ORIGINAL: Zor
ORIGINAL: JKinTX
ORIGINAL: EJWash1
Hello All Readers,
Only those with EXPERIENCE with BOTH fabric and ''plastic'' coverings can give factual reports of the two - agreed? Other than EXPERIENCED postings is blather, speculation, and are ''wild untruths'' and ''visualizing'' to the Beginner and the General Reader.
HAR!
First Monokote job Idid was a flop, second one guy at field said model was beauitful- Ithink he was legally blind.
All my stuff is silk and dope or tissue and that is not for the impatient person.
JKinTX,
I have flown many full size airplanes as a flying instructor for many years.
I have never seen a full size airplane carrying people that was covered with shrinking plastic film.
Once a tear start in plastic, and it is easy to start as we often see in pictures of crashes, it just keeps on going and does not reinforce the model frame. The adhesive on plastic film is very poor to the structure. With light but strong fabric each thread of the fabric has to break in tension to carry on a tear. Using fabric in our models and having each fabric thread cemented to the frame (think genuine aircraft dope) we have the best condition for minimum damages in a crash.
You are using the best technique JKinTX.
Zor
That is always the way I was taught from a little boy on up. The entire structure needs to be doped first and then the covering adheres to that and forms a much stronger overall whole.
Once I blasted a VooDoo straight into the dirt with the Fox singing full bore and the only damage was few cracked ribs in the outboard panel and split silkspan. Hit the concrete nose first with a Jr Ringmaster powered by an Enya .15; same results. Those alone convinced me that a properly done wood/silk/or paper and dope structure is extremely strong.
They don't have many full size man carrying aircraft covered in trash bags do they?