RC Airplane World Forum

Hello everyone,

If one has never done a certain job, I figure he is beginner in that particular endeavour.

I will attempt to repair the damaged wing trailing edge of my Wing Dragon. That wing is foam and i never had to do this before.

With the next posting in this thread I will have photos as I progress.

You guys will have a nice chance to have a laugh at KILOP as this is equivalent as to be a beginner.

Hope to have the first pictures tomorrow. Time here now is 19:35 EST on the 1st November 2009.

Your advice and comments are very welcome and appreciated.

So please come back to this thread and please help a beginner with his first ever foam repair.

KILOP

Edited to change plese to please.

Hello helpers,

Here are some pictures of the HUGE damage

The left wing tip hit the ground and the wing went back to be chewed by the propeller.

I am planning to use some weldbond glue as it does not seem to attack the foam.

The material I will use was very expensive as it came from the grocery store. Something like $10.00 for some hamburger steak and some other stuff I cannot remember.

I will probably laminate to get the required thickness.
I do not know how well this cuts without tearing. Will find out.
Can I sand that stuff?

You expert foam handlers out there, tell me if my approch to this gigantic job sounds OK

Ok guys, stop laughing, I am only a beginner in foam repair and do not intend to spend lots of money on this.

KILOP

I've never done any foam repairs yet either, Paul (I've been lucky...). I'll be surprised if that burger box can be sanded properly, let us know what happens.
That's something that I love about this hobby - so many things, even a burger box, can be rescued from the garbage and put to use!

How does that Wing Dragon fly?, they seem a popular little plane.

Answering Pete's questions now that I have gained a bit of experience with foam.

I do not even know what kind of foam this meat tray is made of. It just feels about the same hardness as the plane wings and it is just to fill this "monstrous missing area"

The Welbond glue does not affect it (does not melt it) as the result of my test on a piece of it. The Weldbond cures clear.

The Wing Dragon is fun as a fly around in winds not exceeding 10 mph (16 kph) and not too gusty. It is fun to make approaches in a headwind and have a flight trajectory straight vertical down. It will make a loop following a high speed dive but I would not call it a vertical circle.

One of its quality is that it is pretty well crash proof. The fuselage front is of pretty strong plastic and the main weight is the 6 ounces battery ( 1,000 mAh Ni-MH 7S (7 in series, 8.4 volts) pack which is fitted right at the nose. It cannot do any damage to anything on frontal impact.

Forget slow rolls or advanced aerobatic. What can be expected for $65.00 Canadian complete with transmitter (27 Mhz. mine is on channel 6). It is even fun to listen to the radio signal on my communication recveiver.

Here is my progress to date. All glued on and ready to sand to final trailing edge shape. It does sand nicely. A bit of yellow acrylic paint to match should finish the repair.

First two pics show reason for the wing to become displaced. Old elastic that came with the package and broke probably in flight.

Then a rectagular cut and two foams laminated together. I will sand to shape when the glue is cured.

KILOP

Hi everyone,

I am not really replying to myself but I clicked that button

Just wanted to pursue my beginner's attempt at repairing the Wing Dragon.

I am not a perfectionist. I like things that work ... period.
I think the aerodynamic characteristics of the plane will be close enough to its original.

Hey _ _ _ this is not the plane to pursue the enemy jets up to 40,000 feet at mach1.5 _ _ _ Hee Hee ! ! !

But be carefull if I am behind you, I can kick your tail without damaging my prop.

Well that is what my pilot thinks. Sorry she forgot to put on some make up. She is what we call "a pale face" but she is agressive
So watch out you guys.

The Dragon has wings.

KILOP

Hi gals and guys,

You may be fed up of reading this thread.
This may be the last posting unless you have some questions.

I was curious so I weighted the model.
It weigh 25.5 ounces with the battery (sitting on the wing).

The wing is 41.5 " wingspan and 8.5 chord for an areas of 352.75 sq in. which is 2.45 sq ft.

So the wing loading is 25.5 / 2.45 = 10.41 oz / sq. ft.

An ideal wing loading for a beginner. It can fly slow enough for having time to react in controlling it.

I understand that there is also available a 4 channel version that includes ailerons or at least "was available".

Honestly I do not know if this plane is still distributed.
It is a fun little plane to fly.

See my last pictures. I painted the prop tips white so we can see the rotating prop but I had to illuminate the prop with a high intensity lantern to see the circle.

The pic where the prop is apparently not turning is giving the wrong info. That prop was turning pretty fast but the camera has the ability to immobilize it on the flash.

The other pics were taken without the flash.

Any questions anyone ?

We had frost here last night and had to scrape the car windows.

Have a great time all de

KILOP

Edited to correct multiple spelling errors.

Hello...

Thanks for showing your work. I have a foam plane on order. Now I'll have some ideas on repairing if it ever becomes necessary. (fingers crossed)

How well did the paint stick to the foam? What kind of paint did you use? Anything special?

Hello Matthew,

I took a bit of Liquitex profesiional acrylic artist color (heavy body) yellow light hansa as marked on the tube label. The size I took was about the size of a small bean or small green pea and two drops of water. It ended up to light to match the original color.

So I took the same size of Liquitex value series Basics acrylic color cadmium yellow medium hue. This is darker than the wing color.

I experimented on scrap foam to get darker than the first above and lighter than the second above by mixing. So I ended up with a pretty good match. Good enough for me

The black prop tips was painted with white butyrate dope.

In effect any art acrylic paint would do. Being water based it does not affect the foam.

I am happy with the results.

Thanks for your interest.

KILOP

Great repair job Paul, and as Matthew says a good guide for us all to follow if the time comes

I have a couple of Wing Dragon pages on my site that a fellow from the UK has submitted. He's done some good mods.
http://www.rc-airplane-world.com/a-wing ... rence.html and
http://www.rc-airplane-world.com/an-end ... ragon.html

Wow, those are some fantastic mods. Goes to show the only limit is one's imagination. I just got my plane and now I am busy dreaming up crazy ways to "improve" its.