MarkNovack

My Feedback: (3)

Hi,
I'm pausing to wait for some opinions on lightening up the front of this Pitts S-1-11B. You can see by the plans that this basic stucture will be covered by formers, longerons, and then sheeted from F4 forward. The gear plate and cabanes are aircraft ply, the forward of F3 doubler is 1/4" balsa. The firewall is 3/8" aircraft ply. When bolted on, the bottom wing provides lots of stiffening with the wide bolt spacing x4.

The four large openings rear of the canopy took out 152 grams.

I could route some more holes or continue per plan and build onwards. Would like some proper thoughts.

Thanks,
Mark

saramos

Do the plans or building notes/instructions offer any indications for balancing? If the plane builds tail heavy and you end up adding weights to the nose, then adding lightning holes forward of the CG may not save you much.

Scott

iron eagel

Also the mass in the nose is to reduce the vibrations of the engine. If you are using a two or four stroke motor I would not want to weaken the nose my adding holes to make it lighter.

If on the other hand you plan on going electric then that is not something you would have to worry about.