For now, in my Sailplane Class (or at least in my Wing Group) we are still at a bit of a stand still waiting to get materials back from different locations before we can get to work. So in the meantime, I’m working on building an RC Aircraft. If you remember back from one of my very first posts, I explained that since I’m a Freshman, I’m supposed to build three different model planes during my first year. The first was a Delta Dart, which I finished and flew during my first lab session. The second was a hand-launched glider that I finished a few lab sessions ago. The third one, an RC Aircraft (built from a kit), I just started Wednesday in lab. It took me a while to start this one, since I had been working with my group on the actual HPA (Human Powered Aircraft). Since we didn’t have anything to do in Lab last week, I started working on the kit. So far the assembly has been super easy. All the wing ribs and the fuselage pieces were pre-cut, so basically all I had to do was pop them out and slide them together. After securing the pieces together with a bit of super glue (we call it CA Glue), most of which ended up on my fingers, I was pretty much done with the basic structure of the aircraft. Since I glued it on a piece of foam board, some foam did stick to the wood. This was an easy fix though, since all I had to do was sand it off. That’s the progress I’ve made so far, but I can explain what will happen next time I work on the aircraft. I still have to put the motor in and run the servos. The servos essentially send signals that control the aircraft from the remote control. Besides wiring the plane, I also have to cover the wing structure. To cover this, I’ll use a heat-shrinkable like plastic, that gets put on in a certain way. It almost looks like your ironing the plastic onto the wing to cover it. Anyways, below are pictures of my progress so far on this project, and that’s my weekly update on the happenings in Sailplane!!!
