Building my 2M Spirit

[Aegean]

Hey!
I'm building my 2M Spirit to start out flying on. I've got the tail built. It came out a little shorter than shown on the plans :rolleyes: It should be alright... I'm about to start on the wings shortly. Hopefully things will cool off this week! I've read that the wings need strengthened, the outer wing LE needs sheeted to help prevent tip stalling, and CG needs moved a little. Is this true?

Thanks!

Josh

[Ollie]

Just follow the instructions! The refinements will come later. You won't be able to take advantage of modifications until after your piloting and adjusting skills develop. The stock plane is intended for beginners. Don't soup it up till you are well past the beginner stage. It is most important that you get experienced flight instruction! This will save you many hours of repairs and disappointment.

[Aegean]

Yeah I know it's a beginner's plane. Building the tail kinda sucked... the wings are proving to be more simple to build...

Oh and Great Planes just kinda decided to not include the outer trailing edge tapered pieces and the hinges... very annoying. I had to go get more balsa and luckily I had a couple packs of nylon hinges laying around. They normally don't leave stuff out of kits riight?

Josh

[Miami Mike]

Be sure to check out FlyingPig's Spirit spoiler system (http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=87511). I watched it working at the field yesterday and it's very impressive. He has some other good mods as well.

Here's a post from me (http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=929711#post929711) about how I moved the servos forward to reduce the dead nose weight necessary to get the CG right.

[Vince inTX.]

Aegean.

I dont know what to tell you about the trailing edge stock that was left out of your kit except to call Great Planes, They will send you what ever was left out of your kit at no cost to you. As far as the hinges are concerned....I beleive you may have over looked them. They are not the conventional nylon hinges that you may be aquainted with. Your hinges will be a 2"x2" sheet of white fuzzy plastic. Great Planes ships CA hinges with the spirit. You need only cut the sheet into strips and use those strips as hinges. I thought the same thing when I got my spirit elite kit. "Where the H@*# are the hinges."

Good luck

Vince

Next stop........cloud base!

[glider34]

Vince,

Read the following article. Some very relevant points on the shortcomings of the design you are building. Most importantly would be rudder size and sheeting the wing in my opinion.

http://www.charlesriverrc.org/articles/kitmods/dickwilliamson_gpspiritmods.htm

I enjoyed the article and built the following,,....

I've attached a photo of my highly modified scratch built lightweigh silk covered Spirit which has a total weight of 16 OZ.. with ballast. I am an indoor FF modeler who has obtained some good wood over the years. I used carbon and Kevlar in the contruction. 2 HS-81's and a 555 RX. Thermals like you would not believe! Terrible in wind.


glider34

[chuckh1197]

before you winch launch you need to make a better wing joiner.My first winch launch bent the al/balsa/al joiner about 2 degrees. had a solid al wing joiner made works well. About 8-9 degree .30 thick However I nose dived it in from about 15 ' and the al bent forward about 2degrees. Just pounded it straight and it is ok now.

[Aegean]

Hey guys!
I'm about to install the spoiler system... I've sheeted the outer wing tips already. I had to take a break for the past few days... having female parental issues... :-( I'll work on it as soon as I'm calmed down some. Anger and balsa don't mix... Hopefully tomarrow I'll finish the wings up.


From Tomarrow: I started working on it again! Thanks for the hope Flying Pig ;-) I looked at your spoiler system btw ;-) very nice. I'm on the spoilers now... they seem kinda... flimsy...
Thanks!

Josh