There's been a bit of a delay since my last post here. I got distracted by a new F3B plane build.

Below are some pics of the cores. Cut with 60psi "RTM" foam. The pics give some ideas as to how this plane will look. As you can see it will have a fairly high aspect ratio for a DSer, and the wings also have quite a lot of taper.

The pics of the tail also shed some light...

A few more words on the design... my hope is that this design will get my PB up into the 250 region. My goal has been to design a plane that will go fast for the windspeed on the sites I have access to, and be very stable while doing so. Realistically this means speeds around the 250mph mark with a suitable plane on a good day. I won't be taking any chances with strength - it wil have a massive spar, heavy carbon layup and the boom and tail will be as stiff as I can get them, although I want to put most of the weight into the wing rather than the fuse to reduce bending loads on the wing. The design has been influenced by what I am comfortable building. I also want to try a few unique ideas on this design, to keep things interesting.

One unique feature (for a DS plane) will be the tail assembly. It uses the Drela style cross tail, familiar to anyone who flies DLGs. This configuration reduces torsion loads on the boom and allows a relatively high-aspect ratio fin (for stability).

The high aspect ratio wing is intended to increase efficiency while turning, something a DS plane is doing pretty much all the time. To make up for the relatively narrow chord the aerofoil is quite thick - around 10.5%, and the high taper is to increase root chord and thickness among other things. The aerofoil is my own concoction - it's based on some other well-known aerofoils. I was after something that came close to the JM26 but with a greater emphasis on the 200-300mph speed range.

To the pics...