Gaiotto

No problem.

I am building my own to keep costs down and the wife happy. I think she is coming to terms with the time spent too. I intend to sell some short kits, and possibly some ARC's. Hopefully It will generate enough revenue to make my hobby self-supporting, but I am doubtful it will replace my "day job". First I need to finish it, test it, and make adjustments to things like thrust lines, incidence, dihedral etc. My target is to be able to make it to a contest in March, where I hope to get input from some people who are much better flyers than I am.

I will have two planes by then. The second is with the laser cuter now, and has some design changes made while framing the first. I call them v0.1, and v0.3. V1.0 is on the drawing board, and is ready except for any aerodynamic adjustments I may need to make. I am now in the process of making plugs for the cowl, turtle deck/canopy, and wing tips. I decided on molded fiberglass tips not just to save weight (I do not think it will save that much), but also to insure dead ***** repeatability of the shape. Also, if I do build a few to sell as ARC, it will be faster than carving them, and I would want a little higher labor rate than a 14 year old in China would require.

The design has morphed a lot from the Gator Giles that inspired it, but the thing that I liked about that design was the simple, fast building fuselage structure. The design has been largely driven by that consideration, and DFM (design for manufacturability) is the big difference between making enough to support my habit, and it not being worth the trouble. Two piece wing and stab make it easier to transport in my small car.