Buck Rogers

Hello.
I am building the wing for my top flite giant P51 and wanted to know if anyone has built the wing to be able to separate into two halfs to make it easier to transport?

I have had a good look at the plans and pictures and cant see a obvious way to do this? does anyone have any experience doing this? or any ideas?

Thank you very much for your time.

Leroy Gardner

Something to kick around would be to get a wing tube behind the gear central to the wing, a 5 deg. dihedral would allow that I believe. That thought came to mind after I did mine and couldn't get it in anything I had at the time. You would need a tube strong enough in each wing side about 1/3 the length of half a wing or around 14", that's the standard for most wings.

Ask that question in Warbirds section, you might find an answer there from someone that has done it.

Leroy

Zeeb

My Feedback: (41)

For what it's worth, trying to find a canted wing tube is going to be an issue as the only way that could be done is to glue the thing in the middle as far as I know. You might try something like the new H9 Corsair 60cc which has a center section with the gear and the outer panels remove. The use a piece of metal shaped like the old wing joiner stuff. I don't know if it's aluminum or steel as I didn't assemble mine nor have I put a magnet on it.

Chad Veich

My Feedback: (60)

Never seen a canted wing tube. Standard procedure is to place the tube at or near the thickest part of the wing with it being placed as high as possible at the root end so that it can extend as far into each panel as possible. There are many factors to consider and it may or may not work. It all depends upon whether or not the wing is thick enough to allow for a large enough tube that extends far enough to carry the load. On top of that the ideal location for the tube may be occupied by other things such as landing gear in the case of the TF Mustang. If necessary it may be possible to use a smaller diameter main wing tube and then add a secondary tube as well. Generally the secondary tube can (and usually has to) be even smaller and shorter than the main tube.

Zeeb

My Feedback: (41)

Well my AeroWorks P-51 doesn't have anywhere near enough wing thickness to accommodate the orientation your pic shows, that's why it's got a one piece wing as does the TopFlite. It's a reasonable accommodation of the laminar flow wing design found in the full scale models.

The Corsair has quite a bit thicker wing and what H9 came up with to make the wings removable is pretty ingenious if you ask me.....

dasintex

My Feedback: (10)

Actually, I think someone has done this, the RCU User name I believe is 'Kenair' he made several posts on the Top Flite Giant P-51 ARF/RTF and Kit threads,and I believe he built his P-51 this way.

TomCrump

I'd build a 3 piece wing. The center section would hold the landing gear. The split would occur at the rib outside of the gear mounts. Two wing tubes would then be reqired.

scale only 4 me

My Feedback: (158)

The wing joiner doesn't have to be a tube, those are relatively new, Byron kits used metal tabs. Someone creative could easily make up an angled wing joiner out ply with carbon fiber reinforcing, or all carbon fiber for that matter

JeffH

My Feedback: (43)

Meister has been using solid wood joiners for years and years. Basically it is a piece of spruce(I think, not sure on that one) that fits in a spar socket made from the top and bottom main spars with ply webbing to make a box.
I just built a spar for my Jeff Foley Me109 and I was not happy witht he looks, so I clamped in my vise and tried to break it...I tore the 5/16 lag bolts right out of my work bench and it still didn't break.
It consisted of two pieces of 1/16 plywood cut to the shape of the spar. Then 1/4x3/8 spruce was glued along the edges of the spar, edgewise, and the joints and the dihedral breaks were long miters, almost like a scarf joint. After that cured, I used carbon tow along the insides of the spruce and filled the framework with one solid piece of balsa, then glued the other plywood face on all in one step so that the tow was fully saturated and cured as one unit with the skin.
My wing is one piece, but this method would work fine for a socket type. Just draw the outline of what your spar should be and cut plywood to that shape. Make your overall thickness fit what your spar with is inside your wing. IE, if your spar is a 1/2" wide, you can make a spar that is a smidge under 1/2"
I am 6'4 250lbs, and I was hanging off the spar, and it didn't even crack!
I glued it all together with west systems resin and bit of cabosil to fill voids here and there.

You could also make plug in panels and build a centersection that is built onto the fuse. You would only need a removable bellypan to access the radio gear and install the wings. You could put a ply former about at the thick point of the wing. The spar would bolt to this former with thru bolts. You could do a carbon C channel spar one piece, or even install spars in the wing that overlap each other on a taper inside the fuse and then bolt through to that former. This is one of Jeff Foley's ideas about how to do two piece wings, so I can't take credit for it.