Seeing is BEElieving

Day 2 of the Windrider Bee speed build.

First up, I found that the wing ends of the Bee really weak. If I were to hold the plane by the wing tips, it would just sag. And this is without any batteries or weight up front. My solution was to cut a slit on the underside of the wing, and slide in a small diameter carbon rod. This stiffened the plane a bit more but was still rather unsatisfactory. I then epoxied some flat carbon ribbon onto the top of the wing the length of each elevon. This really stiffened the plane up and I figured once I covered the plane with Budget Kote, it should be able to withstand punishment meted out by other wings and hopefully the unforgiving trees.

Now for the covering, I'm still not that good at covering foam cores, I need more practice. But given the rush nature of this build, I'll just do a decent job and fix anything later. This might not be the best way but I just had to give the Bee some air time by today.



I took around 2 hours just to cover something as simple as this. And the covering job was still far from satisfactory. My colour scheme: yellow for the top part of the wing and silver on the underside. This is the longest process of the whole build.

Next up, I proceeded to installing the push rods and control horns to the elevons. After that to the final programming of the radio. Done. I have succeeded in finishing the Bee for flight in less than 24 hours and around 6 hours of work on it. Fastest build of any plane ever for me. I decided to save the embelishment on the plane for later. Now it's time to hit the slopes and get some air time.

Max gave me a lift to the slope. Once up there, I checked for any conflicting frequency and Ken threw the Bee off the slope. She flies. It initially seemed nose heavy so I added some reflex. The next launch the Bee just ballooned up and it seemed to be stalling. I think I added too much reflex this time.

The bummer came when the 12FG's low voltage warning started beeping as I collected the Bee. Damn. Well, on the bright side, the Bee flew. I will have another chance to trim it on Friday.




So for most of the time on the slope I did some catching up with the other guys, flew Max's Windrider Fox and just "kaypo"-ed around.

Once I got back, I continued with the markings on the Bee's underside.




Now I just cannot figure out what to do with the top. I'll figure something out soon.

Signing off,
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