Originally posted by Montague
Paul,
Try leaving the struts attached to the wing, and just unscrewing them from the fuse. Less bolts to mess with, and a faster wing on and off. Or, if you need more play, loose the wing attachments enough to let the strut move, but don't take it all the way off.
You could always build yourself a new wing that is strong enough to take the loads with out the struts if you wanted to, or modify the existing wing to make it stronger, depending on it's current state, and how much effort you want to put in it.
Can you see inside the wing to see how big the spars are, how things are layed out, if there is shear webbing or sheeting on parts of the wing, etc? Maybe with more info, some of us might offer a guess as to wether the wing is strong enough to fly with out struts or not. What's the RTF weight?
Thanks for the suggestions, Kirk. I got an email back from Hobby Lobby, one of the US distributors for Graupner. Their feeling was that the struts are functional/important. I just received a second email where one of the guys at Hobby Lobby just saw the identical planes wings fold in flight (struts were off). There's the answer!! Again, Hobby Lobby comes through. They always impress me.