Thanks Phil. I'll start covering this week and the list of things still to do is getting pretty short. One disappointment... I've been making a effort to keep it light; not doing anything to make it "pretty" that adds weight but doesn't improve performance. That is really hard for me to do. Something that you spend years building you want to look as nice as you can make it. I weighed all the pieces now that they are ready to cover
Rudder - 2.4
Elevator and horizontal stabilizer 8.6
Pod, boom, and vertical stabilizer - 54.8
Flapperons - 16
Left wing - 34
Right wing 36.4 (almost 2.5 difference??? The left wing I vacuum infused the spar which made it almost a pound lighter but that still leaves me with another 1.5 pounds I can't account for)
Total before covering and paint - 152.2 lbs
I'm already over the finished prototype weight of 145. It will be interesting to see how your composite build compares
I spent a couple weeks hang gliding in southern France several years ago. Really a beautiful area. I would love to go back.
Rick.
From: Phil <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
To: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Sent: Wednesday, August 8, 2012 10:30 AM
Subject: [Carbondragonbuildersandpilots] Re: New photos
Hi Rick,
The new photos look great - a real inspiration - our build is really taking shape!
I'm just back from two weeks of sailplane training in Sisteron and Serres airfields in the south of France. Logged over 20+ hours at the controlls and am heading back at the end of August for another two weeks to capitalise on that training. The first week in Sisteron was all winch based (dead easy!) launches to 500m and the second week in Serres (Quo Vadis aeroclub) was all tow based. I need to perfect my tow launch skills and rough-air approaches and landings, but other than that, I'm really happy up there!
The training really gave me a burst of enthusiasm to finish my build and start flying it - I'm working on the rib moulds for the flaperon, tail/rudder, H-stab/elevator and main wing nose ribs. Pictures shortly...
Sniffing around all the hangers at Sisteron gave me some good ideas to consider for splitting/joining the wings and other things. Lots of ideas and sketches to develop over the next few weeks... and I still need to finish calculating the numbers for a 3-part wing. I'm also interested in looking at ways of making the tail.rudder assembly removable from the tail boom. Ideas... ideas... ideas..!
Keep up the great work, and keep those photos coming!
Phil.
