K I've lurked here long enough. Guess I'll post my lame pics. Sorry it wasn't very extreme. Funny thing though, the fuse traveled on through the woods about another 100 yards away. Found it inverted with the fin busted, a hole punched through the side, and gears ripped off. The servo tray shifted. The vines and thick brush kept it from hitting into the ground hard. Had to dig some goop out of the carb but all is well. Pics are before and after (crash and post crash repairs)

I hit the tops of the trees after losing control seemingly from a really bad downdraft. Notice only the front ribs are damaged and from the spar back everything is in tact.

S

OUCH!!!.............and GOOD JOB!!

Wow, what a great rebuild. Unfortunately I'm in the same boat right now. I managed to clip a tree today while flying my new Sig LT-40. I broke pretty well every rib on the right hand wing from the front spar to the leading edge. And of course broke the leading edge. The kit was an ARF and I don't have the plans to assist making new ribs. Any suggestions? I've added a few pics to show the damage. It seems like the damage is only to the leading edge of the front spars on the right wing.

Northern, NO problem. You are in good shape buddy! My wing did the SAME thing. All the ribs were missing or completely useless and of course the leading edge was destroyed except in one area but was still cracked and useless...needing replace. I am posting a pic of what you should do first. It looks like the only damage is in the right part of the wing. Assuming this is correct and it also looks like it is in the front..do this.

1. remove ALL the covering from the center spar to the area that was formerly known as the leading edge.
2. It looks like you have a Rib or two left on the outside or inside of the wing. You are going to want to template ribs from the good piece. And also, get an idea of what shape the leading edge will need to be. Try to save a nice 1" piece to template from so that when you get your square leading edge, you can shape the entire thing to match the piece you have. This will also help you pic the materials when you visit your hobby store to buy the wood.
The rib - make sure they are the same size as the ones in the center. I know my model has smaller and larger ones as the wing goes toward the center. Maybe, and I hate to suggest this, but cut open the good side of the wing as a last resort and template off of one of those ribs. Don't stress over it though, it's a trainer. They like being butchered.
3. Cut away all the excess wood from the center spar, and bring everything flush by sanding it etc. Then when you make all your ribs, glue them nice and level at the angle they should be to the spar system. THEN when they are finished being glued, take some pieces of 1/4" x 1/8" x 1" pieces of balsa, and glue them to EACH side of EACH rib against the center spar. So in other words, you would have the above mentioned brace pieces, Rib, brace piece. All against the spar. Then slather it all in glue. A few drops over the pieces after they are glued individually should hold things even better than the originally construction.
4. After that is all done, and you have your final wing half complete. It's time to cover. Overlap covering an inch over the spar area (or repaired area) to allow for the best bonding and adhering.
5. Make sure that before you glue that leading edge on, you get the basic if not final shape complete before gluing it. It's a pain to sand when you have to swing a wing around.
6. Now you have to balance the wing. You will notice that the repaired side is going to drop if you hold the wing with two finger at teh very center. Unfortunately you are going to have to cut into the good side of the wing. And then patch it. Get a piece of 1/8" ply or balsa chunks and glue them to the outside edge of the wing once you decide how much weight you need on that side to balance things. It doesn't have to be totally perfect. But it is a necessary evil otherwise your plane will want to turn all the time.

I'm enclosing a pic of my wing stripped down ready to be repaired. Hope you see what I did is much like what you are doing. The covering took the longest to be honest. Damn near 4 hours. I'm slow. Took me an Sat evening to do the repair..and an entire football game plus to cover it. And I burned my rug with the damn iron. DOH.

ASK if you have ANY questions. Good luck...and post pics of any progress you may have..

Thanks Sincraft, that was a quick response. I was almost ready to throw in the towel and buy either a complete ARF wing or a complete LT-40 kit. Your idea is cheaper and good training for an aspiring RC flyer! I especially liked the comment about removing the covering from the area that was formally known as the leading edge. Smartass! I think I'll have to cut one rib out of the good side though. They're all smashed on the right side.

The covering part I'm a bit unclear on though. Would you recommend that I completely strip the one wing and recover? Or, would I just cut away to either the front spar or rear spar and patch from there forward?

Hmmm, well. Since you are cutting the 'good half'. Maybe cover both to match from spar to LE. Dunno. It's all up to you however. It's mostly a matter of, how frankensteined do you want it to look? If you just cover that one half from the front to the spar...or even the whole half...are you going to be able to match the color? This is usually a difficult task unless your hobby store carries at least 3 or 4 different products. By the way, don't go for the cheap stuff. It's cheap for a reason, usually paper thin. Monokote or Ultrakote or those types of things are the best. If there is foreign writting on it, skip it hehe. But seeing as how you are from canada, there may be some french ones up there. I've seen some good ones of those. Just make sure it is not transparent in any way.
But yea, if you had a match, I would just cover the repaired area and go from there. You probably wont see the seem...and even so at 2 feet away wont. You dont want to sink too much cash into it as you want to save your covering for future repair jobs. Unless you are the luckiest person in the world, you WILL wreck again. I promise you that. Hey and watch out for those trees will ya? Geesh. And all this time I though they were our friends.
Funny thing, for about 5 flights afterwards my approach on final for landing , kinda goes over those trees. I landed with the wind just to keep from goign over those trees haha. Good luck and let me know the progress eh?

S

Sincraft,

Thanks for the great information. It's people like you that keep this hobby fun. You've provided awsome information to help me rebuild this plane. Thanks again, and yes I'll post pictures on the progress.

you did it right

I gotta tell ya--

I had a Goldberg Jr. Tiger do the same thing years ago. I still remember the wings sitting in the tree and the fuselage just shooting out the other side. Very Bizarre to watch.

GL - Mine was garbage can fodder.

I had an Eagle 65 that I picked up at a garage sale last year. Best purchase I ever made, but that is another story. I was flying out in the desert doing some fast low "pylon" style turns and managed to fly through a mequite tree. Came out the other side and managed to land it intact. the wing covering was shredded, tail covering shredded. I started to repair it with Zagi tape, but it was eventually retire due to an unfortunate hanger accident. Oh well, still the best $35 I ever spent. Oh, the other story, it came with a Saito FA-65, servos and reciever in it. Looked like it sat in someones garage for about 10 years. It was a great plane that put up with tons of abuse!