Back to Basics

Brian wrote: The Kadet's wing is constant chord.

That makes life much simpler Brian. A plank wing then.

Absolutely Phil, but "plank" doesn't sound very aerodynamic.

Brian wrote: Absolutely Phil, but "plank" doesn't sound very aerodynamic.

Well it made the infamous Wot 4 popular.:dry:

True!

I started the SIG Kadet project because I needed something meaningful to do, simple model, simple task to copy a plan and build it. What I should have done is measure and compare the details of the parts with the plan. Today I've found that the plan is a bit different to some of the parts. When I made a template for the wing ribs, I should have compared the length of the rib and the positions of the spar slots. My carefully cut ribs bear no resemblance to the ribs that would fit the wing plan, well they do, but the spar slots are more than 1/16" out of position. The next snag I found was that the plan view of the wing has the ribs at a nominal 2" pitch, this was OK and I assumed that the ribs were drawn "square" to the T.E and L.E. Once again, I shouldn't have assumed that the drawing was correct, the ribs are off square, and not uniformly, some drift to the right, others to the left. I've checked my prints and I can only assume that errors occurred when the copy of the drawing was first digitised..Anyway, its not all bad news, finding out what had gone wrong and figuring out ways to correct it has made the day pass without a though about the present situation. I've tacked on a couple of photos of my "building vernier" and balsa stripper. For anyone thinking of having a go at building from scratch, these simple tools make things a lot easier.

No photos today, no point in showing a heap of paper with scribbled dimensions, and some bits of balsa sheet cut to shape "to see what it looks like". After endless fiddling, drinking far too much coffee (kept me awake all afternoon yesterday) and eating a mountain of chokky digestives. I think I might have sussed the ailerons for the Kadet. Bit limited in what I can do as I'm running out of balsa in useful sizes. Good thing I've got enough to be able to add the spars and extra structure for the ailerons. So far I've manged to remember to cut holes in the ribs for the servo leads, and I've made a useful jig to enable the drilling and fitting of the wing retaining dowel.