I was here having a Re-looking at your wheels. Thank you BTW. It is the other end of the summer, was there enough rust knocked off?
Did this stunning bird every fly?
I imagine near 'cuse it is becoming a bit too cold, to do much. Let us know.
Was the majority of the covering and stringers paperless DTFB, or was that just the skinning? because there are a lot of elements I wish to use, but I like the strength and stiffness of the DTFB with paper...
As I'm wont to do, I've shelved this project for now. I flew very little this year and it's spitting wet snow almost every day now, so a bit late to start up again.
The Spirit will probably sit on my plane rack until I get tired of whatever I'm working on and need a distraction. It's a disappointing end to the story, but in my mind it's just a hiatus. I'm currently too focused on learning the skills needed for my next project, building a full scale Corben Junior Ace. I have a build thread for that somewhere around here too...
The whole of the build was paperless DTFB, except where plywood was used for structural loads (LG mounts, wing mounts, servo tray, tail skid, and motor mount). It made for a very light aircraft given the size, but as I have yet to even do an engine run-up in the plane I can't attest for it's strength long-term.
I believe just about everything in this build could be done pretty easily with the paper on, when skinning I'd probably remove the paper from the inner surface to ease bends.
The paperless DTFB bends easier than the paper-on board so the skin has a weird semi-rigid feeling to it. More stringers and/or fuselage formers probably wouldn't be a bad idea for anyone attempting a build of this size with this technique.
