1/72 flower class conversion to rc exploration vessel

[funky technician]

Figured I'd start a thread for my next build since my Bismarcks finished and awaiting sea trials lol. I recently bought the old matchbox version of the flower class corvette off ebay with the plan to turn it into an rc deep water exploration vessel. Im building an underwater nightvision camera thats lowered by winch down to as much as 50 feet below the ship to explore lakebeds or pond bottom. The video signal will be transmitted back to my fpv goggles. Other features it will have is led lighting, and a bow fpv camera to help guide it in up creek exploration. Unlike almost all my rc things, it will not contain any weapons of any kind (booo... ) Im looking forward to this build as it should be pretty straight forward from the looks of the kit, and ill post vids and pics as I go

[K494]

That underwater night vision camera sounds very interesting.

Scott

[funky technician]

Hears a few pics of the camera and winch that will be mounted to the stern, the 3 wires comming out are the cameras signal and voltage supply, which will hook to a fpv tx, progress has been kinda slow lately because im also building a fpv 6x6 crawler for woods exploration, so im super busy with that at the moment, but still picking away at this

[funky technician]

Bit more done, paint scheme on the hull finished, plus rudder stuffing box and drive shaft installed, its taking a long time to build this due to other projects takeing up my time

[funky technician]

forward deck just sitting in place, used some real wood vaneer left over from bismarck to fill in the deck, I also reinforced the cross members with plastic "I" beam because the stock cross braces are super flimsy

[funky technician]

A few pics of the camera crane, comming along slow n steady

[funky technician]

https://youtu.be/AWmx6ujUQAo

quick vid of the camera winch in action

[funky technician]

https://youtu.be/Z_Bi2-wWGxw

another vid of the camera winch with the camera powered up transmitting to the tv ( sorry about my shirtlessness in the back ground lol)

[Harquebus]

Very ambitious project here but I like how you're pushing the envelope as usual. On another board, a fellow had rigged up something similar but his was a towed depth finder I believe. This is all very similar to what navies around the world use to find enemy subs using a towed sonar array.

I suspect you will have to make your lure more hydrodynamic, add some fins so that it will track in a straight line instead of wallowing/waddling while underway and quite possibly add some down-angled dive planes so that it "dive deep" and stay down. You might enhance its towing behavior by altering the cable attachment point toward the front of the lure. Paint it another color or wildlife down below may find it appetizing!

[funky technician]

Thanks! yea im going to add fins and paint it up similar to the ships colours so it looks like a little rov, it looks so dumb with that stupid fish eye on the side of it, also the camera is upside down too, so ill have to flip it over, but its coming, I also want to add a spring loaded keeper on the cranes pulley so the cable can't jump off the pulley, and im thinking of having a little fish food launcher disguised as a depth charge too, to bait some critters into the area under the boat.

[NavyShooter]

Thanks! yea im going to add fins and paint it up similar to the ships colours so it looks like a little rov, it looks so dumb with that stupid fish eye on the side of it, also the camera is upside down too, so ill have to flip it over, but its coming, I also want to add a spring loaded keeper on the cranes pulley so the cable can't jump off the pulley, and im thinking of having a little fish food launcher disguised as a depth charge too, to bait some critters into the area under the boat.

http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/canada/systems/sonar/



You've almost matched the VDS (Variable Depth Sonar) Systems that we used to have in the Navy.

Neat!

[funky technician]

Sorry, but I kind of finished it during my sailing trip with the navy, I was going to document more but sorta picked away for 2 months and now shes ready for sea trials, I already tested the camera by lowering it down the well (pipe froze) and the image is amazing, ill post more pics of the inerds later n post em, plus some video hears some pics of it in its trailer towed by my 6x6

[funky technician]

[funky technician]

So quick description of the funtions, the search light are remote on/off, the double bulbed light in the tower rotates with the camera/gun turret in the front, and theres a camera facing aft by that aft search light viewing the spool, interior lighting illuminates with main power on, it has a bilge pump and a lead acid battery