Sunday, April 19, 2009

Colin's pilot looking shell-shocked after an unfortunate mid-air event

Friday, April 17, 2009

Wing bagging final




Well with only a week to go before these wings take to the air , I can post the final steps in the completion of these foam cored , vacumn bagged wings.
The finishing and fitting out is very time consuming but worth getting right.



The exposed foam on the wing and control surface is sanded into a concave shape (Dremel sanding attachment) in the case of the wing a small groove it routed out to allow the aileron servo wiring to be run in . This wiring (heavy duty twisted) is then sealed with a thin strip of masking tape. I also fit a piece of ply into the control surface where the control horn bolts through.
I now make up a mix of epoxy and flox with a little cabosil and paint this into the hollow. Once cured it bonds the skins together and makes a hard surface for the silicon hindging.





In this photo the silicon bead is run in and scraped flat across the gap with a shaped stick, I use a blue sellotape masking tape that releases and does not leave a sticky residue on the painted surfaces.




In this photo the ailerons are shown top hindged and the flap bottom hindged and secured in position until the silicon cures.



The next job was to cut the servo bays , this was marked up and a little cut at a time as I did not wish to cut the carbon spars, fortunately all my measurements were spot on and the servo fits just before the carbon spars and shearweb, more luck than skill.
Hardwood blocks and screws hold the servo's in place,

So in just over 30 days this glider has been completed, currently I am setting up the flight modes and programming and will certainly post some pictures of its first flights at the Sungazer Slope event next weekend.
Cheers
Mike

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Ken's Fox. He's getting it ready for the Sungazer Scale Weekend at Volksrust


I wonder what the pilots think of it.