RE: WACO YMF
Yes, sorry guys, I think perhaps I shouldn't have said anything... But if it makes us think about how these things are stressed then we can make better decisions about our structures. As Khodges sez, the wing struts and spars and wires make a very strong and rigid `box girder'. I believe that, in model sizes, built following the full size practise, that struts are always in compression. I can offer no other proof other than having had a wing strut fail on the UPF sometime through a demo flight, (rear outer wing strut) and not knowing until the landing circuit when you could see it trailing in the breeze... Had this failure allowed the wings to move apart then I reckon the pilot would have known, as it was the flying wires still managed to maintain the correct rigging angles and the strut was taken home and repaired. As for `cabane', well that came from a very old WW1 riggers book, and only Bleriot, Fokker 'E' and Morane 'Parasol' types, followed by the Bristol monoplane actually had them, as described. So it seems that time has changed the usage and common understanding of the word. It seems that will have to catch up with modern times :-).
Evan, WB #12.