1/5 Scale Slingsby T51 Dart 17.

[Barry_Cole]

I give in. I cannot beat that....



BC

[Cliff Evans]

I give in. I cannot beat that....



BC

LOL!!!

[Peter Balcombe]

You will soon know if you have made the right wing Brian, you won’t have any left overs

[B Sharp]

Problem is Peter that I have made the right wing and I still have plenty of left overs!
Brian

[B Sharp]

With the completion of the left wing, all of the main building on the Dart is now done. Today I was able today to assemble the whole airframe for the first time. Once again the tailplane size is giving me a little concern. Even although I increased the area by 10% it still looks very small. As usual there are also one or two minor fitting issues to be sorted out before covering can begin.
I suspect that I will be spending the next week covering and possibly painting however that is weather dependent to a certain extent.
There are still loads of little finishing jobs to be done as well as all the elictrickery installation to be finalised. Plenty to keep me occupied!
Brian.

[B Sharp]

I have managed to move things on a bit with the Dart in the last few days. I have done a bit of painting as you will see. I have also started the radio installation with the receiver seat, elevator and rudder servos and also the tow release servo down on the cockpit floor. All of this has gone without any difficulty. I have also started the covering process with the tailplane halves using white “Profilm”.
The wings will be next.
Brian.

[John Vella]

Brian, I wouldn't be concerned over the smallish tailplane on the Dart as it does have a long moment arm. The full size flew okay. I would be more concerned on keeping the back end of the Dart as light as possible for begnine handling. Regards John.

[B Sharp]

John, the reason that I am so concerned about the tailplane area is that the fuselage of this model is shorter than scale as was discussed way back in the first couple of posts on this thread. On my 1:3.5 version, which has a scale length, I had a tailplane half fall off in flight and still remained controllable. Knowing that the fuselage is shorter on this model I designed the tail to be 10% larger to give me a little margin of safety.
Brian.

[Peter Balcombe]

Brian,
The Dart15 version flies well with the original size tailplane which was solid balsa in Pat’s original kit, but made as semi-open structure in the later design to reduce nose ballast & overall weight.
The extra 10% tail area you added should be fine, even with the increased span.
Peter

[B Sharp]

Peter, I didn't recieve any plans for a tailplane so I checked drawings and also my 1:3.5 unit and calculated a 1.5 tailplane. I then increased the volume by 10% as a rough guess. It still looks small by comparison to the wing area, but that's a Dart trait. As I said earlier my big one flew on 1/2 tailplane so If I have any major problems I can make a slightly enlarged version.
Brian.