Well done Rick! I saw the load-test photos you uploaded the other day and was amazed to see the deformation in the leading edge skin under full load!
I haven't investigated the details of how to do a load test yet - how did you go about it? Do you simply take your 5g max load and spread it out evenly along the wings or do you calculate the loading at each rib and have the weight reduce accordingly along the wing? Any details would be very welcome.
I'm just back from the south of France, where I spent two weeks (Jul/Aug) followed by a second two weeks (Aug/Sept) learning to fly gliders at Sisteron Aero Club. The weather wasn't so good on the second trip, but I still managed to log nearly 40 hours flying. On the last day I got to go solo for the first time... followed by a really nice three hour solo straight after! I'm really stoked after that!!
Some kind soul videoed my first solo launch -
vimeo.com/49306747
I'm back home again and about to get my teeth into my CD project with renewed enthusiasm!
All the best,
Phil.
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Sent: 18 September 2012 00:15
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Subject: [Carbondragonbuildersandpilots] Load test
I finally got my load test out of the way. I had several people tell me they thought it was an unnecessary stressing of the wings, but a lot of these construction techniques were new to me as well as working with composites, and my wing was not constructed exactly like any other CDs that I was aware of. I wouldn't have felt at ease flying it without a test. My plan was to test it to 5 Gs but when calculating the necessary weight I forgot to subtract the weight of the wings so I loaded about 400 pounds more than I needed to. The test went well with really no noises other than occasional "bonks" as the leading edge oil-canned as the wings bowed down. At least until we got a crap-the pants "bang" toward the end. After several anxious minutes we found a screw had sheared off a diagonal brace on our test stand. Everything returned to normal after the load was removed and if I ever built another I wouldn't do the test. I uploaded a couple pictures to my photo section.
