Author: Mel Jones

Time to start a new project, I have built a Versa Wing before, it was made from foam board and was configured as a pusher.

Although it flew, it wasn`t nice to fly, because it was to heavy, foam board itself is not the lightest material and with the motor at the back a lot of nose weight was needed to balance the model.

So I am going to try again, this time using depron for the wing and foam board to house the motor, esc, battery etc. It will now be in tractor mode with the motor and prop at the front.

I like to make templates for the parts using tracing paper to copy the parts from the plan, the tracing paper is then stuck to the 6mm depron sheet using tape, the parts are the cut with a knife following the lines marked on the paper.

I first made the wing spars, each spar has two halves which are stuck together to form a single spar 12mm thick.

Here are the four pieces that will make the spars.

Spars made from depron alone are of no use, just to weak, so I have found a couple of pieces of wood strip, I think it`s spruce, and have used epoxy to stick these to the depron and make the spars stronger.

Updates will follow as I make progress.

First update, I have cut the wings out but left off the elevons. The elevons are cut out with the upper wing surface when using foam board the paper covering acts as a hinge, but no paper covering on depron so I will have to think about hinges later.

Tracing paper copy from plan, stuck to depron with masking tape before cutting out.

With both top and bottom wing halves cut out, they have been joined together along the leading edge using tape.

Depron will not bend very far before breaking, so I have covered the whole wing with lightweight fibre glass weave using a water based resin to stick it down. This was very easy to do and once the resin had dried the excess fibre glass was cut off. This process seems to be quite successful and the wing can be bent without any problem.

The spar was fitted and lines scored into the underside of the upper wing half using a ice lolly stick, these so that when folded over it will bend in the right place.

The wing servo has to be fitted at this time, it just glued into place.

Watch for next update.

UPDATE.

The top and bottom wing halves were folded over and glued along the spar and the trailing edge. I didn`t realise at the time but I made a mistake here as I later found out the two sides were not correctly aligned.

This was repeated for the second wing, and the same mistake was made again, which was just as well as it turned out.

Now joining the two wings together was a bit of a pain, this because of the misalignment mentioned above, a lot of cutting and sanding of the wing root was needed to get a decent and straight fit, but after much moaning and groaning I managed it. I was helped here by having made the same mistake twice, by this I mean that both wing halves were the same so need identical work to make them fit to each other.

Once happy that the two wings would fit each other I used epoxy to glue them together, and reinforced the joint with tape and fibre glass on both the top and bottom sides.

The elevons were next, I cut these from depron and covered them in the same way as the wing. I used a couple of pieces of carbon fibre strip to add some strength and stiffness then fitted them to the wing using tape.

 

This picture shows the two wings joined and the elevons fitted.

The “pod” which carries the motor, esc, etc has a square front to it, and it sits at the pointy end of the wing, so as not to leave a gap here I cut the wing nose off and glued a piece of balsa in it`s place.

This made the front of the wing square and so making a better fit for the “pod”.

This shows the underside of the wing, I made two servo horns from plywood and glued them into place on the elevons, then fitted the push rods btween the servos and the horns. You can see the two servo cables emerging from the wing.

The two small dowels are for the location of the motor “pod”, which can been seen at the top of the picture.

Now I have fitted the “pod” to the underside of the wing. The motor, esc and receiver have to be fitted at this point.

I managed to find a folding prop that fitted the motor I brought, which was a bonus.

I have glued the “pod” in place so I have cut a hole in the top (or is it the bottom) of it to allow the flight battery to be fitted.

Here is the Versa Wing completed.

I have come across a problem with using a folding prop, that is once folded during flight it cannot be started again because the prop blades catch on the underside of the wing.

So after removing splinters from my fingers after scratching my head, I have found a solution, I have used a small rubber band wrapped around the two prop blades, this pulls the blades forward when the motor is stopped but does not prevent them from opening while the motor is running.