WACO Beta

[hooverdm]

Folks, a long time ago (early 90's), I bought a Beta (I think this was the name) composite sailplane from Frank Weston's Aero Design (WACO). For a number of reasons, mostly Army career focused, I never got a chance to finish the construction of this sailplane until now. Does anyone remember this model, and does anyone have any tips on finishing and flying it? Appreciate your help.

Dave H
San Antonio, TX

[Phil Barnes]

I made the wings and tails for those models and maybe the fuselage too. There weren't very many made. It was about the last WACO kit produced before the company went away. The Beta was designed to be a very inexpensive model. The biggest piece of advice I would give is to not launch it very hard. The wing is not very strong, especially the joiner system. For any other advice, you'll need to ask some more specific questions.

[kablair]

Dave,
I remember when the Beta came out, but don't recall the specifics of how it went together.

I used to scratch build the WACO Magic's so - like Phil suggested - we can probably help with some specific questions.

Way back then, fiberglass skinned wings, V-tails, and a 100% kevlar fuse were the 'leading edge'. This made for a heavier plane than you may expect to see today. But, way back then, when I flew with CASA and the ESL, Frank Weston's designs were frequently in the top spots. They were good planes.

Assuming you have one of the Kevlar fuses, if you start sanding it, be prepared for some work. I used to make mine from scratch from Frank's instructions, and assuming the kits were built the same way, there is some finish work required.

In general, these were made on a male plug and have enough fabric that you don't have to worry too much about sanding it down. Once you get it shaped the way you want, it will be very fuzzy. Frank recommended spraying the fuzzed fuse with a coat of Krylon primer. Let dry, and sand. Repeat a couple of times and you'll have a nice surface for your finish coats. If you sand too much, just start over - you'll get the hang of it very quickly.

Typically the leading edges were only a single layer of kevlar tape over foam. You'll want to be less aggressive on this since there's less material. In fact, he used to recommend just a bit of sanding where the edge of the carriers left a ridge and then cover the LE with tape. It worked pretty well - doesn't look quite like one of today's moldies, but it worked.


-Keith