Winston's Flying WingI've started building the Renegade, a stupid-fast delta wing design from Flying Models plans (April, 2002). Ivan Munninghoff designed it to go 150 mph, though I doubt I'll get it to go that fast. I plan to start with a GMS .47 and then, if it survives the maiden flights, to go to an MVVS Quickie .40. The plans call for a ducted-fan engine. Dave Bagwell helped me cut the foam and the wooden parts of the kit. The plane is named after a cat in Iowa who has adopted me as his uncle. The cost of foam, balsa wood, and glue is relatively low. The cost in time, tools, and techniques is high. I'm practicing things that I hope will be helpful in building future models:
It's amazing how many steps go into building a plane like this. I was real proud of how the plane looked after the skins were vacuum-bagged:
Then I had to cut off the trailing edge, cut out the ailerons, dig out space for the ailerons and the retracts, wiggle the air bottle into the wing, epoxy the engine mount into place, and fit the stabilizers. I'm using relatively large wheels because we fly off grass at Reservoir Park.
Starting the process of priming and sanding has revealed how many mistakes I made with the fiberglass and epoxy. I also left the primer WAAY too thick. It's amazing how much sanding it takes to get rid of brush strokes. :o(
If this doesn't work out, I've got some spare sets of cores waiting in the wings (pun intended; you may laugh now):
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