Sorry t1, it's there now!

Looks good Gene. I cut one out and stuck it all together in about an hour and a half. All I added was a couple inches of 1/8" carbon fiber tube to keep the rubber bands from crushing the leading and trailing edges of the wings.

All the plastic I removed from the foam weighed 11 grams, or about 3/8 oz.

Glue's drying, I'll get an airframe weight after I do the landing gear.

Thanks for the plan!

John

I used a little bit of tape on the LE and TE to protect the wing from the rubber bands. Forgot to document it....

Thanks for a great design, Gene. I flew my Gym-Blu yesterday in the gym at my church's recreation center.

I woke up this morning to a perfect day, 50 degrees and no wind. I live across the street from a large hayfield, part of the Ellington Agriculture Center here in Nashville. Here are some photos:

Looks good Ranger. I see you used the Pink FF, what weight did you wind up with?

Any corrections or mistakes on the plans?

Thanks!

According to my spring-balance kitchen scale, AUW is 7 ounces. I could have built it lighter, but I used what I had on hand, 1/4 dowel rod for the fuselage, 1/16 wire for the landing gear, foam wheels with plastic hubs from Hobby Lobby (my LHS).

I didn't cook the wings, so the first flight resulted in a very convincing ornithopter impersonation. I added a strip a blue masking tape from one wingtip under the fuselage to the other wingtip for a dihedral brace. I will replace this with Spiderline today.

Thanks for all you do to make Ezonemag a great resource.

Thanks. Yes, at 7oz, the wing will need some bracing. Soaking/steaming and bending a skewer to tape to the LE would work well. As you found it doesn't need much bracing.

I haven't been home but about 24 hours since my maiden (I'm out of town again, now), so haven't has a chance to see what the power and weight limits are

Thanks again.

G/bond ... I found an easy way to put dihedral in the Gym-Blu wing .... airfoiled it on the Bendfoam jig , placed the tips on two bricks and heated the center section with my heat gun (gently ) whilst' pressing down on the center with a pencil ...results nice sorta' elliptica dihedral ...easier than cutting and gluing and saves the weight of the glue joint ...

Sounds EXACTLY what I was thinking of. I basically did the same thing on my old BlyStik wings, but I added the bent brace to the LE as well to hold it. For this prototype, I used the sanded and glued dihedral joint... Probond takes forever in a cold garage! The next one will be done the way you describe... compund bending with a little heat for help!

Originally Posted by Gene Bond

... Probond takes forever in a cold garage!...

You're not kidding. 14 hours later, mine's STILL drying. I just moved it into the house so it should be dry in an hour.

Without landing gear, it weighs 44 grams, or about an ounce and a half.

A couple other things I observed/remembered when putting this one together:

Foam-safe CA doesn't melt Bluecor, but accellerator sure does!

Packing tape doesn't stick well to tempered foam. I used hinge material instead.

It's better to melt the dihedral in than to cut the wing in half and glue it back together.

jb:

Good tips.

Bob Smith Industries has some foam safe accellerator. It still isn't great, but doesn't melt the foam.

Might be good to lightly sand a tempered surface before taping? Funny how it repels tape after tempering.

Tyvek envelopes, overhead transparency film, and floppy disk media are all great hinges... cut into 1/4 x 1" strips.

Hot glue works well for the V-tail attatchment.

very neet little plane,down loaded plans.some video would be very cool.now off to look for some foam.

Here's a bummer!!! I bent the wing in my jig , put the dihedral in ,all with the skin on ....peeled the skin off, lost most of the airfoil and dihedral.... That was DUMB!!! Back to the jig with my peeled foam ....


Here's a trick !!! I use Scotch transparent tape for my hinges on most everything ....on peeled foam and dep, I've had good luck by swiping some canopy cement (pacer formula 560) on the foam first (lightly )where the hinges go, let it dry completely and then apply the tape and burnish it down (it IS pressure sensitive)with a rounded stick or something appropriate.... Not too many problems with tape coming off ....so far ...

Originally Posted by gpw

...I use Scotch transparent tape for my hinges on most everything ....on peeled foam and dep, I've had good luck by swiping some canopy cement (pacer formula 560) on the foam first (lightly )where the hinges go, let it dry completely and then apply the tape and burnish it down (it IS pressure sensitive)with a rounded stick or something appropriate.... Not too many problems with tape coming off ....so far ...

I used to do that too, but decided it was far too much work. I find it MUCH easier to cut a slot and glue in a scrap of hinge material.