As was mentioned elsewhere, the Dreamflight Alula -- an elegant foam SAL/DLG wing -- has dropped off the market. A nice plane, for sure, but not if you can't get one . . .
It seems a gentleman out of South Korea (the shipping lable read Bruce Lee, FWIW) has been punching out EPP kits (Ha!)for Various airframes, including one similar to the Dreamflight Alula, the "YG Bird". For $25 + shipping, it lacks only the glue and electronics.
After waiting on the slowboat to arrive (I'm NOT paying $22 to ship a $25 kit), it arrived a little beaten, but the parts are all pretty durable inside. Instructions are a series of annotated pictures, mostly in Korean, but the diminsions are all you need to read. The kit is unfinished -- while the airfoil is properly cut the surface is pretty rough, no groves or holes are cut, except the elevon hinges, and the Nose section is blocky and solid -- you have to cut and carve your own electronics bay. Assembly is primarily with CA + kicker, but I used Gorilla glue in some places.
Basic Assembly took a couple of evenings, most of the time (for me) spent on sanding the fuse into shape and cutting/carving the custom electronics bay. The wing has a single fiberglass spar which you install in the wing in three pieces -- 2 overlapping slightly bigger than the wing half, and a third small piece glued in with the overlap in the center. From reports that the rear half of the wing starts to seperate over time, so I added a carbon spar between the main spar and the trailing edge (from my on-hand stock).
The launch peg is lashed onto the spar before it's installed and the lashing secured with thin CA (sokes into the threads better). I had some 50# Spectra line on hand and used it instead of provided thread. whatever you use, look up a "square lashing" and forgo their instructions -- done propely, tight and glued it'll perform much better than the knot they show. a hole is cut at just the right spot, and when the spar goes in, the peg lines up with it. I also didn't care for the EPP hinges, so I cut them and replaced it with a glue hinge (yellow line in the top)
The tail is mounted between two FG strips and then those are imbedded in the tail -- pretty easy to install.
The stock instructions have you carve and mount the servos under the fuse, near the center of the wing (where it's thickest). Some suggestons I've seen, have been to mount the servos in the fuse, far forawrd of the designed position to make them neutral-to-nose-heavy to the CG. I opted for a position that placed the horns (on the aft side of the servo) at the stock CG. The fuse and tail are more than tall enough to protect the servo's and linkages, but I had to carve in a little deeper to get the servos to angle out a bit ot line up with the reccomended control horns.
The hatch was cut in the top and a hole is carved for the servo wires to pass through.
The hatch itself, I cut with a V in the back and flush along the centerline to the nose, and two CF tubes were imbedded in the fuse. two matching CF rods wer embedded in the hatch, and a pair of magnets placed on the nose that slide apart to open the hatch forward.
the bay itself was cut to fit a OrangeRX 615, a micro voltage booster, and a 1s500 battery, with the battery sliding into the fuse by 1/4" to hold everything in place.
All buttoned up with battery it runs ~120g and a *touch* tail heavy. so far I've added 2g to get it to the recommended CG, and I might have to double that
Storage is a cinch -- mount a wire to the wall and hang it on the launch peg.
Glide tests, so far have been promising, but I've got to take this bad boy out to the field . . . more to come
It seems a gentleman out of South Korea (the shipping lable read Bruce Lee, FWIW) has been punching out EPP kits (Ha!)for Various airframes, including one similar to the Dreamflight Alula, the "YG Bird". For $25 + shipping, it lacks only the glue and electronics.
After waiting on the slowboat to arrive (I'm NOT paying $22 to ship a $25 kit), it arrived a little beaten, but the parts are all pretty durable inside. Instructions are a series of annotated pictures, mostly in Korean, but the diminsions are all you need to read. The kit is unfinished -- while the airfoil is properly cut the surface is pretty rough, no groves or holes are cut, except the elevon hinges, and the Nose section is blocky and solid -- you have to cut and carve your own electronics bay. Assembly is primarily with CA + kicker, but I used Gorilla glue in some places.
Basic Assembly took a couple of evenings, most of the time (for me) spent on sanding the fuse into shape and cutting/carving the custom electronics bay. The wing has a single fiberglass spar which you install in the wing in three pieces -- 2 overlapping slightly bigger than the wing half, and a third small piece glued in with the overlap in the center. From reports that the rear half of the wing starts to seperate over time, so I added a carbon spar between the main spar and the trailing edge (from my on-hand stock).
The launch peg is lashed onto the spar before it's installed and the lashing secured with thin CA (sokes into the threads better). I had some 50# Spectra line on hand and used it instead of provided thread. whatever you use, look up a "square lashing" and forgo their instructions -- done propely, tight and glued it'll perform much better than the knot they show. a hole is cut at just the right spot, and when the spar goes in, the peg lines up with it. I also didn't care for the EPP hinges, so I cut them and replaced it with a glue hinge (yellow line in the top)
The tail is mounted between two FG strips and then those are imbedded in the tail -- pretty easy to install.
The stock instructions have you carve and mount the servos under the fuse, near the center of the wing (where it's thickest). Some suggestons I've seen, have been to mount the servos in the fuse, far forawrd of the designed position to make them neutral-to-nose-heavy to the CG. I opted for a position that placed the horns (on the aft side of the servo) at the stock CG. The fuse and tail are more than tall enough to protect the servo's and linkages, but I had to carve in a little deeper to get the servos to angle out a bit ot line up with the reccomended control horns.
The hatch was cut in the top and a hole is carved for the servo wires to pass through.
The hatch itself, I cut with a V in the back and flush along the centerline to the nose, and two CF tubes were imbedded in the fuse. two matching CF rods wer embedded in the hatch, and a pair of magnets placed on the nose that slide apart to open the hatch forward.
the bay itself was cut to fit a OrangeRX 615, a micro voltage booster, and a 1s500 battery, with the battery sliding into the fuse by 1/4" to hold everything in place.
All buttoned up with battery it runs ~120g and a *touch* tail heavy. so far I've added 2g to get it to the recommended CG, and I might have to double that
Storage is a cinch -- mount a wire to the wall and hang it on the launch peg.
Glide tests, so far have been promising, but I've got to take this bad boy out to the field . . . more to come
