56" Gentle Lady Evo - Major project creep

[zeo0nie1]

Looks great, looking forward to it.

My only concern is the trailing edge. I spontaneously imploded one of my first wings here during covering, so I'm extra sensitive to it. Maybe I'll add some carbon cap strips to reinforce it in lieu of the gussets that were in earlier designs.

 

[Wayne]

We will add some instructions for covering in the manual. Covering randomly on any wing can put lots of stress on things and you will end up with a badly warped potato chip.

 

[zeo0nie1]

It's an irrational fear at this point. I just need to get over it. I cut and fit gussets on every rib on my Mini Wanderer

 

[Wayne]

That is always an option. Jarron did that on his Gentle Lady, added little triangles. We can easily laser up a bunch and include them in the kit. It is a very thin trailing edge.

 

[zeo0nie1]

The hatch latch looks cool by the way. A week or two ago I was modeling the same thing and kinda hit a wall and haven't returned to it.

Edit: I'm personally going to try cap strips or tow just to see how it goes. No need to delay prod for triangles if it hasn't been an issue imho.

 

[Wayne]

We can sell just the latches if anyone would like some. The latch has gone through about 800 revisions, LOL. The newest is about a week ago and they are really nice now.

 

[Tmcfarland]

That is the Sapphire Blue Metallic. One of my favorite colors.

I like that color too. Not listed on the website as transparent but looks to be in the photos.

 

[Chris]

Those are 2 different planes. The Sapphire blue is NOT transparent.

 

[Tmcfarland]

Those are 2 different planes. The Sapphire blue is NOT transparent.

Thanks for the clarification

 

[Wayne]

We mixed the sapphire blue and the transparent blue depending on what we were covering.

 

[Tmcfarland]

We mixed the sapphire blue and the transparent blue depending on what we were covering.

This is the pic I was referring to. Is that transparent on top and sapphire blue on the bottom? Anyway its a nice look.

 

[Wayne]

The entire wing and tail are transparent. The bottom of the fuselage is Sapphire.

 

[bcarter123456]

Looking through the thread, did the trailing edge change between the prototype and and Alpha build 1 stage? The scallops looked nice under the transparent covering.

 

[Wayne]

Yes, we switched to a normal trailing edge to combat the curling when the film was shrunk. The AG airfoil is very thin at the trailing edge, so more of an issue with this.

There is the fine line of keeping the build complexity in check while maintaining good cosmetics and performance. In this situation performance won out over cosmetics.

 

[bcarter123456]

An excellent decision in this case. The glider looks great and I'm sure flies even better.

 

[Wayne]

LOL - It flies the same, but it more tolerant of covering errors.

 

[OldRCFlyer]

That is a very good looking airplane. When are you going to have this actually for sale??

 

[Wayne]

Sorry, I really thought we would have had it by now, but life always seems to get in the way. We have the first batch very nearly ready to sell, but now we are running into employee vacations, so looking like early next week.

 

[NKYEd]

Very nice! I might have missed it, but what is the ready to fly weight weight?

Starting to like the sub 250 gram class of planes. Quick to build and can fly them most anywhere. That and does not cost $3K LOL

Ed

 

[Wayne]

We are just a hair under 250 grams AUW. Even with a 2S800mah pack (larger battery) you will be under 250 grams using our Flying Film. Using a full weight film like Oracover or Monokote may tip the scales in the wrong direction, but even then I think it would still come in under 250.

Our goal was to around the 250 mark. I did my best guess on the size for the model to hit this mark knowing I wanted a plane people could enjoy without fear of a fragile airframe. She is light but robust.