I finally had my first crash with the Litestick, I somehow got her into a tight spin only 20 ft off the ground & put her in nose first. I was amazed to see that there was not much damage except that the chopsticks pulled out of the wing mounts, I justed popped them back in & back in the air!
A friend of mine suggested that I glue the chopsticks into the wing mounts. I kinda think that having these be in a "Break-away" setup is better, would the glued in chopsticks just break off? How do you have yours?

I use the chopstix but I also made a kingpost from a popsicle stick and rig the upper and lower ends of the kingpost (glued to fuselage) to the wing with monofilament. Makes for little wing flexing and no damage on crashes (lots of trees in my yard).

Pat

I would recommend not gluing them in. Letting them fall off in crashes in an outlet for energy. If they do not have moveability, then the energy will go toward breaking, folding, or otherwise damaging the wings.

This is just my opinion, but it works well for me.

Not gluing the chopsticks in the wing mounts is the equivalent of rubber banding the wing to the fuse. As Cook points out, the whole purpose of loosely attached components is to dissipate energy in a crash. Now, if they start coming loose in the air, that's a whole different situation!

Listen to the warnings and DON'T glue the wings into the mounts!
Allowing them to come off during a mishap will save you lots of other grief!

If they just fall out, rub a little glue on them so you have to pull them out.

Rather than "permanently" attaching the wings, which will only cause more extensive damage in future crashes, there are other options in addition to Fred's suggestion to make the chopsticks fit more firmly in the mounts. You could use a little rubber-type cement, which remains flexible and will pull apart in an impact. Or you could use a couple of small pieces of tape. Thousands of R/C flyers over the years have proved conclusively that not allowing the wing to pop off in a severe impact will result in more damage to the aircraft.

For sure do not glue the wings on ......use plain old 1/2" wide scotch tape and tape the wings to one another front and back and they will not come loose except on hard impact and that is when you DO want them to come loose. if you use the tape You can also ditch the string for dihedral believe me it works, just balance the plane on the wings (between two chairs about half way out on the wings) with the battery mounted then tape the wing....you now have well mounted wings with dihedral and no string.

lynn

[This message has been edited by Rekit (edited 07-23-2001).]

Dave's last comment is what happened to me. The right wing came loose in flight, and I can tell you that a LiteStick doesn't fly well on one wing!! I'm just finishing up repairs, and planning on 'permanently' attaching the wings.

-Tracy