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The XPB Stage 1 underway.


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I have been hosting a German student for the last 2 weeks and because I am the only host family that speaks English I have ended up baby sitting up to 10 of their group some evenings taking them around the town, so time has been a bit tight. They leave on Monday morning.

 

 

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The gullwingwing designs are almost finished after many minor structural iterations to make sure they can be easily replicated and repaired at home. I would have had one done today had I had electricity, there's a building being constructed nearby and the local area power gets shut down occasionally for them to install stuff.

 

The primary structure is of aluminium angle and the assemblies are bolted together, very strong, not super light but not terribly heavy either, but importantly, cheap to build using common materials and replicable techniques.

 

767755077_gullwing2.jpg.422c12d4c9a4619d28a1cd3bd6cea09b.jpg

 

gullwing.jpg.557632370152aad7fae5d1a992163fe2.jpg

 

 

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... and turning it into reality, although a bit to go yet, rivets would be nice, tomorrow maybe .....

 

[ATTACH=full]46268[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH=full]46269[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH=full]46270[/ATTACH]

On the final version is the spar web solid riveted to the extrusions?

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

After mucking around with a few annoyingly complicated control stick designs, I happened to imagine this just after lunch today and from scratch had it working 2 hours later, wish all days were like that. Just need to add a aileron quadrant, easy peasy.

 

It's fantastically simple, fast, cheap and fully adjustable.

 

 

Bolts are it's primary securing. I am still considering secondary securing methods.

 

 

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So ...

 

I popped into my fiberglass guy who I have been using for the past 10 years, little backwoods town out in the sticks, to do my wing rib sets from the basic patterns I whipped up - well computer designed, then laser cut and tacked some flanges around them ..

 

1808458654_ribpatterns.jpg.623b6c265c2d83a2570bbba695c74b0e.jpg

 

The Foreman there is a great guy and we get along well, but they were a bit limited to basic polyester products, but seems in the last 18 months some changes have taken place and not only do epoxies now, but also carbon fiber.

 

There was a build method for my plane that I wanted to do early on but deferred because I was limited (locally) to polyester. But now that I can do epoxies, I started immediately today to make a pattern to try out my experiment of using a very bare bones aluminium longeron frame, sandwiched by a structural inner fiberglass sheet and, of course, finishing outer fiberglass sheet. Think of it as a "skin and bones" approach.

 

Will take about a week to get it together, so stay tuned ....

 

 

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You and me, we have something in common : can't quite get one thing finished before I think up another "brilliant" idea, and off we go again 008_roflmao.gif.692a1fa1bc264885482c2a384583e343.gif

 

My wife tells me about it all the time 051_crying.gif.fe5d15edcc60afab3cc76b2638e7acf3.gif

 

Although your ideas may be somewhat more "brilliant" than mine unhappy_composer.gif.d3e9355e1a45a47f19d6ae0bef8b2e30.gif

 

 

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You and me, we have something in common : can't quite get one thing finished before I think up another "brilliant" idea, and off we go again My wife tells me about it all the time

It changes very little of the basic foundation I have now but does get rid of most of the little connecting bracing tubes that do take a chunk of time to measure, fabricate and install. It also increases accuracy as it's self jigging, and always from the same mold.

 

I did mention I had already considered it but it was the sourced material available, ie. polyester, that stopped me from preceding at the time, in other words it's not actually "another idea".

 

Please understand this isn't a single build which would have been finished long ago, this is an item for production that needs investigation to get the best combination of cost, ease of construction, transportable without damage, sit in a bloke's shed corner for months suffering knocks and bruise, etc, - many things to consider.

 

 

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