2m Alcyone

[ejett]

I picked up an Alcyone kit a while back on eBay. Recently I have gotten interested in the building of it and have spent a while on reviewing the plans and instructions.

The kit has some carbon fiber strips that, as far as I can tell, are included for reinforcing the wing. There is an odd number of the strips in the kit (15). They are 24-1/2" long and about 1/4" wide and very thin. Photo is attached. Neither the plans nor the instruction booklet mentions this material. I am making the assumption that the CF goes between the wing sheeting and the cores more or less in the location of the balsa spar.

If anyone has built one of these and can give me any advice regarding the proper use of this material for the plane, I would appreciate your input.

Also I would appreciate any additional tips, hints, tricks for building this plane.

I built a Dove several years ago that is a similar design, but it had spruce spars and spar slots in the wing and no carbon. A great flyer that succombed to trying to fly it with the wrong program selected. Killed in a high start launch.

Ed Jett

[Tony D.]

Hi ejett,

I built an Alcyone for a friend a few years ago, it is a very sweet flyer, but you need to keep it light. It will really suffer with too much weight.

The carbon goes between the spar and the balsa sheeting, you want to cut the carbon so that you have twice as much on top of the spar as on the bottom of the spar.

So if the tow is 6" cut it into two X 2" and two X 1" strips and put the wider strip on the top.

I assume that your kit is of the geodetic fuselage type? Make sure your joints in the boom are as perfect as you can make them as this was a failure point in a hard landing.

In the kit that I built the stab was supplied with 1/16" balsa sheeting but I subbed 1/32" with no problem and saved a few grams.

The wing in the kit I built included some 3oz. glass for reinforcing the ailerons but IMO this is heavier than needed and you can easily get away with 1.4oz.

Are you going with the stock radio setup using the pushrods for the ailerons or are you going to use seperate aileron servos? The stock setup is finiky but it is lighter than seperate servos.

When you install the pull-pull on the rudder and stab you can substitube plastic tubing for the metal tubing supplied and save some nose weight. The rocker supplied with the stab is plywood and it is a good idea to soak the holes for the pull-pull with some CA to toughen them up.

When you sand the tip panels for joining to the main wing panels be careful of the angle you sand in, there is not really any room for error on them.

If you build the Alcyone per the plan you will easily be able to handlaunch it to spec out, it will also take a hefty winch launch and is a thermal machine.

Anything else I can help you with let me know.


T.D.

[Ollie]

Cut the carbon lengthwise into three rectangular strips. Then cut each of the three strips diagonally into long thin triangles. This gives you six long thin triangles, three for each wing half. As Tony D. says, use two strips (2 plies), one on top of the other, on the top of the core and one strip on the bottom, under the balsa skins. The gores of carbon should be placed so that they fall over the thickest part of the core. The reason you should use triangular strips instead of rectangular strips is that it puts the most carbon where the bending stress is greatest, at the root end of the wing. The reason you put it over the thickest part of the core is that the farther apart the top and bottom carbon, the stronger and stiffer the wing. The reason you use more on the top than on the bottom is that fiberous materials like wood and carbon are not as strong in compression as in tension. During positive G maneuvers like launching and pulling out from a dive, the greatest bending loads on the wing are generated and they put the top skin over the core under the greatest compression force. Using triangular strips instead of rectangular strips will just about double the bending strength of the wing.

[ejett]

Tony D. & Ollie:

Thanks for the info guys. It is just what I needed.

Regards and Good Lift!

EJ

[rezeda]

just a shy question. When you finished your Aquila, could you make a copy of the plans? I bought an Aquila 2m, from a guy who did not know, than a box contained a plan for the 3m plane. Now I have the kit and the instructions, but no plan. Either I can go by gessing, or scratch build a 3m. Not really the way I like to build.
Your help would be greatly appretiated

[rezeda]

"My bad" Alcyone 2m, not Aquila. I am confused. I have tha Aquila New In Box, with the plan and everything, it is the ALCYONE 2M, what makes me scretching my head. Thank you all.