mikemedic2

Hello all,
I have just one question for right now of course. I have an old tt pegasus which was my first plane, and of course I crashed it into a pine tree.[:@][&o] The plane did well except for the wing on one side has damage in the middle where it broke the leading edge. What is the best way to replace that piece IE should I Butt joint both ends or cut them on a 45 for more glueing area?
Any and all help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you all in advance.

TexasAirBoss

My Feedback: (22)

I'm not familiar with your exact plane. But often, the leading edge does offer some spar-like strength to the wing. So a longer joint might be preferred. Or maybe a doubler behind a butt joint. Behind a a butt joint . Did I say that ?

khodges

My Feedback: (1)

You can splice in the broken out pieces, but you should definitely add a doubler to the main spar. If the plane weighs less than, say 6 pounds, you should only need to go to the next rib each way beyond the broken section. But if it's a heavier plane, go at least 2 ribs each way beyond the break. Now for the kicker-- to keep the weight the same in each wing, duplicate the repair on the undamaged side of the wing. I have a 88 inch wing that I'm repairing after an unsuccessful attempt to uproot a fencepost. This is what I'm doing to mine. The doublers can be square stock the same size as the original spar material, glue them to the opposite side of the shear web. You'll have to notch the ribs, just cut carefully so they make tight joints. The cross section of original, shear web, and doubler should look like an "I" beam.

Deadeye

khodges, you are giving Minnflyer a run for his money with that graphic!! Just ribbing you, of course.

khodges

My Feedback: (1)

Actually, my 7 year old daughter drew it Sometimes it's easier to sketch something to describe it than try to use words.

FighterBird873

Oh, spar us the bad puns.

shogunmst

My Feedback: (3)

Here is a look at what I did, peiced the broken peices together best I could then used new peices as reinforcements, have over 100 flights on it since then.

shogunmst

My Feedback: (3)

Here's a few more

mikemedic2

I would just like to thank everyone for there help and timely answers to my post. Nice drawings khodges. No puns here(that was getting pretty bad there) and good job with the repair shogun.

JollyPopper

My Feedback: (6)

Shame on FighterBird and Deadeye for those two funs.

Daryl_y

A well made splice joint is all you really need. On full scale (wooden) aircraft you can splice all you want but the taper must be atleast 10-1. so if your leading edge is .250" your splice joint should be at least 2.5" long . This will make a joint that is even stronger than original solid wood. I know this makes for a large splice. You could probably get away with a little smaller splice in R/C I have have spliced leading edge and spars together with about 1.5" long splices and they hold just fine.