Originally posted by wornboots
OK I should know better by now, but here it goes anyway"
Some hobbico kits, same plane, different set up. The ARF the Select and some kits have changed the wing joiners from wood to steel and may in the future use C/F tubes.
A wing endures stress, and has to have some give in its construction. Beyond design limits are sometimes over looked by US pilots (not pointing fingers)
Take the 1/4" rod but the *same length* as the wing and it will bend in a very easy attempt. The wing absorbs and distributes the load over the entire area. the rod When installed becomes one with the wing as a end to end (wing tip to wing tip) structure.
The wood dowel suffers from grain failure after it is flexed so far it will snap, and that is an example of beyond design limits.
The wing on a trainer has lots of surface, and grabs lots of air in a Hi G maneuver. so it is more likely to pull more stress than a tapered or double tapered wing on a sport plane of same size and weight.
Many planes have wing tubes, and can be detached for transporting. And they use different methods to keep the wings in place. So the wing does not always have to be glued at the root,
This is just My 2" (but I have a new extinguisher)
Dan Z
.Hi Dan,
Working from the bottom up,
you don't need an extinguisher.
But there are some who have a covert way of telling you how wrong you are just because they have that insecure feeling and the need to be noticed.
With that out of the way,
The ROD in question in all the TH trainers and the Avistar have a solid steel rod that is only 13 & a 1/4 inch long.I also am against gluing the 2 halves together because it will prevent you from separating the wings and make a good structure inspection.
Also if you need to recover it,
doing one wing half at a time is a lot easier.
The Avistar in it's factory configuration is a nice aerobatic starter plane.
But when a bigger engine is installed many push it far beyond it's design limitations.
BTW,
The Airstrike with the 46 LX engine on it also has the same 13/1/4 inch steel rod like the TH trainers.
Right now i'm trying to figure out why some kits have wood and the RTF have steel.
I did E mail TH product support specialist some time ago but by the time they responded I forgot what I wanted to ask them.
Anyway you made an excellent post and maybe some others will do a preflight before and after just to make sure everything is holding together.
So far no problems on my planes and I have to admit that I do push the Hobbico trainer and make what I call bounce and go landings.
The landing gear gives in a lot but I hear so many saying to beef it up.
If the landing gear doesn't have any spring to it then the jolt and stress is applied to the plane.
My landing gear is doing good so far.
Thanks for the excellent post.
Have a great weekend
