CQ-10 Snowgoose

**sreinmann** · #1 01-12-2022, 03:51 PM

Its crazy, but I started designing the CQ-10 in the winder of 2020. I had it 90% complete and then shelved it because shinier things distracted my attention. Then I lost the latest version of the file and had to spend the last 2 weeks in prototyping to once again figure out all of the trimming. But I'm going to get this done by golly.

I have a model project to produce US military UAV models in 1:48th scale. in plastic kits I've built the RQ-1 and MQ-1, RQ-4, RQ-7, MQ-8B & C, and in paper I've built the RQ-170 and X-37B.

In my research I came across a strange little UAV paraglider called the CQ-10 Snowgoose. Its made by a Canadian firm called MMIST and they were kind enough to reply to my messages - a bit - and gave permission to design a kit. As usual there's considerable concern about sharing dimensions, but I gathered enough from them to get started. Then I found resources in MarchField and the Pima air museums. They had purchased examples for display and gave me LOTS of good reference photos (and a few critical dimensions to work from.

I started by laying out the kit in Blender, but resolved to only use it to work out a few of the critical basic shapes. I worked out the rest in MS Publisher (I know bizarre design tool) and I hope to post it here and share copies to MMIST and the museums. There are two versions of the craft, although USSOCOM only used the A - paraglider model. The other model was built as a gyrocopter and I would have loved to present it too, but MMIST was unable to share rotor dimensions and I didn't feel comfortable guessing.

Here's a playlist of the craft in test deployments. And a few pics to show you where I'm going.
CQ-10 - YouTube

**sreinmann** · #2 01-12-2022, 04:15 PM

The build starts with the assembly of the main structural fuselage. This houses the 6 removable containers. What are the container's for? Fuel, supplies, medical equipment. In combat, the army air-dropped fliers over towns and outposts in Iraq/Afghanistan as part of PSYOPS. The bottom's of the containers are hinged to allow this action.

**Knife** · #3 01-12-2022, 07:36 PM

Interesting choice of aircraft to design. I've seen the one at March AFB museum, don't remember seeing the one over at Pima County museum. Looks like you are off to a good start, looking forward to following your thread. Are you going to make the parasail, too?

**yukonjohn** · #4 01-12-2022, 09:40 PM

Very interesting find for a paper model. Will have to send my grandsons in Stittsville over for a visit

.

John

**sreinmann** · #5 01-13-2022, 08:19 AM

Pima had their example undergoing preparation in one of their shops back in 2020. I've no idea if they've made got it to the deck Knife.

I was looking at designing a parasail based on the model created by Canon. But honestly, I got stuck trying to think of how to rig it. If you've any suggestions, I'm open to ideas. I've included a "bag" basically a truncated frustum of the "stowed" chute with the kit.

**sreinmann** · #6 01-15-2022, 07:31 PM

Now we come to the bow and engine bays. Here's where I had the most guess work into the design. I was able to get the exact dimensions of the canisters, and used that to build the rest of the aircraft based on assumptions of clearance. But I didn't have anything for the overall height and width. I made some assumptions based on field photos and built the whole model in Blender playing with scaling until I had it as close as possible. Flattening and was a utter failure though and while I had the rounded corners - I felt - drawn well, I couldn't create a flattened part that came together in paper. Finally, I abandoned the rounded corners and drew the parts based on those measurements, and prototype, prototype, prototype.

**sreinmann** · #7 01-15-2022, 07:38 PM

From the photos of the top of the model you might note a step in the position of the flight deck (or roof or ventral side) and the bow section. I waffle a bit about "fixing" this. And I would value your opinions.

The actual craft does have a step that some of the units had blended in with some funky angled connections that insert into the bow's upper half. So I kept it as it. Though might use a strip of card to simulate this connection, or putty. To me, its noticeable. And I imagine modeler's might be put off and assume that it should be a smooth joint and I gave up rather than design it well.

So, the age old designers question; Should I design it as it should be, or as it should look?

**sreinmann** · #8 01-15-2022, 07:41 PM

Moving on, we add in the lower craft support frame for the container bays. This is strips of card, butt glued to each other. Hopefully the rivet detail shows in the photos. A better printer might help too.

Then we add the engine exhaust and intake vents in the aft section as well as adding the afore mentioned flight deck to the top of the container bay, sandwiched between the bow and aft engine sections.

**sreinmann** · #9 01-20-2022, 10:09 AM

Let's see, where did I leave off ...

Landing rails. I admit I was designing blind here never having built a paper scale helicopter before, and this part is what shelved the project for over a year. I suggest in my model instruction that this is largely up to the modeler, I provide a rectangle to the dimensions and suggest that it could be build as a laminated sandwich to 1.5mm in diameter, or plasticard tubing, or in my case, an unrolled popsicle stick. Maybe you all have a better suggestion, and I'd be open to that, but here goes.

I also included directions for the creation of a template that for me, has become standard practice (after also completing the MQ-8B/C). This helps enormously in getting the angle's and alignment just about perfect.

Another struggle though comes in creating the skid's leading tip to be angled up at 45 deg. I don't know how better to represent this at 1:48 scale. I just turned the part over a rod until it had the right shape, then puttied where it was crushed and painted over. :shrug:

**sreinmann** · #10 01-20-2022, 10:18 AM

Next comes the shock absorbers for the landing skids. These parts also actuate the skids into their "splayed" take off configuration. In the parts file, I have a flat rectangle to represent these parts. For this build I used insulated wire tubing and piano wire.

While the pics just show it glued on, some triangle brackets could be used to get the kit closer to the actual UAV. I also noted that the support frame is about 2mm too short at the front. This will be changed in my final parts file.

After that are some optional parts on the underside and the propeller and containers.