SOURCE-MAPPED CONFIGURATION
NTNU Skywalker X8, May 2023 system-identification configuration: a tailless
swept flying wing with two blended tip fins, one rear electric pusher, and
mirrored elevons mixed collectively for pitch and differentially for roll.
The equivalent trapezoid is source-bounded and reproduces the public
b=2.10 m, Sref=0.75 m^2, and MAC=0.36 m exactly. Its 25 deg leading-edge
sweep carries the input pack's +/-5 deg allowance. The NACA 0012 section and
+2/-2 deg twist are explicitly disclosed geometric surrogates because the
molded production airfoil and twist are not known. The test-configuration
2.10 m span is used rather than the separately noted 2.12 m catalog span.
SOURCE DATA RETAINED HERE BECAUSE VEHICLESPEC HAS NO DEDICATED FIELDS
Fuselage source note: 0.790 m is the manufacturer length; the 0.180 m width,
0.170 m height, and loft are bounded installation-drawing estimates.
Tip-fin dimensions are source-bounded equivalents fitted to the visible
blended fins. The measured campaign trim alpha was 8.0 deg; horizontal wind
was 9.0 m/s and inferred vertical wind was 2.8 m/s. Those values document
the operating condition and are not aerodynamic coefficients.
Electric hardware: Hacker A40-12 S V2 14-pole KV610 motor, Jeti SPIN Pro 66
controller, Aeronaut CAM folding 14x8 propeller, 16.0 V nominal supply,
back-EMF constant 0.0157 V/(rad/s), motor resistance 0.017 ohm, propeller
diameter 0.3556 m, and propeller inertia 0.000346 kg m^2. Published
nondimensional propeller polynomials are CT(J) = 0.1400 - 0.0300 J -
0.2370 J^2 + 0.0847 J^3 and CQ(J) = 0.0082 + 0.0112 J - 0.0211 J^2.
The seven schema deck points retain every supplied thrust value; airspeed
was converted to Mach with ISA sea-level a=340.293988026089 m/s because the
supplied deck derivation uses rho=1.225 kg/m^3. Electric fuel flow is zero.
The measured 3.364 kg flight mass includes battery and installed propulsion.
With no separately declared payload or liquid fuel, it is represented as a
measured operating-empty mass at the public xCG=0.435 m nose station. That
nominal station is the midpoint of the source-noted 0.430-0.440 m CG range.
The full measured inertia tensor, including Ixz=0.029 kg m^2, is retained in
flight_dynamics. Elodin's diagonal-only boundary is explicitly allowed, but
the source tensor itself is not diagonalized here.
DECLARED CALIBRATION
flight_dynamics.calibration_id is ntnu-x8-low-re-elevon-v1, selected only by
the identifier supplied in the design-time pack. No implementation or fitted
factor is copied into this design. The pack declares that identifier frozen
from 13 publisher-designated training maneuvers for four scalar low-Re
collective/differential elevon-effectiveness and pitch/roll-damping
corrections; four publisher-designated validation maneuvers remain untouched.
ENGINEERING ASSUMPTIONS (NOT SOURCE CLAIMS)
Zero wing dihedral and the reference z stations define the schema coordinate
system. Parametric fuselage fineness, payload-bay dimensions, inactive tank
station, pusher packaging envelope/mass/location, and tip-fin attachment
coordinates are conservative conceptual placeholders. The assumed fin root
has its trailing edge at the 0.790 m body station and lies near the local
swept-wing leading edge. The measured all-up mass override prevents assumed
component bookkeeping from changing flight mass.
No battery capacity or electric endurance was supplied, so endurance is
explicitly not claimed; endurance_s=1 is only the schema-required positive
placeholder. Level-flight cruise CL is derived from measured mass, Sref,
18 m/s, and ISA density at 175 m. Stall, load-factor, static-margin, drag,
structural-material, and solver values are conservative generic conceptual
assumptions, not NTNU measurements or validation outcomes.
INPUT-PACK SOURCES
Løw-Hansen et al. (2025), doi:10.1007/s13272-025-00816-3; NTNU Dataverse
dataset doi:10.18710/U4TLYV; Gryte et al. (2018),
doi:10.1109/ICUAS.2018.8453370; Reinhardt et al. (2022),
doi:10.1109/ICUAS54217.2022.9836104; Skywalker manufacturer installation
material.