im putting together a SE and wanted to know what everybody is using to hold the wings together,is a doubled up rubber band enough or is there a better way to hold the wings tight? the rubber bands are a pain to get on,, i don't like leaving my wings on when i haul them to the field. thanks larry

Another suggestion I found was using a zip tie. Obviously has to be replaced every time but it's an alternative.

We have had six SEs flying in our club during the past year, two of them mine. The wing holding methods were equally split between plastic zip ties and #64 rubber bands triple looped. One of my planes uses rubber bands, the other is zip tied. I have not noticed a problem with either method. I have heard that a flyer in another local club had his wings come apart while doing multiple snap rolls, but haven't had the opportunity to speak to him about it.

I do recommend that you double-, then triple-check that the 'J' bolts are securely mounted into the root rib. One of our flyers chose to drill the holes "slightly larger" (because he was having trouble threading the J bolts in), and also forgot to epoxy the bolts in. [X(] Fortunately a bolt pulled out when he assembled the plane at the field.....rather than during a flight. He now has dozens of flights on his SE without a problem.

I think you will enjoy your SE. It's not fast, but it is smooth with no bad habits!

It's also important to make sure the ends of those j bolts are nice and smooth. They often have burrs that can nick the rubber bands and lead to early failure.

One thing that you may want to address is the REAR dowel that aligns the wings with the fuse! you see about a month before I got to that point on mine, a fellow club member lost a BEAUTIFUL SE do to the thin dowel falling INTO one wing! This made the other wing start spinning and ... well let's just say that it took nearly 15 seconds to impact tera firma and he start yelling right away! Everyone got to se it go in. One of a very few times I heard a fiel full of pilots go completely silent!

The SE doesn't have any stop inside the wing to hold the dowel from slipping sideways into the wing! My advise is to glue it to one wing! I did this on my set of wings with 5 minute epoxy and had no problems!

Oh one last bit of advise, HAVE FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The SE is a blast to fly! Harrier to a landing with it is a BLAST!!!


Reg

Instead of those litle J bolts, used larger hooks that one uses to hang a picture on a wall with. Much easier to get the rubber band in, and no fear of comming loose as the threads are longer for more bite.

thanks guys, i think i will try a doubled up rubber band and a zip tie, it seems to hold the wings on nice and tight. now i'm trying to find the neutral position for the ailerons, i usually run a straight edge on top of the wing, but on this wing it does'nt look right. should i run the straight edge on the bottom or top of the wing to find the neutral position? Larry

Sig sends an aileron gage in the kit, die cut piece of ply. It works off the top of the wing.
BTW I use 2 rubber bands on mine, no problem. The hooks do have to come through far enough or it's a pain.
Tip: I cut a long dowel for the back holes and use it and the wing pipe with a rubber band to hold together for transporting on my rack.
This plane is a blast!!

flyfree69:

As woodbutcher mentioned, the aileron gauge provided allows relatively easy and quick set up of aileron neutral. I tend to misplace things and couldn't find the gauge after recovering the wing of my SE. So I used a method a Pattern competitor introduced me to a long time back, which works when the airfoil is full symetrical. Draw a line from the center of the leading edge to the center of the traiing edge of both the root and tip of each wing half, and the same for each aileron. Using a straight edge adjust the control linkage until the lines on the wing and aileron are aligned. I used a fine tip Sharpie because rubbing alcohol easily wipes the ink off iron-on coverings and most paints.

RCaillouet3:

Thanks for your post regarding the rear dowel. Haven't flown either of my SEs since I got the Funtana last summer, so I decided to check them. I thought I had epoxied the dowel into the fuselage in both planes. The kit version was solid, but apparently I had only tack glued the dowel in the ARF. It was tight, but pulled out with little effort. NOW it is epoxied in place.

hello
when i decided to buy the se, i was concerned about the way the wings are attached.
while building it, i decided to put two small screws to hold the wings.

i used the same bolts sig uses for the engine mount.
drilled the wing and added a nut for it.
on the inside i glued a washer to keep the bolt from braking the balsa fuse..
when i get to the field i screw the bolts, put a rubber band and turn the hooks so they cannot get out.
never had any problem. flying her for more than a year and a half [8D]

only truble was finding a screwdriver... found a small one and cut it so it would fit...

thanks tonystro , my ailerons look alot better now that i did it the way you said,i must have lost my gauge to or i didn't get one. your way worked just fine. it's all ready to go and i'm waiting for the weekend to see what this plane will do. thanks for the help guys Larry

larry,

Glad to share. I hope you will enjoy your SE as much as I do mine. They are my "relax and have fun" planes.

One last thought on holding in the J-bolts...

I installed Tee-nuts in the wing's root ribs during construction. I also used a scrap piece of lite ply under the tee-nut as extra reinforcement, but that's just me.

And for the wing dowel, I thought the instructions told us to glue it in anyway once the wing was jigged in, or did I mis-read that?

For the aileron jig, I lost mine too. I just made a new one up by copying the side view of the wing on the plans.

Not meaning to criticize here.. just tossing out some alternative ideas....

I'm on my 2nd SE now. Lost the first one to an engine flame-out on takeoff. Ran out of altitude, airspeed, and ideas all at the same time.. It was a nice plane, too.

Bob

Bob,

Thanks for the ideas. I hadn't consider either the Tee-nuts nor using the plan side views to create a new aileron jig. Regarding the rear dowel, I couldn't remember what the plans said. I note no criticism in your post, only a sharing of thoughts and experiences and I appreciate them.

I have had the SE kit since it first came out, but haven't built it yet, however, I have built several pattern planes that had plug-in wings, and I use a coiled spring which stretches from one "hook" to the other. Hook the spring on with a pair of hemostats if it is crowded in there. Most good hardware stores have a complete collection of these springs, with varying lengths, coil sizes and wire sizes. Pick one that is under some degree of tension when hooked up, but it doesn't have to be extreme.

On my Edge 540, I have a balsa block in the fuselage drilled to accept the spring, and it rides in this block until I am ready to hook it up for flight. Never worry about leaving it home that way!

Clair

flyfree69: I am just finishing my SE. I spent this past weekend working on the covering. I will be finished in about a 1 week. It is my first kit. I have been told by others in the club that I fly in that "O" rings make a good connecting band. Just get the right size at an auto parts store, and put two on rather than one. I have been told it works great.

thanks hookedonrc, using o-rings might be a good idea, they might be a little stronger and tighter than just a rubber band.

I use a large spring from an old type writer. You can get springs at the hardware store tool. Easy on and off, they don't break or let go, and I don't have to worry about it. I did use different J bolts. I also added some ply for them to screw into so they would not come out under any condition. I throw it around pretty hard and didn't want to have one come off. Been using springs for years in my big gliders. They have always worked well.

I have been flying my Somethin extra for 3 years with just the stock setup and it has worked just fine. I use two rubber bands and only double loop them. I use two for redundancy only. I did epoxy the hooks into the wing root also as they were screwed in. Don't be afraid to use the stock setup. We have two flying at our field and it works just fine.

Steve

Why isn't the dowel glued to the fuse?

TyBryner, you could easily glue the dowel to the fuse! I just elected to glue it to one wing. My resoning was that I took the airplane down a lot for transport. If I kept the Aluminum tube center section in the wing that the dowel was glued to, it would help to prevent breaking due to the aluminum joiner being longer would hit anythin before the dowel. Also, I did it at around midnight and probably wasn't thinking to clearly about a good enough reason and at least it sounded good at the time.

No I think that glueing it to a wing may be slightly better in case you actually break the dowel in transport with the wings off. Having to dril out one hole on the wings section may be easier than driiling out 2 holes on the fuse sides, just to replace the dowel.

Other than that, there really is no difference where you glue the dowel to, just so lons as it is secured in some way or another

Reg

The spring works great for me too, I just purchased a few at the hardware and cut them down untill the tension was where I wanted it, bend the ends out like LOOPS and wala! no more rubber bands

Ok cool.. I just hadn't got that far yet on my kit and was surprised to learn that it wasn't part of the directions to glue it to the fuse. I just figured that would be the way it was designed.