quorneng
Master member
My original Art- Tech Wing Dragon (2009) has had several rebuilds in its long life.
As a result very little, just the blow moulded fuselage and the tail boom, are original.
For the last 6 years it looked like this.
1500 mm 3s LiPo, Emax 2812 brushless and five 3.7 g servos (Ail, Flaps & Elev) and about 3/4 the weight of the original.
In July 21 I manged to fly it into a tree at full speed that sheared of a wing and damaged the tail. Took a while to get it down and never did find the wing half!
The tail could be repaired but I decided to replace the wing, this time without flaps, using the spar less, rib less, thick 5mm XPS skin technique I had used on my EDF Sea Hawk to see if it would be strong enough in a higher aspect ratio application. On the plus side it would be quite a bit lighter than the Sea Hawk.
Each half of the wing is just 4 XPS pieces, Top and bottom skins, a tapered shear web to give the aero foil section and a curly wing tip. Not really necessary more just for show.
The skins are sanded on the inside to give a fine 1 mm trailing edge. The biggest delay is having to leave the glue to dry for 24 hours to make sure the wing skins do not spring apart.
The ailerons are cut out of the completed wing. The original 3.7 g aileron servo is inserted through the bottom skin. The extended servo wire is simply passed down through the hollow wing.
The completed Blue Dragon.
No surface film Just two coats of a foam safe acrylic paint and a light spray of clear lacquer to give a bit of a sheen.
Not as strong as the previous Depron/balsa wing but without the flaps the Blue Dragon is now 10% lighter so it climbs a bit faster and glides a bit better too.
Over the Bank Holiday it climbed motor off in a thermal and eventually I had to 'spin out' (full up, full left) for 10 turns as it was getting hard to see.
It lives on.
As a result very little, just the blow moulded fuselage and the tail boom, are original.
For the last 6 years it looked like this.
1500 mm 3s LiPo, Emax 2812 brushless and five 3.7 g servos (Ail, Flaps & Elev) and about 3/4 the weight of the original.
In July 21 I manged to fly it into a tree at full speed that sheared of a wing and damaged the tail. Took a while to get it down and never did find the wing half!
The tail could be repaired but I decided to replace the wing, this time without flaps, using the spar less, rib less, thick 5mm XPS skin technique I had used on my EDF Sea Hawk to see if it would be strong enough in a higher aspect ratio application. On the plus side it would be quite a bit lighter than the Sea Hawk.
Each half of the wing is just 4 XPS pieces, Top and bottom skins, a tapered shear web to give the aero foil section and a curly wing tip. Not really necessary more just for show.
The skins are sanded on the inside to give a fine 1 mm trailing edge. The biggest delay is having to leave the glue to dry for 24 hours to make sure the wing skins do not spring apart.
The ailerons are cut out of the completed wing. The original 3.7 g aileron servo is inserted through the bottom skin. The extended servo wire is simply passed down through the hollow wing.
The completed Blue Dragon.
No surface film Just two coats of a foam safe acrylic paint and a light spray of clear lacquer to give a bit of a sheen.
Not as strong as the previous Depron/balsa wing but without the flaps the Blue Dragon is now 10% lighter so it climbs a bit faster and glides a bit better too.
Over the Bank Holiday it climbed motor off in a thermal and eventually I had to 'spin out' (full up, full left) for 10 turns as it was getting hard to see.
It lives on.
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