All pics with captions

Planned changes: 4 servos in wing instead of pushrods saves almost 2.5 oz.
Add .007 graphite to upper and lower spar caps
Eliminate upper center sheeting except near root to match bottom sheeting, cap strips instead save approx1.5 oz.
Exchange outboard half of 3/8 shear webs for 1/4 shear webs delete last 2 shear webs on each wing completely
Exchange 5/16 steel wing joiner for 5/16 carbon rod joiner, save 2 oz.
Imbed .007X 1/4" graphite strip into trailing edge of ailerons and flaps
Eliminate 1/16" horizontal grain shear web doublers. save .25 oz.
A few other little things just because I'm a little crazy
Add helium bladder in tail boom
Wrap spar with titanium thread
Photon torpedo...Continue Reading

My most recent build, a Top Flite Metrick. one more wing tip to carve then it's time to cover. So far with radio gear in place she's 23 ounces. Hoping to end up under 28.

She's done! Finally. By the time I finished I got really tired of sanding primer but I suppose it was worth it. AUW 27oz. that's 1oz under the lightest weight listed on the box which is kinda nice considering I finished the fuse with .7oz cloth and a single coat of finish resin, then a couple coats of filler/primer sanded until almost gone and finally gloss paint from a rattle can.
Took her out for maiden yesterday and after a quick handlaunch, put her on the highstart with 17 lbs of pull. She shot up like a rocket and the .007" graphite laminated to top and bottom spars kept the wing from showing any flex at all. 50 feet of rubber and 450 feet of line and I'm pretty sure with a light headwind I was getting the full 450 or better when it released. Flew like a dream! Of course having a nice day with big air helped. Now its on to the next one!

After glancing at my pics I think maybe I need to buy some different color covering. Naaaaaaaaah, if it ain't broke.........

My first Sagitta, 1982. The pics are horrible and out of focus but she was a great looking plane in the air. For the Southern Californians, these were at two locations, Temple Hill and the foothills below Angeles Crest behind Verdugo Hills Hospital and Descanso Gardens. It wasn't a real slope just somewhere I could get to from the house. I still have the fuselage but the wings are long gone. I do have an unstarted one in the closet and I think it will be next winters build, all stock except for a few updated spar techniques. I really miss that plane.

Waiting for maiden. Totally stock, 56oz. Typical "getting back into the hobby" story. My first build in many years. Built her stock just to knock the dust off the building board, have since discovered a handful of changes I wish I'd made. That's ok, after reading about Brian Agnew's latest BoT I just had to get another one. So, I'll get to make all those little fixes, fretting over each decision, walking away and coming back time after time, dry fitting, researching what others have done , and dry fitting again. They say art is more about the process, I guess woodies are too.

Thirty years in the making and it's finally going to fly.
Update, 4/30/13. Took the old girl to Wilson, NC for her first flight. Met several members of the Down East Soaring Society, what a great and helpful bunch of guys. Brady, Martin, Larry, Chris, Kevin, and Dick, thanks guys I had a great time and I'll be back. I feel like I'm leaving someone out, sorry about that. Special thanks to Brady and Martin for helping me get her in the air.

Unfortunately there was only one flight. I built this plane and made the mods nearly 30 years ago and honestly I had little idea what I was doing. As you can see in the pics I straightened out the wing, added flaps and airlerons, 4 S20 servos in the wing, turned the fuse into a pod and boom with the original wood and a fishing rod blank, fully sheeted the top surface of the wing, an S33 for the spoilers, turned the empennage into a V-tail, two S30's to drive the tailplanes, and who knows what other weight gaining stuff. After all that I had never updated my Futaba 7FGK, so I sent that off to be brought up to spec. Wasn't sure it could still be done, but thanks to a search on RCG I found someone to do it......no programming for this old beast. Anyway, up the winch she goes. Floats kinda like a brick, what seemed like a minute or two later I land out. Put the little wench down in a cut corn field with 2 to 3 inch stalks still sticking up just waiting to shred some monokote. Which is what happened, plus 1 damaged rib and a busted control...Continue Reading