I built this Stick in 1986 and flew it until 1989..
It saw some rough times back then..
One time I cartwheeled it off the runway into a barb wire fence..
After I stopped flying in 90 it spent the next 17 years waiting to die in storage.
When I pulled it out of the attic last year it was in sad shape.. the covering was loose in many places.. had holes in others.
cracks in the fuselage, missing parts, the tires even had flat spots
The OS .45 FSR was castor locked..... A trip through the crock put fixed that and it spend some time pulling my Avistar around the sky.
Well it's an old friend so I had to start putting her back together again with a few mods now that I'm flying again.
Mod 1 was bigger ailerons.
I made a built up core from 1/8 stock and sheeted with 1/16"
The finished pieces are larger and the same weight as the old 1/4 slab pieces.
Mod 2 so far is dual in wing aileron servos with wiring tubes.
The tubes are just printer paper rolled on a 1/2" dowel and glued with white glue.
After they dried I drilled holes in the ribs with a 1/2" forstner bit and worked the tubes into place..
They got smashed a bit in the process but running a short section of the 1/2 dowel through the tubes straightened them out and made for a nice backing block while gluing the tubes to the ribs.
next up was repairs.. I had several sections of cracked sheeting on the wing. Broken and gouged wing tips,
Broken sheeting on the fuse. Correcting some early poor repairs.. made a new hatch to replace the missing one. lots of little stuff.
I plan on making a new elevator and rudder with counter balances with the same process as the ailerons.
put in new CF control rods for the rudder elevator Tip: (Kites are on sale this time of year.. many are made with CF rods.. I got one for $2 and got 4 rods out of it.)
I'll also convert it from trike to tail dragger.
I've always felt that a Stick should be done with fabric. It used to be covered with super coverite.
This time I'm going with lightweight polyester and dope.. latex for color and polyurathane for a fuel proof clear.
The goal is an Ultra Stick type of setup but with more of a classic stick look.