T E A M
This design is a facelift version of the venerable Carl Goldberg Gentle Lady. I bought a laser cut kit many years ago, but gave it away to a friend, thinking that I won't be building it. I came across the kit a few years ago during a year end sale of a local hobby shop, and bought it again. The fuselage lines sure have some charm which is too hard to ignore.
What was holding me up to start building it, was my wonderful ideas of hopping up the design further, which never materialized. It is only until recently, I decided to temporarily hold back the ideas start building it, and see if I bother to modify the design along the way.
I figured out that with such simple design, I can always build a pair of new wings later with ailerons if I want to and do not want to waste too much materials in the kit. As such, the wings are built almost fully stock. However, there is something I would definitely want to modify, which is the vertical stabilizer. I had earlier designed, built and flown a 1.5metre version of the Sophisticated lady, and although it flew great, the original vertical stabilzer design is weak, and it broke once during a bad landing. It is filmsy enough to cause the entire tail assembly to rock when you shake the fuselage. Even with a carbon strip reinforcement, it can still twist easily from side to side.
So, I redesign a fully built-up integral vertical stabilizer, which blends with the fuselage cross sections. It is now much stiffer and stronger and take some punishments on slope better than before. What's more? The thicker fin provides enough space and material to accomodate a removal horizontal stab mounting system. But because of all these modifications, the rudder cross sections will need to be changed to blend with the fin. Subsequently, the rudder is also redesigned and fabricated from raw materials.
I had previously face some difficulties on covering blended vertical and dorsal fin with film, I opted for glassing the fuselage and paint. I used Sig regular weight cloth with Pacer's laminating resin, before applying coats of primer with rubbing down in between, before the white 2K paint. I intend to coat it with 2 part lacquer later.
Although the fuselage took some additional weight, I saved some on the wings using Oracover light transperant film, and mini servos. I still have some final works on this project, but I weighed all the parts together and it now tipped at 28 oz. I would expect the weight to increase to 29-30 oz once completed. Although it is par or a little heavier than the ARF version's stipulated weight, the wings are large enough to take the extra weight, and my heavy duty Hi-start will have no problem hauling it up to the heavens.
What was holding me up to start building it, was my wonderful ideas of hopping up the design further, which never materialized. It is only until recently, I decided to temporarily hold back the ideas start building it, and see if I bother to modify the design along the way.
I figured out that with such simple design, I can always build a pair of new wings later with ailerons if I want to and do not want to waste too much materials in the kit. As such, the wings are built almost fully stock. However, there is something I would definitely want to modify, which is the vertical stabilizer. I had earlier designed, built and flown a 1.5metre version of the Sophisticated lady, and although it flew great, the original vertical stabilzer design is weak, and it broke once during a bad landing. It is filmsy enough to cause the entire tail assembly to rock when you shake the fuselage. Even with a carbon strip reinforcement, it can still twist easily from side to side.
So, I redesign a fully built-up integral vertical stabilizer, which blends with the fuselage cross sections. It is now much stiffer and stronger and take some punishments on slope better than before. What's more? The thicker fin provides enough space and material to accomodate a removal horizontal stab mounting system. But because of all these modifications, the rudder cross sections will need to be changed to blend with the fin. Subsequently, the rudder is also redesigned and fabricated from raw materials.
I had previously face some difficulties on covering blended vertical and dorsal fin with film, I opted for glassing the fuselage and paint. I used Sig regular weight cloth with Pacer's laminating resin, before applying coats of primer with rubbing down in between, before the white 2K paint. I intend to coat it with 2 part lacquer later.
Although the fuselage took some additional weight, I saved some on the wings using Oracover light transperant film, and mini servos. I still have some final works on this project, but I weighed all the parts together and it now tipped at 28 oz. I would expect the weight to increase to 29-30 oz once completed. Although it is par or a little heavier than the ARF version's stipulated weight, the wings are large enough to take the extra weight, and my heavy duty Hi-start will have no problem hauling it up to the heavens.
That's a gorgeous finish on that fuse. I've got an e-Wasp fuse that's been rubbed down and ready for a finish. Care to share a couple of pointers - like what your airbrush kit is and where you get your 2-pack paint?
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