Hi everyone,

I was thinking about buying an Oly IIS from Skybench and modifying it for bolt-on wing attachment. It looks pretty easy, but I was wondering if any of you have tried this and have any pointers or recommendations....

Thanks,
- Chung

I had an Oly 650 that was converted to bolt on. The guy who built it added a bulkhead and dowel setup at the front and a single bolt at the rear. However, I broke that bulkhead many times when I was learning to fly. So that's something to keep in mind.

I once had a glider with a two piece wing with a very short little center bit less than an inch wide. At least if I remember correctly. The back of the center section had a pin that slid backwards into the fuse. The front had a pin that was parallel and slightly above a similar pin in the fuse. You could wrap a rubber band between the two pins. I'm not quite sure what the deal with the canopy was. But I think it was able to get out of the way.

Another trick is to use a pair of holes with fore and aft dowels in them just in front of and behind the wing. You would stretch rubber bands over the wings between the two dowels. Less draggy than the setup the Oly has, but you'd have to have something wrapping over the joint between the wing halves to keep the bands from falling in between the wing halves.

I suppose if you were patient you could use bolts at the l.e. and t.e. of each wing half. #10 or 5mm nylon would probably be plenty, especially if you changed them occasionally.

I built some Cumic Plus variartions with bolt-on wings. I attached a block for the bolt to the front of the wing spar. There was a reinforced area in the TE for the alignment pin. The bulkhead in the fuse also served as the attachment point for the towhook, so the launch load was transferred directly to the spar.

The bulkhead was angled slightly to put the towhook in the right spot. I made one so the towhook could be moved by putting shims between it and the bulkhead, but the others had the towhook mounted solid.

Roger