The Light wing comes out roughly 2-3 oz lighter than the Standard wing when complete. At this point, only one Light wing has flown. It has stood up to approximately 20 flights with a Nelson .40 and seems to be holding up fine. I would suggest fiberglassing the center section of the light wing with 2 oz fiberglass on the bottom of the wing. Roughly 8” at the TE and 16” at the LE.

Both wings come with a 9 ¾” Chord which means you will need to bring the total length to 52” to maintain 500 square inches. Measure Bills wing carefully, and add the necessary tip length to assure legality. Fiberglass wing tips are being tested, but at this point, are not for sale.

For the torque rods, I use Dubro Cat No. 558 Heavy duty E/Z Adjust Strip Aileron Set. Bill includes these with the wing purchase, but I am including here for your reference.

I typically use a Hitec 225 (Nylon Geared) servo for the ailerons with 2/56 push rods, and Hayes P/N 131 Steel Pin Clevis. Cut your hole for the aileron servo as FAR back (towards the TE) as possible. There is CF running underneath the sheeting roughly at the hi-point of the wing. Be very careful that you do not cut this reinforcement.

There is an article at www.nmpra.org on how to install fiberglass skinned hinges. You can use this method, or one of your choice for the ailerons.

I use 5/8” Hardwood dowels for my wing hold down hard points. I wet the dowels with a spray bottle and use ProBond Polyeurathane glue, or Gorilla Glue to set these in place. It is much easier if you drill a center hole in the dowel, before you glue these in place. For the center hole, use the same drill bit that you will use to drill your tapping holes into the wing hold down blocks in the fuselage.

For the Wing Bolts I use countersunk ¼ -20 Nylons in the front, and countersunk 10 – 24 Nylons in the rear. I normally buy these in bulk at the local hardware store. I have left the wing hold down blocks in the fuselage oversized. After you get the wing mounted, you can trim away excess wood with a dremel sanding drum, making sure you leave a good ¼” of wood around your mounting holes.

Wing speed secret – MAKE sure you pot your wing to the fuselage. This accomplishes two major things. First, by closing off the small gaps between the fuselage and the wing, you stop air from entering the gaps which cause drag. Secondly, a well-potted wing will allow you to take your wing on and off the plane without adversely effecting your aileron trim. Quite often a non-potted wing will cause an out of trim airplane on the first flight of the day if you typically take your wing off after flying. There is at least one informative thread in the pylon section of www.rcuniverse.com on how to pot a wing. Go to the pylon forum, and type “potting” in the search box, and the thread should come up.

Fuselage

Laser Cutting Warning – I have had issues with glues sticking well to the charred edge of the laser cut edge. Lightly sand all charred edges that will receive glue.

Right Vs. Left Warning – To make the assembly easier, I added features which cut down on building time. Unfortunately, if you are not careful you can glue a part in backwards causing more trouble than help. Here are the parts that you need to be careful with. Right and Left are determined by your perspective as if you were sitting in the cockpit. Mark all of your parts before gluing so you don’t get these mixed up.

One side of the Fuselage has holes laser cut for the fuel lines. This side needs to be on the right.

Both formers have 1/8” diameter holes drilled for the yellow throttle cable housing. Both holes need to be on the right side of the fuselage.

The servo Tray has a top and bottom. The tray needs to be mounted so that the throttle servo will be sitting closest to the left side of the fuselage, giving the extra room on the right side for the servo arm.

Throttle Cable – Sullivan Gold-n-Cable #515, Steel / Yellow, Semi Flexible. The Yellow tube will fit the holes drilled in the formers perfectly. You will need to drill a slightly oversized 1/8” hole in the firewall in the standard position. I use a Hitec 85 for the throttle servo, and the servo tray is cut for this servo. The Hitec 80’s and 81’s will work, but the gears don’t tend to last as long. I use a simple EZ connector on the servo.

Switch – I use the JR PA001 Deluxe Switch Harness, Gold. The cutout on the servo tray will fit this switch perfectly. Drill a small hole in the switch before mounting to attach your wire or string.

Tail Skid – The plane was designed to use a piece of roughly .093” music wire as a skid. Bend the wire skid so that it keeps the tail roughly ¾” off the ground. A higher tail cuts down your wings angle of attack on take-off, making it easier to come off the ground at a shallow angle. If you want simplicity, you can use a standard wing tip skid. Great Planes makes one, Part No. GPMQ 4445.

Servo Hatch – I like to counter sink everything I possibly can, including the screw that holds the hatch in place. I get these at the local hardware store, they are countersunk No. 1 x 3/8” wood screws. A Phillips head is easier, but a flat head works also. I like to tie a small piece of string to my battery charge lead, and glue the string to the bottom of the hatch. This allows you to check the condition of the battery, or charge without removing the wing.

Landing Gear – Just about any set of quickee gear you own can be fitted to this plane. If you do not have any, you can use the Great Planes Dural L-1 gear. I mount the gear to the plane with 3 – 6/32 countersunk metal bolts in a triangular pattern (2 in the front, 1 in the back). I like the ones with the hex head, but the slotted ones work fine since you don’t routinely remove these bolts. I attach the bolts to the landing gear plate with 6/32 blind nuts. Make sure you trim the bolts so that virtually NO part of the bolt sticks up past the top of the blind nuts. I use a lot of the Hitec 555 receivers, and they come with a nice piece of thin black and red foam. I cut a small piece of this, and glue over the top of the blind nuts to prevent the metal from rubbing on the bottom of the fuel tank, which will rest on that area.

Fuel Tank – The plane was designed to use the Tetra 5 ¼ oz bladder tank. You will have a tough time fitting most other tanks. The front of the tank barely protrudes past the front former. This allows the center of the tank to rest on the C.G. of the plane (2 7/8” – 3” from the leading edge). These tanks can be purchased from Dave Schadel at www.pspec.com

Battery – I use either a 270 mah NICD or 720 mah NIMH in this plane. Due to the position of the tank, it will be necessary to place the battery in the nose in front of the tank to achieve the proper C.G. I wrap the battery in good ¼” latex foam, and either Velcro or use silicone adhesive and glue to the left side of fuselage, in the nose. It is much easier to get the battery installed if you do it BEFORE gluing the top nose piece in place. A good place to buy the 720 NIMH batteries is www.radicalrc.com

Tail – install the 1/64” ply stiffners into the edges of the tail. I use a small dremel razor wheel mounted in my drill press to cut the groove that the stiffners will occupy. This is not a standard razor wheel, it is very thin. I have also cut this groove with a zona razor saw, but you must be very careful to keep everything straight. After the stiffners are in place, you can sand the tail into the airfoil shape of your choosing.

If you are interested in using fiberglassed skinned hinges on the elevators, there is an article posted on www.nmpra.org by Bill Vargas. Otherwise, you can hinge the elevators with your own method.

Cut the tail in half. Cut the proper angles on each half, so that when you glue them together you hit an angle between 110-115 degrees. This does not have to be perfect, as long as it hits in that range.

For the Elevator torquerods I use 4/40 rod. For the ball links I use Dubro Cat No. 180 Bolt-on Ball links. These include both the ball and the plastic socket. I like to cut virtually all of the thread off of the 4-40 rod end that you will be attaching the ball to. This makes it easier to bend the proper angle, without making the bend on the threads, which tend to break. Use red thread lock when you screw the ball onto the 4-40 rod. For pushrods, I use 1/8” Carbon fiber pushrods I buy from www.darrolcady.com ,2-56 rods fit perfectly into the tubes. The servo tray is cut for Hitec 225 (Nylon Geared) servos. Use the smallest arm for the elevator servos, with the arms pointed toward the center of the plane. The space is very tight in the tail, you will need to take a dremel and ¼” sanding drum and clean out enough space for the ball links and pushrods to clear the fuse sides.

Firewall – I use 6-32 bolts into blind nuts. Threaded inserts work also, I just find the blind nuts are easier. Due to the ½” firewall, you will need to use ¾” long bolts to mount the engine.

Sanding, and plywood parts – It is much easier to sand balsa than plywood, so I purposely undersized many of the plywood parts (Nose top, Nose bottom, Tail top, Tail bottom). Glue the two nose pieces so that the ply is lined up even with the nose, and evenly spaced on each side. After BOTH ply pieces are glued, you can sand the balsa sides down to the ply. This will give you the proper dimension on the nose. You will need to sand and angle on the rear of the top nose piece so that the wing LE fits close, but not snuggly against the ply. It is ok to have a small gap here if you intend to pot the wing. On the tail, line the two triangular ply pieces up so that the point is centered on the tail of the balsa. This makes it easy to sand the tail to a sharp point. It is much easier to sand the tail point if you do it before you mount the tail.

Fuse sheeting, top and bottom. Use 3/32” balsa to sheet the fuselage bottom from the landing gear back to the ply tail piece. Use 3/32” balsa to fill in the V where you have mounted the tail, and up to the servo hatch assembly. Some people like to run the 3/32” balsa cross grain, but I have had no problems running the grain lengthwise. Fill in any gaps with lightweight spackle, Evercoat, or Super-fil.

Reinforce the firewall, and mounting blocks with triangle stock. If you like, you can mix up about a ½ ounce of finishing resin epoxy and mix with Chopped carbon fiber and make a fillet around each block and the firewall. This is a bit more work, but adds tremendous strength. Some people like to pin the firewall and hold down blocks with toothpicks or 1/8” dowels. I think if you glue the blocks in well with slow setting epoxy and add triangle stock or a CF Slurry you do not need to pin, but this falls under “personal preference”.

On my last plane, I tried a new material on the fuselage called Oz Cover Lite. This material is applied similar to ultracoat and goes on extremely easy. It is very light, and sticks very well. I fiberglass my tails, so I do not cover them. Once I have the fuse covered, I clean with acetone and then lightly prime and paint. The Oz Cover Lite can be purchased at this website www.home1.gte.net/res0bf5n/

I have been using regular Ultracoat on the wing, but am considering using this material and painting on my next wing.

Size Restrictions –

It is up to the builder to insure the plane sizes remain legal. Everything should be slightly oversized before sanding, but if you get to heavy with the sanding block you could make your plane too small in certain areas.

Firewall must remain 2 ¼” square, minimum.

Height must remain 3 ½” minimum.

Width must remain 2 7/8” minimum (must fall between wing chord).

Wing must be constant chord 47 ½”.

Wing length must not exceed 52”.

Wing must have 500 square inches of surface area.

¼” maximum radius on fuse edges.

Minimum Weight of 3 ½ lbs. By using the light wing, and good building techniques, you can come in at, or slightly under weight.

Throws

Ailerons Low Rate 3/16” up and down - High Rate ¼” up and down.

Elevator Low Rate 5/32” up and down – High Rate ¼” up and down.

I hope you enjoy this plane, if you have any questions feel free to email me at quickee500@yahoo.com