Agreed.....My Temptress balsa covered foam wings were built 8 1/2 years ago and are approaching 2000 flights, all either on glow or gasoline. Weights are low (around 13 1/2 ozs each for 500 squares par panel) and are fully painted. I hate monokote. Silkspan and dope finishes are just as light when done right, maybe even a tad lighter than MK or UK
To Ola's first comments, my light wings make for spritely performance throughout the flight envelope. On the design question, this wing design will do everything one wants including slow snaps or Dave L lightning fast snaps, and everything in between. Just a matter of set-up. Oh and they don't require 20 degrees of elevator throw for proper snaps and spins, but that's airframe design not just wing design
Center hinging is definitely better, more balanced, at least to me. There could be other factors affecting rolling results tho.
To Ola's original comments, foam composite versus molded composite, it depends.......to me foam/balsa composite is easier to build overall and is easier to control weight. And if you want to use 1/2 - 3/4 mm contest grade sheeting, the finished composite structure can be made strong and stiff with carbon veil. My holy grail of wing construction is a fully painted, 500 square inch panel whose RTF weight is less than 11 ounces. I think it's doable with either foam or built up construction
However, the final word has not been written on molded composite wing construction. An 11 ounce final weight RTF should be a little easier to actually build than the conventional technique. Molded wing makers are just not doing enough creative things with their lay-up. My 2 1/2 cents
Over the past two or three years I built all balsa wings and stabs and finished them in doped paper and paint. Weight reduction was about 20% for the wings (300 vs 370 grams per panel) and about 20% for the stabs (75 grams vs 95 grams per panel), compared to sheeted foam of identical size. That's nothing new.
I challenged myself to see if I could build sheeted foam and realize as much weight savings As with built up sticks. In this experiment I built a set of stab panels and did a few different things to them for lightness but with good strength. I was a little surprised when I weighed the 130 square inch panels after the carbon veil and Esaki paper were laid down. Much lower than expected at 44 grams per panel. These are the exact same design as the all wood stabs Delta is flying with now at 75 grams per panel. We'll see how these work in the rigors of flying over the next months.
Trying to get Delta's tail as light as I can so that I can change the APC heavy plastic prop to my new MDK hybrid that weighs less than half as much, a difference of about 3 ounces. That means no servos in the tail allowed. Sure they are easy but produce a heavy tail.