I recently saw a combat plane that had a foam core and had a carbon fiber spar and leading edge and was covered in rip stop. I was wondering where these items can be purchased and how to apply them to the foam core.

Midair,

The items you talk about are the latest building techniques in Open combat. Very simple and very durable for minimal expense. The rods I've been using are 1/8" - 5/32" diameter solid fiberglass. Fiber glass is stronger then carbon fiber, not as stiff but considerably cheaper. They can be purchased on line from these:

www.intowind.com (upto 48" rods) approx. $1.00/each
www.kitebuilder.com (upto 72" rods, the way to go if you building long wings) 72 inchers approx. $2.00/each.

Ripstop nylon or plain nylon can be found at most fabric stores. Walmart usually has plain nylon on the $1.00 rack, can't be picky about colors but for a buck you can't go wrong. Most people have been using water based polyuerathane from the hardware store. 10 dollars for a quart, which will do about 12 wings.

The foam is high-load from either Dow or Dow Corning. Insulation dealers usually carry it. The 40 psi crush seems to be the best combination of weight and strength.

Mike Fredericks at [email protected] cuts CNC wing cores for a very reasonable price if you're not familiar with burning, I mean cutting foam cores.

There is a lot of information @ www.rccombat.com under the Topic Forum about these topics. If you do a search on any of these topics you'll be reading for hours...

Good luck...

Thanks.

How do you apply the ripstop?
How many pieces, 2 (top and bottom)?
How far do you overlap it?

Go to www.georgiacombat.com
He has complete instructions. I don't do the hot water thing anymore and it works just as good for me. You'll see what I'm talking about after you read the instruction.