Scott Purdy

A few weekends ago we got the jet down to take for its second flight, I was doing a test of all systems before we got there to make sure all servos worked and there was no binding etc, I inserted the main carbon spar in the guide tube only to have it jam on something, I looked down the tube, there was light coming in, we looked inside to find most of it missing, This tubing was only thin plastic?

after contacting the guy at boomerang jets he told us to tape it up and it wasn't structural but you could push down anywhere on the plastic tube and crack it, Next was the problem of replacing it.

We found a place which makes carbon and fiberglass tubing to nest the main spar in. The plastic tubing had to be removed from the whole fuselage through 6 formers. This was done was with the blue drill bit in photo 3, The drill was modified removing the internal drill and replacing it with a 6mm shaft in which the 6mm rod can slide up it. I machined up 3 plugs in total starting of with the inside diameter of the plastic tube 1 of which was larger to fit to fit the fiberglass tube which took me a whole morning to hone out. The main shaft ran true through the center of the plugs allowing us to drill through (High stress moment) as the first plug ran inside the plastic all the way through.

After the plastic was and all swarf was removed the tube was fitted and glued with two tonne epoxy there ain't no way this ones going to crack. After another day of fitting out everything again it's now ready to fly