Oct - Rcsoaring.com

The finished tip panel ready for sheeting showing, spar(black line), wing joiners (wrapped wood pieces), and servowire tube (red).Vacuum bagging with MityVac hand held brake bleed kit.where the ’chute servo and drogue ’chuteare placed. More on the ’chute later.I couldn’t transport the wing at 100"so I made removable wingtips. I builta basswood box that could receive arectangular carbon fiber rod and simplytape the panels together prior to flight.It’s worked flawlessly.The carbon rod is six inches long andtapers are cut into the ends of the boxto transfer the loads to the wing skins.I chose the length of the outer panel onwhat I estimated that I needed for elevonsize versus the inner section that wouldbe used for flaps.The photo above shows the completedouter tip. I used 1/8" hard balsa ribs atthe root and tip. The tiplets are 1/8" balsaand fiberglassed to the end of this panel.For sizing I use the TLAR method — ThatLooks About Right. The black line is .007carbon fiber tape as a spar and the redtube is for the servo wires. This panel isready to be sheeted.The photo above right shows an outerwing panel in the vacuum bag. I useda Space Bag (storage type bag) and aMityVac hand held brake bleed kit toremove the air. I easily obtained 7lbsper square inch of pressure overnight.However, the Space Bag won’t holdmuch more with this setup. I’ve used theMityVac system with a different bag andeasily held 15 inches overnight.Herk suggested a skeg in the aft centerof the wing to keep the flaps off theground during landing and something tohold on to during launch. This has alsoproven to be very effective and simple.I used a center 1/8" plywood rib to jointhe wings halves to and the skeg isOctober 2008 71