shishtawoo

Well im a begginer and i crashed a warbird that i should have held off on. I was just wouldreing if its ok to replace the balsa squar pegs ,which support the balsa exterior, with aluminum from what i can tell it doesnt weight any heaiver but is much stonger. Im just asking because if i crash it again it would be cool to start swaping out some balsa components with aluminum ones.

air-madness

I would stick to wood. If balsa isn't what it should be to you, how about spruce? Spruce is much stronger and will be more forgiving. If you start using aluminum you will begin to notice that the plane has trouble in flight. Is the plane nitro or electric powered?

The Raven

Metal panels will most likely lead to radio problems, which in turn means more crashes. The alloy will invariably be heavier than the balsa, not to mention being a pain to straighten out should you ever crunch the panel into the ground.

It's far easier to reskin a plane in balsa and/or covering than it will be to make nicely fitting alloy panels.

shishtawoo

Its a nitro, and i think im just gonna sheet the small section i used aluminum to repair with balsa. do you think it would cause radio problems in that configuration?

alan0899

G'day Mate,
You Can't build a plane, strong enough to survive a crash, if you did, it would be so heavy it wouldn't get off the ground.
Learn to fly, repair the warbird, with balsa, & keep it as light as you can.
I know what you want to do, you want it to survive it's next unplanned encounter with terra firma, forget it.

FlyerInOKC

My Feedback: (6)

Don't forget to rebalance the plane at the CG and laterally. Repairs always seem to change the balance and the best word to describe an unbalanced plane is "crash".

shishtawoo

lol thanks and you were rite i want it crash resistant lol

erbroens

yes you can, however it´s better to check the rc combat forum to see the best techniques to make a tough airplane... there are many scale combat designs wich are virtually indestructible and a lot of fun to fly.


Enrique

The Raven

Don't worry about crash resistant, focus on repairable. It's also worth remembering that todays ARFs are starting to get so cheap that the airframe is the least of your worries, it's the engine and radio gear that costs. Of course, you still want to avoid crashing

saucerguy

I used cheap thin aluminum tape on the ends of the wing tips on a foamie, talk about learning the hard way, not only radio interference, it did a manuever I'd never think of. Needless to say, stay away from it, it will cause more harm then good.

If you want to go for more stength and overkill it, look into fiberglass, it's really the ultimate way to go in that area and never affects the signal.

gilbertfh

My Feedback: (5)

The best advice I can give is build a plane to fly not to crash.

manks7477

Great advice! I build my own planes, I build them tough but they are built to fly. I got lucky this week as I hit a small tree with a wing and survived the crash with out much dammage at all, but I was lucky, flying low and slow!