inside - awakening.

[Albertus de Wet]

As a few of you know, I have built and flown the Inside at BFP since late last summer. Very nice flying plane. It had one quirk, keeps banking left - but I think I finally figured that out too - a curved aileron.

But that was not the "awakening" moment. Last Tuesday I decided to take my lunch break early and go out before the forecasted winds pick up (these Winds !)

Well, I arrived at the field just before 10am and a handful of pilots were there. We had fun looking for thermals and 'cause the winds would pick-up and fade, "rinse-and-repeat'. I had a nice couple of rounds before I decided to bring the Inside in for landing. Lined it up into the wind and brought it in.

Everything went well, it touched down and it started to slide along on the grass - next moment the left wing lifted up and flipped the Inside right on the nose - BAM followed by that hateful cracking sound....Well that was it - the Inside is all outside now.

No other damage, but the nose. It totally broke off, right before the wings.

Now as some of you are aware, this is a balsa fuselage plane - all balsa. There are a few pieces of 1/8 ply for wings support and battery-compartment to rest on as well as the ribs before and aft the wings - but that is it. Now the question is, if there were any additional enforcements in the fuselage - would this damage have happened? And would it have been this bad? I doubt it. It was probably pilot error too. I could not recall that I had my elevator down touching the grass - I truly do not know. So I will take the blame rather than passing it on to the wind and/or gravity.

So, since I ordered both the Introduction and the Inside and the only difference is the wing, I decided instead of repairing, to rebuild the whole fuselage.   I had some flat carbon Fiber rods in the garage and decided to enforce the inside of the fuse on both sides.   

Since it will add only 20grams (plus CA), I have decided that is NOT going to make that much of a difference to this plane's flying. It is already so light that sometimes I lose more sweat trying to bring it down, than the penalty of the additional few grams, besides maybe improving the flight. Now is the additional weight worth it, I truly hope so. 

Here are some pictures of the break and what I have accomplished with one side, so far.

Really hoping to get this bird up in the air again soon - as I really like flying it.

Bert

[Tom Rawdon]

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From: soa...@googlegroups.com <soa...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Albertus de Wet <ber...@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 11, 2022 12:40:19 PM
To: soa...@googlegroups.com <soa...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [ASA] inside - awakening.

 

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[Rocky Stone]

Looks good to me, Bert!  I can't imagine that the additional weight will make any noticeable difference in performance. But, I agree with you, it may very well prevent another nose-ectomy.

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[Greg McGill]

Bert:

I think the carbon will serve.  It may already be too late, but I would only use the carbon from the second frame, to the midpoint of the wing saddle.  But what you show will not hurt.

Greg

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[Bill Becher]

Good way to prevent a future bris.

Bill