I just bought the Avistar trainer and I am wondering what you guys suggest, if anything, to strengthen the wing. I am not big on just having a couple metal straps holding it together. Any ideas?? Thanks in advance!

Dave

Hi,

I would highly recomend fiberglassing the wings of your avistar. It will make it stronger and once you get over the training part you will be able to reajust any ajustments you made back to the original settings. Let me tell you when you are done training this plane will do just about anything except the 3D stuff. Very good plane and it flies well and it can take a lot of crashes. It took a higher powered engine in my friends avistar to make the plane unsalvagable. But any way we both highly recomend fiberglassing the wings you will never reqret doing so. Hope this helps, and good luck with your flying.

Aloha,

Cliff
Pearl Harbor HI[8D]

WOW! I didn't know that they still used that method!!! Ok heres what I would do. Measure from the centre of the wing joint 2" out from the left side of the wing and draw a line all the way around the wing. Now do the same for the rigfht side. One of those felt perma markers with the thin tip will work well. Then very carefully with a sharp exacto knife remove the covering from the centre out to the 2" marks. Now use 15 minute epoxy to join the wing halfes together. Make sure the top of the 2 wing halves are touching until the epoxy has cured. Now turn the wing over and you will see a gap between the 2 wing halves. Make another batch of epoxy and fill up the gap with the epoxy. Get some 6 to 8 oz. fiberglass cloth. and cut the cloth 4" wide. Use 15 minute epoxy worked into the cloth to go around the wing. I would do the top in 2 stages and then turn the wing over and then do the bottom the same. Sand the fiberglass job until its smooth and then recover the 4" wide section with moncoat. hope this helps.

If you must 'glass the wing, please remember that you must absolutely NOT score the balsawood under the covering when you trim it. Scoring the wood just marks it with a "break right here". This is especially true when trimming the covering on the horizontal and vertical stabilizers. We've seen models that crashed because part of the tail blew off because the skin was scored when the covering was trimmed prior to gluing.

I agree with all the above. I used the 5 min epoxy when I first built my Avistar's wing on the joint. I didn't know about the fiberglassing at that time. My first crash, the wing split right on the center joint breakng the spar in half at the same time. Very little damage done that I fixed in abt a week. When I put them back together, I used 1 inch fiberglass tape to strengthen the joint. Flys great again.

And they aren't kidding about what this thing will do after you get proficient in flying. My Instructor has put mine through it's paces and is very impressed with its abilities.

Have Fun!

Thanks for the replys! I am getting back into the hobby right now. I have a few higher performance planes but decided to buy the Avistar to regain my skills. I am happy to hear that it will perform quite well! Thanks for all the advice. I figured that the joint left as is would be incredibly weak!!! Happy flying!

Dave

Glue the wing if you are going to use a 40 or 46 size engine.
GLue and glass the wing if you are using something bigger.

The avistar my son bought last summer did not use the straps, the wing was joined in the conventional way, with epoxy, hasn't faild yet.

I got an HPI nitro car about six months ago, had fun with it but every time I ran it and smelled that nitro exhaust I started thinking about getting another airplane. Didn't take long! I still run car but that's only because I can't fly airplane at house!