Well if anyone looked at the Vegas contest thread here, you'll see I lost my Eclipse due to what appears to be this.....

Right aileron linkage came apart (titanium insert JB Welded into carbon fiber rod).

Upon crash inspection I noticed the left aileron has started to pull apart also.......

I suspect this is what happened......Right linkage broke, causing flutter.........left linkage came loose from the vibration and force of trying to use one wind, then the rudder came loose from vibration and was thus ineffective.

This would explain the inablity to turn.....but its only a guess, all I know for sure is that the right aileron was fluttering because I saw it.



As for the rebuild.........I gutted the whole plane.

-Firewall broke out cleanly (though the wood is too damaged use again (but it'll make a good template)
-Wing pheonilc broke out of the fuse.......little bit of fiberglass damage but not excessive.
-My new improved gear plate broke in half and caused some fiberglass-foam damage on the inside of the plane. (but it was a better plate than the orginal)
-Front of fuse had about 3-4 severe cracks in it around the nose.
-Rudder wood block in fuse cracked in half (thus letting all the hinges out)
-Right wing had wingroot damage
-left wing had nylon bolt break out
-both wings minor wood scratches
-chin cowl was destroyed (will need a new one or used one)
-Crank case of motor broke the mounting tabs off.

So far I've glued the cracks back together, Refiberglassed the inside for strength with some thin fiberglass. I've sealed up the gear exit holes with fiberglass and fiberglass bondo(to be recut later). I've fixed the wing tube exit holes. I've glued in a new piece of Balsa for the rudder to hinge to(still need to bevel it though).

Lastly I stripped the whole plane of paint! Not fun. I'm going to do a whole new scheme on it. I'm now in the process of sanding and filling all the small pinholes left in the fiberglass form the stripping process.

Does anybody have any expierence with this? I have mainly started on the canopy hatch. There were a ton of small holes in it. I started with 220 grit dry to get any paint or chemical residue off. I then cleaned it with mineral spirits and shot it with grey sandable primer. (i'm going to use white from now on so it won't show through the inside of the fuse like it did on the hatch). I then used 400-320 wet sanding to smooth out the holes. Most are gone I think, but I'll have to spray another coat of primer to know how many are still there and then resand.

Is there a better way to fill in all these holes? There's too many to use fiberglass bondo in my impression. Rember weight is an issue......I've weighed the plane with paint, and after the stripping. I'm trying to cut back on the orginal weight of 10.9

I'll post some pics later tonite.

I also have a new fuse coming (unfinished) but I think this one is salvagable also, and it would be nice to have a spare.