r/BalsaAircraft

So close! Needs a windscreen, painted props, a flying prop and some other small details, but by and large all it really needs is to be made airworthy. My achilles heel. 34 grams as she sits. Amazing how fast the weight adds up.

A little underpowered with the FG-40 Saito. I'm going to swap it out for a Stinger 35cc two stroke.

Working on getting my DLG back in the air after the front fell off last weekend. All I’ve got to work with is scraps from a couple of completed kits. It won’t be pretty but it’ll fly im sure.

Next up is to finish the nose and try and construct a cockpit cover from scraps.

In the second pic you can see some of the extra bracing for the wing mounting that I added after the wing ripped off the fuselage after the first couple of throws.

A very straightforward kit. It was a gift and will probably be a gift. I almost regret not doing it with the wheels and flaps down. It wasn't a kit I wanted to build, so I kind of rushed through it. I'm running out of ceiling space. One of the Western Gray squirrels that hangs out in my backyard. Plans from AeroFred for my next project, which I will make as the R flown by Pancho Barnes. A Guillow's kit that I did 15 years ago. It didn't have decals, so I hand-painted everything. My hands were much steadier back then. Presently, it's hanging from my grandson's bedroom ceiling.

I recovered my 121" 37.5% Yak 54. I used nuecover film from Value Hobby. Metallic Blue, Metallic Black Pearl, white, and Chrome Monokote as trim. Cowl is getting painted next

New build ready for covering. Thanks for fellow redditor chrismofer for posting the photo of the plan some years ago and the images of the build, including the dog, that got me inspired.
This might be my first peanut scale build that is - so far - light enough to actually fly.

88" span 24lbs DLE61

Found an old die cut kit at a swap meet. It went together well. Tissue and watered down Elmer’s glue.
Set up with 4 channels, a 12g motor that’s way too powerful but balances the plane well and a 2s 300ma lipo.
Flys smooth and stable in calm wind until about 1/2 throttle then gets pretty spicy.

Need to finish the cowling, fitting the landing gear and windshield, and then decide on wheel spats and decals.

It’s been a fun build and I’ve relearned many of the lessons my Grandfather first taught me 20 years ago.

Getting down to the wire, needs to be boxed and shipped in two weeks - hopefully with some trim flights first. Finishing up on small details: Wing/stab fillets, mock radial engines, nose prop (there are two nose cones, one for display, one with nose prop with transparent blades, which should be barely visible during flight), glass (er plastic) windows, etc.

This is my Dancing Wings DLG. I think i’ve yet to take this thing out for a flight session without something breaking. It’s partly down to the pilot, partly the thrower, and partly the quality of the design and materials.

the first couple of flights the wing ripped off the fuselage because the mounting was just not robust enough. I modified it to be a four point mount with the front two being thru bolted through the fuselage.

Then the whole back end came off right at the spot where the carbon tail boom stops. that happened twice. i’ve reinforced with extra balsa and epoxy and we’re good for now.

Then I took it to a highschool track meet and had some of the discus throwers huck it. After the second throw the tail broke off again and in the resulting crash the nose got bent up and the vertical stabilizer snapped off.

Today we had probably 10+ successful launches/flights until a nasty stall at about 20ft sent it nose first into the grass. we tried for one more flight and the cockpit cover flew off and the battery flew out. you can see how the landing went.

I’m pretty happy with my repairs and the fact that the wing itself has held up. The fuselage design though, not very robust.

I’ve had this plane for years. I think I built it back in 2018. I got sick of changing out the rubber, so I put an electric motor and a micro RX in it. So now it’s free flight adjacent.

Almost finished with this project. Putting a 720 coreless motor and gearbox, a micro 2g standalone Rx and 1 1.8g linear servo for rudder. I put metal tabs into the elevator to fine tune the flight. I haven’t done tissue covering in a long time so im a little rusty at it.

Added a carbon fiber spar, slight modification to the airframe and a 9° dihedral with a 8520 motor and gearbox and the crossover RX “brick” flies on a 150mah 1s with about a 6 minute flight time and clear ultracote AOW of 1.3oz

I drove 1200 miles round trip to pick up this plane. It will have a 100-150cc engine in it.