Hello everyone! And thank you for replying!

Yes, the top of the wing is flat, the height difference between the tip and root airfoils on the wing bottom make the dihedral. Thanks for pointing it out to me. Will include them in the finished plan.

The airfoil of the DALOTEL 40 is a Curare 40 airfoil. This is probably an NACA 0015, somewhat modified at the trailing edge for aileron construction simplicity. You can do the same. The airfoil of my DALOTEL 61 is an Eppler 475, and the trailing edge is also modified for construction reasons. You can use the E475 also for the 40, it has a blunt leading edge which makes for smoother pitch transition. If you are "electrifying" the design, I encourage you. Please post pictures of the design, even during construction. During the F3A regional finals in Taichung, Taiwan, in Oct. 20-25, 2008, there were 3 F3A electric pattern ships, and they were beating the "nitro" guys. They placed 3rd (Masato, Japan), 10th (Ramel, Thailand), and 14th (Sim, Singapore) out of 28 participants. (The first place was 3rd place World Champion Tetsuo Onda, so the quality of flying all around was truly exceptional).

The retracts are mechanical. The pattern I used for the plans was an OK Models retract set, but you can use others, like MK. The original set of retracts used in the 1986-7 Dalotel 61 was a set of Spring-Air (remember them?) retracts modified for mechanical operation. They worked OK, but didn't center too well. No end point adjustment in those days, so the battery drained due to servo stall, and my 60 crashed. I think I sulked for a week.

If you have experience with hydraulic or compressed air retract systems, you can modify the design accordingly.

If you can, get a set of titanium gear legs for the retracts. These used to be available for pattern planes. In Taiwan, I saw a beautiful set of carbon legs on one of the pattern planes. (Yes, retracts!) Sorry, I didnt ask the participant (Michael Ramel) where he got them. F3A pattern retracts may be "overkill" for this design, but they aren't much heavier than 60 sized units. You may want to consider this.

The gears are swept forward so that this would be 1) close to scale, and 2) the retract mechanism is in the thicker part of the wing. The retract servo is in a straight line to the retracts. If you have experience with a different set of retracts, you may modify the plans. Keep in mind that the wing planform is a swept back leading edge, and the retract location forward of the one shown on the plan may not have enough material to properly support the retract gear.

I wanted to have the retract mounts go across the gear so I could have a "balanced" (by strength) setup, but since the gear bent forward, the mounts go only up to the retract mechanism, thus relying on a "cantilever" effect for the integrity of the mounts. This should still be OK, as long as the fiberglass reinforcement (to be shown on the final plans) extends up to the mounts.

More info to come. I am glad I am getting very good comments from all of you, which will make me improve the plans.

Thanks again! obi mapua