This design was based on making the model out of materials I already have, the only material I had to actually buy was the carbon fibre rod for the fuselage. I was aiming for a small "micro" model with lots of power much like my Delta designs, the difference being this design is a solid wing and should have glide potential.
The model uses a 1650kv 180W Turnigy Air motor with a 30A Turnigy plush ESC, 4 * Turnigy servos. The motor can pull over 700g static thrust on a 3S lipo pack so the objective of this build was to stay under 350g but have a very strong model.
To build the wing I'm using 1MM balsa wood with 2 carbon fibre strip on the bottom layer, these will stop the majority of wing flex once all bonded together.
For the leading edge I'm using a simple "step down" so I added a 3MM depron strip on the forward 1/3 of the wing (3.3CM) and began sanding the layers smooth to each other.
Because the wing will be fully bonded together it means I need a way to change out servos if needed later. So I added in a gully to the center point where leads can run and more importantly stay.
The top balsa layer will be bonded but to help it keep it's shape I soaked the entire balsa strip until it was pliable and then wrapped it around the wing until dry.
Next are ailerons, I wanted long ailerons for maximum control response at the end of the wing but only 2CM wide. I did this because the majority of fast planes only require a small amount of input to turn and using excessive amounts results in unpredictable flying characteristics.
Don't forget to sand the bottom side of the aileron down to a 45 degree angle where it meets the wing, this allows you to hinge your control surface with very small gaps. If you forget this stage then in order for the control surface to move the surface would need hinged with a noticeable gap for it too move up and down.
I only had silver Oracover left and being truthful I don't like it because it's a complete ass to work with. It makes every imperfection stand out like crazy but seeing this is not a build to spec but a build to "what I've got" it will do.
The fuselage CF rod is 6MM diameter, I mounted 2 plywood plates (at 1.5MM thick each) to the rod in the wing and tail position aligned up, so I know when I do the rest it will all line up. Note the plate is bonded to the rod with fibre glass cloth. The plate is then bonded to the wing never to be removed. You can see the hole where I original intended for the servos lines to poke out but obviously the plate goes here and at the very center is the rod so no option.
Now you can properly see both mount plates. The engine mount is created from a brass pipe piece which is then cut in half - half way and bent out. The 2 halves that stick out are then hammered flat and drilled out. To attach the engine mount to the rod I used UHU 300 plus epoxy which when cured is so strong you would have issues TRYING to rip it off lol.
To save weight on the tail so I can mount the servos on the tail itself I share the power lines of each servo and only run individual signal leads. This turns 6 servo leads (negative, positive, signal * 2) into Negative (shared), Positive (shared) , Signal 1 and Signal 2.
The motor mount bottom exceeds the depth of the ESC when the model flies flat, so the motor mount would always hit the ground and not the ESC, but to save impact damage and give a bit of a skid plate I added another piece of carbon fibre plate bonded to the framework quite strongly.