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6193480 by FLY_101.

You may also use this gimbal on Aurora

Center of Gravity

Flight with current CG setup (the CG icon) is too stable. You may try the following CG at read line, this is optimal CG point according to my latest CFD results and flight test.

Donation to help me!

Testing and releasing these model aircraft designs is neither easy nor cheap. It requires a significant investment of time and effort. The development cost of this airplane exceeds $1500, and that's not even taking into account my time. If you find my designs practical and useful, please consider making a donation to support my work. Your contributions will greatly assist me in continuing to develop these model aircraft, feel free to buy me a coffee by clicking follow button.

测试和发布航模并不便宜，这架飞机的开发成本超过万元，并且会花费非常多的时间和精力，如果你觉得我的设计非常实用，请捐款支持我，这将对我能够继续开发航模产生很大的帮助：

Build Logs

Build logs (in Chinese) for Aurora is available on my notion site, this contains every detail you may want to know about Aurora.

Update since upload

2023/12/21: Update to integrated vertical tail and rudder: do not need manually install hinge. I put the old design of vertial tail in supported files.

2023/12/23: Missing fuselage part is added to fuselage.3MF. Servo gimbal is also added to extras.3MF with original author's approval.

Some details

More details will be adding later.