John still has his fuselage moulds and is interested in making some of his old models available again via Laser Cut Sailplanes (LCS).
As a result, I have recently designed new built-up flying surfaces to go onto John's Diamond fuselage to upgrade it to a 3 metre electric soarer, albeit using the same root wing profile, but transitioning to S3021 along the inner panel.
The wing is designed as a 4 piece affair, with zero dihedral on the centre sections to make it easy to use a single carbon joiner tube. The outer panels have 4 degrees dihedral & are plugged on using 3mm carbon rod joiners, with the end sections of these cranked up by a further 4 degrees.
The wing panels can be left joined to ease rigging.
No spoilers are fitted as separate flaps & ailerons give pretty much full span control.
The wings have a sheeted D box and rear open structure, whilst the AMT has been enlarged for the increased span and is fully built-up, as is the rudder.
John told me that when he retooled the Diamond a few years ago, he made the fuselage nose section circular, so blending in the motor mount and spinner should be easier
![Wink ;)](./images/smilies/icon_e_wink.gif)
Anyway, I made a start on the tail feathers last week, making these up as simple structures from 1/4" Sq. balsa & 1/8" balsa strip ribs, LE & TE, plus brass tubes to suit an available AMT crank. The rudder has also been enlarged a little.
I received a set of laser cut ribs from Cliff Evans at lunchtime today, so by teatime had the basic RH wing structure largely glued up using Aliphatic glue as shown in the pics. Once this has fully set, I will add the joiner tubes & then the top spar pieces.