splais

My Feedback: (25)

A simple question with complex possibilities. A biplane with two or four piece wing. bunches of flying wires. I have looked and tried several methods to keep the upper and lower wing sections together (they plug into the center section). But can't find a way. It only takes one accident to do untold damage. So what do you do? How many of you just suck it up and undoe everything every time? Have you found a really spiffy way to keep it all together.

PS: I don't need to here from you spoiled types with HUGE garages and HUGE trailers that just leave it all together all the time

onepern

for storage i hang the hole plane from the celling in one piece cant help you on trans port mine just fits if you turn it the right way in the back of my truck in one piece

Babblefish7

Just suck it up and take it apart... get a couple of large zip lock bags and some small ones. put all the hardware in then. a few rubber bands around the wings to hold the flying wires in place and your all set. I have a bi-plane with one piece wings at 83 inches. just my 2 cents

Mark

allanflowers

I measured my car very carefully, then got a VK Camel kit, which would just fit without taking it apart. I has to go in diagonally but it works (until the plane crashed, then it fit quite easily).
I have seen articles on model planes with split fuselages, like a 2F1 Camel (marine version) which were designed to split for shipboard handling. This means that all the wing stuff does not need breaking down but one has to attach the tail and its associated linkages, etc. at the field.
That is a REALLY neat Siemans Schukert (?). Scratch build or what?
Allan

abufletcher

I like the idea of configuring the wings as plug-in box-kite like modules (top and bottom) with (most) of the rigging inteact. This is simple enough with a two-bay bipe and can still be managed with a one-bay bipe by creating a dummy frame to hold things in place during transport. BTW, this was actually done with some full-scale planes during WWI.

BobH

My Feedback: (2)

My SE5a has plug in wings.. I keep them togather with wire that spaces the ends as they are on the plane. I only need to remove two small nuts for each wing for the flying wires to come off and I have to undo the turnbuckles for the landing wires. That's about it. I take it apart each time after flying and I store it the same way. apart.

tich

A very interesting question as its something I need to solve by next spring as I am building an 80 inch span Bristol Fighter from the Flair kit. I favour having the wings split into three part so that I can remove the outer sections . I am currently working out the best way to join the wings and am thinking along the lines of thick piano wire in brass tube. In addition a small brass plate to join the wings when the wires are pushed home. Has anyone tried this and if so could they offer any feeedback on the method.

R101

Have a look at this clever gizmo (bottom of page)

http://www.dbsportandscale.com/new.htm

Jim_McIntyre

Good question.

Fro my Tigermoth, I made up a mounting plate to take the pins in the same way as they fit to the uselage. But, after damage to one of my Tigermoth wings from shifting cargo, I made up boxes and cut styrofoam supports to make sure the wings weren;t too close to the outside of the box. I no longer use the plate (I bite the bullet and do full assembly) but the boxes are a keeper as they've saved my wings several times including one time when a shade tent hit it (somebody forgot to stake it to the ground). [sm=what_smile.gif]

splais

My Feedback: (25)

My SE5 only has one set of struts. It is a 3-piece wing top and bottom. I tried rigging a brace that would slip over the aligning pins in the wing root. It holds it OK. But with only one set of struts I have not yet found a way to hold the two wing halves in place without any flexing, nor a way to prevent the dumb-thumbt accident you know is going to happen that will break out the strut tabs. Another words - a way to slide the two halves off and keep them rigid and protected when not on the plane. Until I can find that, taking it all apart is the only sane thing to do unless I want to be rebuilding an accidentally damaged wing. Still looking.

Jim_McIntyre

I see the problem. My wing boxes have supports at both ends (root and tip). As long as you're careful movong them in and out of the box, they won't be flexed while in the box....

smurfjet

My Feedback: (40)

Hi, I'm not sure if this is what you are looking for but here's what I have on my bipes. One is an old Duncan Hudson 88 inch Tigermoth and the other a Proctor Nieuport 28. Both have a built up wing jig that the wing top and bottom mount to. The jig uses the same mounting pins and holes that are used on the plane. There are holes in the jig that allow the flying wires to pass through and then you use the same nuts that you would use in the fuselage to secure the wires to the jig. This way it keeps all the nuts, bolts etc. in one place and you have a rigid set of wings for transport. The Tigermoth also has a pitot tube protector made out of lite-ply that is simply placed over the tube and then a rubber band holds it on. I store the wing panels on a rack that I picked up at Menards and either hang up the fuselage or store them on the same rack. Depends on what I am working on at the time. Hope these pics help.

Dave Szabo
Minneapolis MN

D-Humphrey

All,

I have a Balsa USA Sopwith Pup, 108" WS. The wings are removable in 4ea wing panels. I made a simple rack out of PVC pipe to hold these panels. I currently transport using a mini van, however I orgionally had a Chevy S-10 pickup. So I made the tail feathers removable as well. Building time at the airfield is about 20 minutes.