My suggestions....

Glass and paint the fuselage.

Make the tail feathers removable.

Buy a sheet of plywood and trace out all the plywood fuselage parts. Then at some later date, have a friend with a bandsaw cut them out. Then you can have 2 fuselages, an electric one and a glider one.

Go with bolt on wings. Ollie has some good suggestions on sizing bolts. I used 2 8/32 nylon bolts.

Install spoilers.

This really will be the most enjoyable plane you have ever had. It will work lift that you never knew even existed.

Ryan

arukum17

I changed the wing tip joiners to something more substancial. I know that Ryan used the standard set up and can give you some info on the play that develops. I used FG rod in brass tubes and have not finished the build so have no info on the performance of the change. If you want to see the what I did let me know.

John

Forgot to mention that one. Thanks John.

Yes, I'd suggest doing the wing joiners with something a bit better. Perhaps the rod in tube like John did or even just replacing the plywood blades with G10 sheet or CF sheet. Mine developed a good bit of play. In my case, this probably results in more polyhedral in flight (the wings flex at the joint).

Ryan

Originally Posted by rdwoebke

Forgot to mention that one. Thanks John.

Yes, I'd suggest doing the wing joiners with something a bit better. Perhaps the rod in tube like John did or even just replacing the plywood blades with G10 sheet or CF sheet. Mine developed a good bit of play. In my case, this probably results in more polyhedral in flight (the wings flex at the joint).

Ryan

Hi Ryan,

The problem was the ply plate chewing through the spruce spars enlarging the socket. This is the problem I had carrying massive weight and attempting speed runs. I would like to build another one using thin epoxy board inlaid into the spars tips - for wear plates to handle the pressure.

On my Mirage, instead if insetting the box's sides to rest on the spars before wrapping, I made the boxes up using the side of the spars widening the socket. I then laminated hard balsa (grain vertical) on the plywood tounge for better footage, and to fill excess void. It worked quite well.

Speaking of epoxy I managed to complete a fairly ugly and overengineered job of the plywood shear webs in the centre wing panel...epoxy marks everywhere and one of the shear webs slightly crooked ...some sanding to do to remove before I resume the build...

Glad I used 60min epoxy though, I need the time and this stuff cures fast on this island

I just used Wood glue (titebond) on my Paragon wing.

Ryan

Here is what I did. I made the joiners (See picture), installed then between the caps and wrapped the joiner and caps with Kevlar tow.

John

Finished the joiner box on the right side of the wing...took me longer than i had hoped all due to my mistakes...

is it advisable to reinforce the joiner box (with cotton thread + thin CA) or something else? I also have 3M glass fibre reinforcing tape as well as woven CF cloth from which can be extracted CF thread. Any suggestions?

The plywood joiner, spars and plates are stock...they seemed good quality to me and I wanted to stick with standard parts and design as much as possible. I have no intention of using a powerful winch to launch the Paragon but only a good standard hi-start...a gentle slow floater is what i am looking for and want to build the Paragon as traditionally as possible....yet I dont want the wing tip joiner blowing up on me!

I did not wrap the joiner on my Paragon, but it would not be a bad idea. Button thread and CA or epoxy should be fine.

I doubt you will blow up the stock joiner on a Paragon, more likely the stock setup tended to get play in it (mine has play).

Ryan

I wrapped the joiner box with cream coloured cotton thread and some thin CA...just as an insurance policy. Build is going slow due to work but finishing 1 or 2 steps every few days.

Question: if I fibreglass the fuse is it still nostalgia legal? Do most Paragon owners fibreglass the fuse?

I also read somewhere that the famous Joe Wurtz used a Paragon as a HLG. Any links where I can read more about this....

Originally Posted by arukum17

Question: if I fibreglass the fuse is it still nostalgia legal? Do most Paragon owners fibreglass the fuse?

I also read somewhere that the famous Joe Wurtz used a Paragon as a HLG. Any links where I can read more about this....

I glassed my fuse. Actually, glassed both the glider and electric version. Then I painted it. I never had good success film covering fuselages.... My understanding of the AMA Nostalgia rules is this is legal. So long as you keep the original fuselage shape. And if it were not, I guess I'd have to give back the trophy I took in Nostalgia with the Paragon at the Nats in 2003.. :-)

Joe has used a lot of planes as HLGs....

Ryan

Am in the middle of the fuselage build and have a few questions.
Any input will be appreciated....

(1) I want to use the stock nyrods as pushrods. My previous GL and Spirit builds used balsa pushrods. I am unfamiliar with using nyrod but want use it as it seems to be reasonably straightforward

The hardware provided includes:
- two long white nyrods inserted into a yellow sleeve
- two pieces of wire that that are threaded at both ends (about 4 inches long)
- two pieces of wire unthreaded at both end (about 3.5 inches long)
- two nylon clevises
- two carl goldberg mini horns

Does the threaded wire go at the tail (end) and the unthreaded go at the servo end? Do you have to cut the threaded wire? How does the unthreaded wire attach to the servo horns? - conventional L bending, is this secure enough?

Any pics of control linkage set up on a stock Pierce Aero Paragon would be appreciated

(2) When fibreglassing the fuse do you also cover the nose or is this painted? Given that the tail feathers need to attached to the fuse via a direct wood-wood bond do you keep that area of the top fuse free from fibreglass - or do you cover the whole thing and then sand away the fibreglass?

(3) The tow hook provided is quite a thick brass like material and needs to be bent by 90 degrees. It currently looks like this ("t" refers to the threaded bit)

tttttttt******************(90 degree bend)*****




Is this what you were supplied in your PAero kit? How did you bend the thick material? Wife suggests heating under a blow torch

I believe it needs to look like this

ttttttt***(90 degree bend)*********


(3) When you paint balsa are you supposed to prime the surface with something (if so what) before you apply the paint (what is a good paint to use in a Paragon, I would like to use a material that was available in the 70s in order to be true to the period )

Thanks for reading my long list of questions

"I am unfamiliar with using nyrod but want use it as it seems to be reasonably straightforward"

I don't like (tube and yellow or white plastic rod) nyrod! The reason the nyrods (white or yellow plastic rod) change length with temperature. Either use balsa pushrods or black plastic-carbon rods inside the plastic tube.

"The tow hook provided is quite a thick brass like material and needs to be bent by 90 degrees. It currently looks like this ("t" refers to the threaded bit)

tttttttt******************(90 degree bend)***** "

Cut off the 90 degree on the short end. Put another 90 degree bend about 6mm from the threads. You can bend the brass cold with a big vise and hammer.

Having a larger gap between the tow hook and the fuse won’t cause you a problem. Having too small a gap can cause problems. I‘ve seen a few planes that can’t get the larger winch line rings between the fuse and the hook. They have to make short extensions with smaller rings just to launch at contests. It’s not all that much of a problem but you just can’t loose the extension or your done for the day.

John

Originally Posted by rdwoebke

I glassed my fuse. Actually, glassed both the glider and electric version. Then I painted it. I never had good success film covering fuselages.... My understanding of the AMA Nostalgia rules is this is legal. So long as you keep the original fuselage shape. And if it were not, I guess I'd have to give back the trophy I took in Nostalgia with the Paragon at the Nats in 2003.. :-)

Joe has used a lot of planes as HLGs....

Ryan

All my Paragons from 1980 on had glass front ends. Nose section to ballast box had 3oz glass with epoxy, laid on the inside (to use film on the outside). It worked quite well for crude and simple; and a little less lead in the nose.