Scale Soaring UK

Thanks for posting these pictures! They are beautiful! Especially the ones from YU-4103 are really special. Anyone who knows what happened to this plane - as it seem to be in storage of the Aeronautical Museum in Belgrade?
There is still no progress on my Meteor. I decided to first finish a Caudron C460 1/3 what I started some 10 years ago. But that job is almost finished and then back to the lovely Meteor!

I have started the build of the Ikarus Meteor again. Weather was terrible so no excuses anymore! There is some work left in planking the left wing and even a repair is needed as the cat was a bit too heavy for a 2 mm balsa skin..
Jilles has provided me with a new design for the flap and aileron ribs. I did not want to follow the original design which showed full balsa construction. Now I can extend the balsa skin of the wing and build the flaps and ailerons in"situ". I will post pictures!

Today I finished the balsa skinning of the top side of the wing. I have extended the balsa skin until the trailing edge such to accommodate for build up flaps and aileron.
Time to cut the wing in two pieces and remove it from the board!! A milestone achieved!

The wingpanels are still quite flexible in torsional direction. So a support is needed to keep the wing straight when skinning the bottom. Constructing the correct wing incidence from the drawing is a bit tricky. There are only a few wing sections on the drawing. The other support points are constructed by creating a graph to check the alignment of the wing incidence over the lenght of the wing. The results seems to be quite plausible. The wing root has an incident of 1,55 degreed and the tip has an incident of 0,7 degrees.

I put the wing in his bed. It almost fits. A bit of weight forced it into shape.

Next is the flaps of the inner wing panel. I got modified rib drawings from Jilles Smit. I decided to cut the ribs by hand. Easy job, only 70 pieces to go!

A sketch to clarify the modified flap and aileron construction. The flaps will be cut loose from the wing only when the entire wing is covered with glass and sanded. After the removal of the flaps, a balsa nose will be added to the flap. Hope this will result in straight and flush flaps!

Small update; the work on the inner panel is ongoing. Flaps are ready. Balsa hinge points added. Now adding the stringers and main spar. Stil quite a to-do list before the wing can be closed with the lower skin.

The mid panel is basically ready for closing with the bottom-skin. All webbings applied, I have increased the webbing plates from 1,5 mm to 3 mm at the critical locations (at the end of the wing joiner tube and 2 webspaces forward. Servo's fitted and wires applied.
But before doing this irreversal step some thoughts:
- should I add wing locking device to hold it to the fuselage? The plan does not provide details. I do have good experience with tape, but this baby is a bit larger.. The wing root area is difficult to access for a wing locking from the cockpit.
- the design shows single web plates except for the highly loaded areas. I like stiff wings so should I apply double webbing?
- I ordered the Schambeck brakes but did not receive them. Shall I wait to check if they fit? The plan is actually prepared for taking these type of brakes.
Any feedback is welcome! I need to decide in the coming days as Christmas holidays are coming.

Hi, I suggest that you definitely need some form of wing retainer, rather than rely on tape.
I have fitted Multiplex Unilocs to 1/4 scale models, but have found that they can pop out unintentionally with bigger wingspan models.
I’m not sure how easy it may be to fit given where you seem to be with your build, but I have found that the simple thin aluminium plates shown below seem to work well. They provide enough clamping resistance for normal use, but will pull off in the event of a major force.


These pics are from a 1/3 scale Olympia where the tab was fitted to the wing root rib & access to the fuselage fixing was easy.
I’m currently using a similar arrangement on a 1/3 scale Jaskolka, where a bolting plate has been installed inside the fuselage wing root stub & the clamping bolt will be inserted from underneath.
Another alternative is to have a plate in the wing & the tab protruding from the fuselage, inserting the bolt from under the wing root.


I would wait to try your brakes when they arrive as I am a firm believer that ‘if something can go wrong, then it will happen sometime”

Another possible method is a a strong elastic band or spring going through the fuselage, connecting together hooks on each wing root.

Hope the above helps.