Kastelm

I cracked the T-tail of my SOPHISTICATED LADY for the last time. I want to build a new fuselage for the wing. Anyone have a good suggestion? Can I buy a fibreglass fuselage that would work?

Silverhawk

My Feedback: (1)

Before you scrap the old fuse consider making it a T-tail. Mine works great and the aggravation is gone.

Ray

Kastelm

You mean a V-tail? That's a good idea. What kind of mixer did you use?

Cub Man

My Feedback: (50)

I would like to find a copy of the plans and book for this plane. Growing up, Goldberg always had an add in every book you look at for this plane. I would like to scratch build one.

FLYBOY

My Feedback: (11)

put the wing on a gentle lady fuse. I didn't like the sophisticated lady fuse. It just never flew as well as the gentle lady does.

Kastelm

Cub man: take flyboy's advice, I never liked the t-tail on sophisticated lady. The T-tail is neat in the pictures but a pain to keep in one piece. I think I will build something similar to the gental lady's fuse. I would offer you my plans from the sophisticated lady but they are pretty-much in shreads now, you can't build anything off of them.

Rick K

My Feedback: (6)

I had the same problem, it was my first plane twenty some years ago . . . I wrote (this was way before e-mail) to Goldberg about my problem and others who had the same back then and they sent me a new kit. This time I placed 1/8" Sq spruce strips (from a model RR bridge kit) in a box config. inside the fuse every two inches from the point where the elev. tube entered the fuse to about six inches fwd. Never had any problem again. Now a days I suppose you'd use carbon fiber in the same way. Fuse #2 and wing #1 worked out great, longest flight was 90 some min, the alt. was so high I chicken'd out, was getting worried about battery endurance . . . I could out fly anyone with it, even the self proclaimed 'experts' at my then local (major) So. Cal field, not bad for a then 'novice' They used to complain about me hogging up the freq! With all of the planes Iv'e built since Iv'e never had as much fun as I did with my wing ver. 2 sophisticated lady. I didn't know they still made it . . . Perhaps I might get another to build with my nine year old daughter . . . Good excuse huh? Thinking about it, it was a fun, easy kit to build too. How much do they run these days?
Rick K
LSF 6493

trafton

[link=http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXDJC2&P=RF]Sophisticated Lady[/link]
54.99

Rick K

My Feedback: (6)

Another thought Cub Man, Why don't you insead of building a new fuse, do what I did to mine years ago except to use the carbon fiber strips on the outside after fixing up everything . . . if your's fractured lenghwise along the fuse like mine did. If you do it right it won't look too bad from a little distance . . . might just look like part of your color scheme (black stripes around the fuse) Or if you wish you could cover the fiber with strips of trim tape. It might not look so cool but aerodynamicly the plane won't care. A good thing about contuiniuing to use the old fuse is it's already messed up, you won't be as frightened about hurting it so much. A six foot roll of 1/2 X .007" costs about $6.50 for the 'Dave Brown' stuff I got at Hobby People. That plus about a half-hour's worth of your time would get you back into the air for alot less than buying the wood to make a new fuse.

On my second fuse (built in a day) I didn't even bother to sand or cover it (except the tail of course) just slapped some red spray paint on I had around the garage and went flying the next morning.

As I recall, except for the sheeting the wing is exactly the same as the Gentile lady's to if you really want to get away from the 'T-tail' (the torsion of it is what is causing the failures upon landing. that's when it's failing right?) you can build a GL fuse and your wing will fit right on. End of problem.

Again though, after my 'fixes' I never had another failure, I'm not sure if that was because the spruce strips were keeping it from spliting or if the boxed way I installed them kept the fuse from twisting and so eliminated the torsional stresses on the empenage area of the fuse . . . one way or the other it worked. Just to be safe, I continue to do this (now with the carbon fiber) on every wooden fused kit I build, T-tail or not and have never again had a fuse 'wrist' (area just fwd. of tail group) break.
Rick K
LSF 6493

AussieJay

G'day,
I have just finished building my Sophisticated Lady, about to start covering it. I have tried reinforcing the fuselage where the fin attaches to avoid the problem of the tail breaking. Obviously it remains to be seen how successful I was at that. If it does break, I am interested to know more about this V-tail setup that Silverhawk has... Is it difficult to convert to the V-tail setup, and what effect does it have on the performance of the 'Lady?

Jay.

Silverhawk

My Feedback: (1)

I tried a few different re-inforcement techniques including the cf. Nothing seemed to work well as the fuse just broke in other places.

The reason I wanted to keep the Sophisticated Lady fuse is the weight. It was lighter than any of my other fuselages and I was going electric to boot. In the pic you will notice the canopy is not stock. A piece of Mountain Dew 2L bottle works very well.

I actually used the horizontal from a Mirage 550, cut it in half and made a 110* form to hold while the glue set. It seemed to measure about right in SqIn. but I am going to enlarge the control surfaces a bit.

I am mixing the controls in my radio but any old mixer will do.

Ray

Kastelm

Silverhawk:

I was thinking of making my sophisticated lady an electric. I wanted to get in to the 400 speed glider competitions that the local glider club holds. What size of motor do you use?

Does anyone have experience with a 400 speed motor in a 2m glider? Would spoilers be useful in the competition to land in the target area?

Silverhawk

My Feedback: (1)

S400 6V, 3.8:1, 11x8 folder, 8 cells. Works well.

Spoilers would help! I really have to know how to float that thing in to a spot and I'm still working on it.