Hey yall, I'm still very green to this hobby, so a little story time first. When I was little my dad would fly his Gentle Lady and Drifter2 at the Lichao road location in the late 80s, maybe into the 90s. I'm local to Aloft and had been chatting with my dad about gliders and happened upon the Micro Gentle Lady, and locally! Of course I had to build one. I certainly wasn't without my own set of problems, but it's together and I'm waiting on some rubber to make a micro high start to take it out and get some altitude without hucking it off a hill quite yet.
Anyway, the focus here is on a full size Gentle Lady that the guys at Aloft generously gifted me while I was talking with them on my first visit picking up an order about what I wrote above and my history with a Gentle Lady as a kid.
It's a project, for sure. I was warned it might be cursed
. At first glance it needs a deep clean removing old film, all new film, control rods, hatch cover and receiver, at the minimum. It has servos but I don't know if theyre any good, I haven't tested them yet. Measuring some points, the verical stab was square with the front of the right horizontal stab but way over 90 degrees to the left side, yet sitting flat on a glass coffee table the left stab tip was about 25mm off the surface while the right was about half that. The whole rear end was twisted clockwise looking from the rear.
I decided it would be better to surgically remove the tail section, rebuild, recover and hope for the best. I got a flush cut hand saw and went to town carefully removing the vertical and horizontal stabilizer . The horizontal stabilizer sitting "flat" looks more like a Pringle than a wing...lol
I haven't inspected the main wing yet but next I'll be reusing some >40 year old plans that definitely have seen better days to recreate the horizontal stabilizer. I might get lucky and be able to keep the vertical stab in one piece
I added a picture of my micro Lady as well, I will be using the same color scheme here too. So far this is where I'm at, I've just separated the pieces.
Anyway, the focus here is on a full size Gentle Lady that the guys at Aloft generously gifted me while I was talking with them on my first visit picking up an order about what I wrote above and my history with a Gentle Lady as a kid.
It's a project, for sure. I was warned it might be cursed
. At first glance it needs a deep clean removing old film, all new film, control rods, hatch cover and receiver, at the minimum. It has servos but I don't know if theyre any good, I haven't tested them yet. Measuring some points, the verical stab was square with the front of the right horizontal stab but way over 90 degrees to the left side, yet sitting flat on a glass coffee table the left stab tip was about 25mm off the surface while the right was about half that. The whole rear end was twisted clockwise looking from the rear.I decided it would be better to surgically remove the tail section, rebuild, recover and hope for the best. I got a flush cut hand saw and went to town carefully removing the vertical and horizontal stabilizer . The horizontal stabilizer sitting "flat" looks more like a Pringle than a wing...lol
I haven't inspected the main wing yet but next I'll be reusing some >40 year old plans that definitely have seen better days to recreate the horizontal stabilizer. I might get lucky and be able to keep the vertical stab in one piece
I added a picture of my micro Lady as well, I will be using the same color scheme here too. So far this is where I'm at, I've just separated the pieces.
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I have a bulletin board underneath and used a section of flying film backing to keep the glue from sticking.
