Conway Tornado

[billscottuk]

Waiting on the plan for this to arrive. Anybody find any problems with it or have any suggestions for building/improving?

[AndyB]

As it happens, this was my first PSS model (1996-ish??). Mine turned out at about 37 oz, more through incompetance than anything else (and the use of multiple car spray cans over solartex!). It was very good on big slopes, had it for years but scrapped it recently when the immensely thick paint started to craze.

Your plan may be updated but, FWIW, here are my views:

Cosmetic

Suggest checking the nose length; I know the AI24 nose is longer than standard, but mine looked much better when the radome was shortened (by about an inch, I think). Andy may well have updated his plan though.

The fuselage is actually a bit fat in plan view, this is because the fuselage sides at the cockpit should (IMO) be parallel, not splayed outwards. This doesn't matter much though, you don't notice it in flight.

Andy may well have increased the wing chord slightly (by moving the leading edge forwards a bit); it needed this and his latest version looks much better.

Aerodynamics

I fly off an average slope, if you're in a similar position then I recommend changing the wing section to S3021 with a couple of degrees of washout. Having the bottom of the airfoil parallel to the centreline will then give an approximately-correct average wing incidence.

Practicalities

Again, if you fly off an average slope then I don't recommend solartex and car spray paints - that cost about 8 oz on mine. Profilm grey top and solarfilm polyester light grey bottom are quite good matches though.

I don't know if the plan still shows a removable fin, mine was a right pain and I just fixed it in place after a few months.

I think the latest plan shows a square tube arrangement for the stabilisers? If so this is fine but mine had 10swg wheel collets and fitting the stabilisers at the start of each flying session was a chore.

I missed off the ply fuselage doublers - and I can state categorically that the fuselage is a bit weak without them :-). Can't remember what thickness they are, they might not need to be 1/16" though.

Flight performance does benefit from playing with the c.g.

Hope this helps.

[billscottuk]

Have started the build on this and would appreciate any build photo's anybody has. In particular around the wing area and what stays attached to the wing when its' removed