2/11/2026 - starting with CAD

CAD

i started with the rough shape then went into detail i designed the internal structure of the wing, the fuselage and winglets. i then made the elevon ( mix of aileron and elevator )

tomorrow goals

• ill make designated servo spots on the wings
• add motor and design motor mount well thats it for today see you !

pics

2/12/2026 - update

the old aircraft shape is too complex for me im going to change it for something easier to fly and cheaper to print since then i arrived to this design ( btw did i say its going to be vtol!)

what i did

• i designed the fuselage
• the wing and its internal structure
• vtol motor support
• aileron mechanism

tomorrow objectif

• design the empenage (tail section)
• shell the fuselage
• work on the interior fuselage
• choose if its going to be a tractor config or a pusher

PICS

2/13/2026 12 PM - 80% CAD finished

here is what i did

• tail section is now finished
• added servo well and horn in ailerons and in the v tail
• added two canopy for easy component access
• a fpv slot where u screw in a fpv camera ( with +-5deg)
• also extruded servo wire hole in the wing to pass them thru the wing
• added an air vent to cool the inside also pass the motor wire thru them

to-do

• add esc wire holes in the wing
• internal structure for placing ( flight controller / battery / esc )
• gps placement
• model each electric component in place

pics

thanks for ur time

2/13/2026 11 PM - finishing touches

added the flight controller and battery structure

cut the esc holes in the wings both placement and wire

hole where the all the external wire go into the fuselage straight into the flight controller and battery

esc hiding spot :8

found gps (gnss) place yay :-)

optimized weight and sleekness hehe

to do

• set up a github for this project
• make a Bom ( bill of Material )
• optimize design and find errors

2/15/2026 4 PM - github

finished setting up the repo :

• made a beautiful readme.md
• added a BOM.csv
• custom logo
• gave the project a name yay!
• cool render and images added the cad folder where the full assembly is and electronics added the firmware that i am going to use (inav) finally making sure that my repo look beautiful ") i will try to run some simulation to see how much lift does it product and let you guys see those beautiful colors

2/15/2026 11 PM - Simulation

well i simulated my aircraft in SimScale and here is the results:

everything is looking good the leading edges are red since they are head-on
i got 0.53 lift coefficient Cl thats impressive knowing the airfoil

drag of the motor support and the Carbon Fiber Tube

sleek fuselage with minimal drag

btw I'm still new to simulation and actively learning.

2/16/2026 5 PM - prepared the fuselage for 3d printing

i cut the fuselage to fit the 3d printer i will add later connector to make assembly later easy also here is the specs i got from bambulab with 0% infill and 3 walls

614g is okay since we are using pla and not LW-pla i believe we can make the aircraft lighter than the estimated weight by 200 to 600g

2/16/2026 10 PM - Assembly instruction

i made the assembly instruction for my 3d printed uav its very easy as simple as playing with lego, i believe that anyone can make this plane on his own anyways wiring/electrical instruction is coming soon also a discord server for this specific plane is going to be created !!

stay tuned ಥ_ಥ

2/17/2026 - discord server

i just made a discord server for this specific plane where people can request help assembling their Dolphin rc plane and also chill and socialize since i know little about making discord server it took me a while to set it up, here is the link for the interested : https://discord.gg/rtFu4ADm9m

2/18/2026 - more optimization

i made the fuselage more aerodynamic this come with augmented flight time and efficient flight furthermore i added a usb-c port hole in the nose section for easy plug

after doing some static testing i made the carbon fiber tube support studier to hopefully remove vibration

Sketched the esc placement for the best cooling configuration

fillet on the vertical stab

2/26/2026 - other alternatives ?

After someone suggested I use PCBWay’s printing service, I uploaded all the files and checked the total cost. It turned out to be way more expensive than I expected and that’s without even including shipping. So at this point, I don’t really have a choice but to look for a local 3D printing service since it’s much more affordable (-:

2/27/2026 - Revision

More in-depth calculation and some more optimization like the fpv fairing to reduce drag and maximize efficiency Also the new calculation is now available on the github repo go check it out !
furthermore after i posted my aircraft in a specialized 3d printing plane reddit i had so much valuable feedback. They suggested that I need to increase the size of the V-tail to maintain adequate tail authority I also reduced the size of the vertical fin to prevent it from interfering with the flight controller during VTOL descents and to avoid the hopping issue.

here is the up to date version of the Dolphin-SH

3/4/2026 - added wire diagram in github

i made this diagram for the flightcontroller and its avionics ( gps , fpv camera , vtx , buzzer , receiver and servos ) i tried really hard to make it easy for people who want to recreate this wonderful plane ! (●'◡'●)