When I last went to the field I saw that some people didn't rubberband their wings. They screwed them on... is that just custom built... i want to do that to my sig kadet mark II. It seem more secure that rubberbands. Is there a proper way I should do that? or should I even bother?


DM25

Assuming you're still learning, I highly advise keeping the rubber bands. Rubber bands do a great job saving airplanes. It's not obvious at first, but after I built and crashed a few, I learned that wings are incredibly strong (considering their construction). What frequently happens in a crash is the wing tip hits first. If the wing is solidly attached to the fuse, the weight of the engine whips around destroying the fuse between the engine and the wing. Adding the flexible rubber bands uncouples this. That's not to say that you can't destroy your plane if the wing is on with rubber bands, but I believe it saves you in a lot of crashes.

If you go to a bolt on wing, what most folks use is plastic bolts, on the theory that the bolts breaking will do the same function as rubber bands. The problem is that plastic bolt strength is tough to estimate, and they aren't consistant. Also, unless your plane is designed for it, it's tricky converting a plane to bolt-on, and some crashes are caused by the conversion failing.

By the way, if you're worried about the cost of the bands, instead of buying them at the LHS, buy them at Staples.

Definitly stick with the rubber bands. Makes one big crash into two small ones. Does a similar job as the crushable front frame members in a car. In fact I've went to great pains to setup a through the fuse, mid wing sailplane for rubber bands. It saved my plane once or twice.

Watch out buying the rubber bands at Staples. I bought "#1 quality" at Office Depot and put them on my Eagle II. When we sped up with it it went into loops. We finally figured out the #1 quality #64 rubber bands were much stretchier than the SIG rubber bands I also had. Now I use some from the LHS and a few from the office supply store AND I test by lifting the wing from the fuselage to see how much tension there is.

Stick with them for training. I watched a couple of planes flyinto a fence at the end of our runway. The wings seperated and went flying. Except for a few broken rubber bands the planes were fine! I converted an LT40 to bolt on after my training and it is faster to put togetrher but definatly harder on the plane if it crashes!

Funny to read this thread today. I found this site because my "bolt-on" wing fell off at 300' today! Came here to find parts. I am a returning, former-flyer and had never seen "bolt-on." This was my first experience. NOT the planes fault, but a poor field repair left a weak spot at the front connection. One slow roll and the wing flew off. Think I'll stick with rubber bands!