Speed 400
Cloudster Project
This morning I glued
in the three 1/16" X 3/16" turbulator spars in the wing's right tip panel
and then spent most of the rest of the day working on finishing out the wing
tip. Filler blocks were cut from very soft 3/16" sheet balsa and glued in
place on top of the wing tip pieces. These were carved, trimmed, and sanded
to final shape as shown in the picture below.
This shows a close
up of the wing tip leading edge.
This shows a close up of the wing tip
trailing edge.
This
picture shows the bottom of the finished wing tip.
The
right half of the wing currently weighs 24 grams (0.85 oz) as shown below.
However, this will come down some because close to 40% of the 1/4" X 1/2"
leading edge will be removed when the leading edge is carved and sanded to
final shape. So the complete wing structure, including the flat center
section, should weigh no more than between 1.8 to 2.0 ounces.
The
fuselage including the tail assembly, push rods, two servos, landing gear,
motor with motor mount, and spinner weighs 175 grams (6.17 oz) as also shown
below. So including the estimated wing structural weight of 2 oz, the
current Cloudster weight is 8.17 oz, just barely over half the Speed 400
event minimum weight requirement of 16 oz. Wonder if this Cloudster can be
brought in at or near the minimum weight of 16 oz. Any comments?
Now,
next week the left half of the wing will have to be built. During this time,
there will be no Cloudster reports posted because they would be redundant.
The Cloudster reports will resume when construction on the wing's center
section begins and the two halves of wing are jointed to the center
section.........................Tandy