Sopwith Triplane build

[Bent]

All those DR I's in Oakville last month was very cool. I've started putting together a British triplane. The struts and cabanes are 1" aluminum with jig mounted brass tubes. Fiberglass rods will pass through the 4 mil flutes and brass tubes to hold the wings in alignment. That's the theory anyway. I'm hoping to avoid spars altogether and the airfoil shape will come from foam ribs covered in vinyl....brown vinyl that is!

[Bent]

Wings are almost done. The kevlar cross bracing makes the structure rigid and sets the dihedral with no spars. Foam ribs are super easy to make and stick well with carpet tape. Unlike balsa ribs, the foam ones flex with the coro and won't pop off. It's a pain covering the wings. I'm using Avery A8 vinyl, cocoa colour, will need about $20 worth to cover the whole airplane....Collishaw's Black Maria.

[Fodder]

I'm sure the combat session with this plane will be really interesting to watch.

[Bent]

Hope to have Black Maria flying by the weekend. Still have some problems to sort out...my torque rod system produced mushy ailerons and the sparless wings are very flimsy outboard of the struts. I'm thrilled with the final weight, 3 lb. 10 oz with an OS 25FP and full size radio gear. The throttle servo is a HS-81 (ran out of big ones). The cg is around 30 % of the total chord (does that sound about right Iceman?)

Maidened her this evening and it's a keeper, very stable at all speeds. The FP with an APC 9-4 gives plenty of top end and a good climb. Dan took a decent video but I don't have the software to post here.

There's talk of forming a naval squadron to take on that circus in the west.

[canadianice]

Yep sounds good to me, can not wait to see her on Sunday. You guys know that flying starts at 8 for ww1. So have them ready to go. field is looking good Al has put a tone or two of fresh gravel in the parking lot. heading out tomorrow to set things up boy what a lot of work to do for an event,we had nothing so everything has to be made and i had no idea how much was involved. But I know it will be worth it