This years plane. Fuselage is old, from last year, wing is new. Fuselage is from Blaster. I bought it directly from Vladimir's Models. Tail is bagged by myself - SGII cores from Les and 1oz kevlar. Total weight of the fuselage is 145gr. Last years wing was 1.4oz glass over SGII cores from Les and weighted 165 gr - AUW of the plane was 310 gr. This year wing is 1oz kevlar over SGII cores from Les and weights 145 gr - AUW of the plane is 290 gr. I have couple of grams of tail weight and 400mAh NiMH battery, so it might be possible to shave some grams off by going wiht lighter battery. I wanted paint scheme that would improve the visibility. Biggest problem with the last year wing was the blue top. It was almost impossible to see the planes attitude on the landing when it was coming directly towards you with nose slightly down. Painted wingtips should take care of that problem.
Bottom of the wing - 2/3 of the wing is dark and 1/3 is light - good for varying conditions. The red paint wraps around the leading edge diagonally. The paint was called "Devil Red" and it looked like a dark red on the picture. Actutally it is just pink :)
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The layup was very dry. When cutting the hinges I made a mistake and taped steel ruler to the wing using doublesided tape. When I removed the ruler the tape rised the kevlar off the core. I smeared some glue on the kevlar and glued it back wiht no problems, but the wetter patch is clearly visible on the right wing, right near the painted area.
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More mistakes when cutting the hingeline. This time it was paper tape that held the ruler in place. It removed some paint from the wing.
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Another paint damage - this time caused by boiling water. I made a small dent to the wing and removed it by pouring boiling water over the wing. Water also removed some paint that was between the kevlar threads.
And another damage - I did not add enough resin to the hingeline before bagging and got some delaminations. I fixed them by putting some resin under the skin, removing the excess and pressing the skin bag against the core. The problem was that some resin got trapped under the paint. and made some bubbles. I sanded the bubbles away (the kevlar was not damaged).
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My hacked up Robbe FX-18 transmitter with Becker antenna.
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Two sliders on the back of transmitter under the index fingers - very comfortable. On the left side are brakes and on the right side is elevator trim. I can held the transmitter with my left hand (soft rubber strips really help here) and operate the brakes and launch preset switch at the same time. Elevator trim is useful for fast upwind passes back to the field.
Launch peg from unicarbon with single layer of bias carbon cloth on between. Blade is about 60mm high, 13mm wide and 1.3mm thick and has nice profile sanded in. Blade is sealed with CA and then sanded smooth. Under the skin are carbon reinforcements - one running diagonally to spar and another running prependiculary to spar. I actually planned to put blade further back and outside, but the reinforcments on the top got little bit misplaced.
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You can see the marks from heavy rolling on this picture.