Hey Brian,

Thanks for the congratulations. The Contra Drive ran absolutely perfect for me. The combination of the Drive, my Wind S Pro, and a set of Dave Snow Spark wings was the perfect setup for the conditions at Muncie. I had huge speed range, and precise speed control on downlines.

Cutting back the nose is actually a pretty good option for any plane. I did it with my Wind S Pro by gluing in a 6mm plywood ring behind the existing plywood ring, and then fixturing my fuse relative to my disk sander so that I had the right down and side thrust. Then I just sanded the nose down until I had the new angles. Sanding and painting finished the job, and made it look like new. The whole thing only took me a few hours to complete, and then the gap between the nose and the spinner was constant.

Ideally, you want the nose ring diameter to be 83mm in order to match the 82mm spinner diameter. If it's a few mm over it's not really noticeable, but I think a diameter smaller than 83mm is going to be a lot more noticeable than a diameter greater than 83mm.

As far as the rudder is concerned, I think making a shorter rudder is also a good idea, because most Contra setups end up with the rudder throw cut pretty much in half anyway. (I only have about 25 degrees of throw on my Wind S Pro ..) However, If I was to make a new rudder for any of my planes, I would make sure to keep the trailing edge quite thick, and/or add a flaired trailing edge.

Brenner ...