Thursday, June 4, 2009

Mini Super Cub, and wind

Did you know that if you fly your Mini Super Cub in 15 mile an hour winds, you can snap the wing off?

Neither did I. But I do now!!! At first I was like "whoa check out how much the wings are bending!", and then when I landed (practically without moving forwards, the wind was so strong) and taxied up to my feet, the right-hand side of the wing just fell to the ground! It was a bit like that scene in The Blues Brothers, where after beating the shit out of their car for the entire movie, it gets them where they need to go and then completely falls apart.

But no matter. First, parts for Hobbyzone planes are very cheap (wings are like $14 AUD), but since she's made from that non-polystyrene Z-Foam I just held the wing in place and squeezed some hot glue into the gap where the wing snapped. A few minutes of holding position while the glue dried, and she was ready to go again. Since a lot of the wing strength comes from the thin skin that goes over the foam though - and obviously this was ripped - I added a couple of layers of clear packing tape over the break point, and also the left-hand side of the wing just in case.

I went back out to test it and sure enough she flys, but the wind was so much worse that I actually had a couple of cartwheel crashes from crosswind-induced flipovers. Ah well, there was no extra breakage so I'm still happy.

No comments:

Post a Comment