Pete1

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Hi all,

I'm currently flying a Hotspot I bought built and am in the process of building another one. I'm going to glass the verticals with 6 oz. fiberglass because the instructions recommend atleast 4 oz. but my question is for the weight of the wing fiberglass. I have 2 oz. but am wondering if that is to heavy. Can anybody give me some advice on the weight to use and where to purchase it online?

Thanks in advance,

Pete

Tom Antlfinger

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Hi Pete:

As opposed to the fins, where the glass really adds needed structural strength, glassing the wings is strictly for a base for your primer and paint....I typically get my cloth from my friend and fellow jet flyer, Art Gajewski at Art's Hobbies in Michigan(www.arts-hobby.com)....and use 3/4 oz cloth......applied with Z-Poxy Finishing resin.....if you squeegee real well, it adds only a few ounces to each panel......

The wing is built solid....quite a few guys don't use cloth, resin and paint, but just Monocote or UltraCote, as additional strenth is not needed.....

Here a shot of one of my wings......never bothered to paint it....the obechi wood grain thru the cloth/glass actually is quite nice.....

Tom

Pete1

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Hey Tom,

Thanks for the info and quick response. Your wing looks nice. Are you still flying you Hotspot?

Pete

erbroens

As long as you didn't use a 20+ Lbs turbine in your HS, wing glassing is not required... but if you are going to use a 20-30+ Lbs range engine, I bet that you will feel better knowing that you have done the best you could in the structure of your airframe while you are doing 200+mph

Regards, Enrique

Tom Antlfinger

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Enrique/Pete:

There are many guys in the states and U.K. that have been flying the HS with a P-120 full bore at just under 200 MPH, at 26.5-27.0 lbs thrust...I have never heard of a single wing failure......the wing is a foam, fiberglass, and obechi vacuum bagged sandwich and is very tough along with a beefy wing tube......Mine has somewhere around 250 flights with lots of full throttle pull ups, followed by inside and outside snaps.....wings look like they did when I built it two years ago.....my previous HS did over 250 flights before I lost it to a RX power failure....once again, just light glass on the wings.....what you want to do is keep it light....helps in keeping the landing speeds low......dry weight at our under 20 lbs is ideal....

A couple of other notes......

--put skids on wingtips.....HS's come up on a tip easily, even just turning to fast while taxiing on hard surface

--using at least two bolts(I use 6/32 and blind nuts in the fuse)to bolt the fins to the fuse....just using the wing for compression leads to too much play at high speeds, possible source of flutter......

--make sure your linkage is dog tight on the rudders.....you don't need big servos...I have always used Volz Wing Maxx at about 65 oz, but be sure there is no slop.....once again, to prevent a source of flutter....

Still flying the HS Pete....gonna be my test bed for my Titan when it reports back from the P-160 sex change operation....wanna be sure it makes at least 25 agressive flights before I stick it in my SuperBandit......

Tom

erbroens

Hello Tom.,
we had here, in the past years some reports of desintegrating jets. , none of them had fiberglassing in the skins... and no report of this kind of accident with the fiberglassed ones. and about the weight, the lastest one we glassed had almost the same weight than the primed and painted one, with a lot more rigidity. Seems to me like a good deal!

Rgds, Enrique

Tom Antlfinger

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Yes, Enrique, there have been reports of HS's delaminating up here, but never related to a wing problem, as far as I know...the one I have seen, and others I have heard about were about fuselage delaminating from the rear formers, peeling back, and opening up a large hole in the aft fuselage, leading to loss of the bird......you must be careful that there is a good glue joint where that former, just aft of the gear cutout, meets the fuse.....many of them, especially early kits from late 1990's at early 2000 came from the factory with poor glue joints at that location.......

Tom

Pete1

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Tom and Enrique

Enrique thanks for the reply. I will be glassing the wing on Hotspot #2. Tom I ordered some 3/4 oz glass from Arts Hobbies today along with the Robart 630 Hotspot gear.

Thanks agai,

Pete

Tom Antlfinger

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That's the way to go Pete......I run the 630's on mine.....just be aware that the axles on the HotSpot 630 gear is 1/4".....I've been told that Robart is now making shims for 3/16" axles if you plan to use BVM W/B.......

Tom

Randy M.

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I glassed and painted mine as well. I was going to just cover it, but decided to go ahead and glass. I used 3/4 glass everywhere. Mine wieghs right at 20lbs powered with AMT180. It's a great combo for me. I did upgrade the after a while with the 630's. A definite impronement. Good luck!

Pete1

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Thanks Randy,

I just got back from the field with another 3 successful flights on Hotspot #1 Too much fun. Now I have to get back to building #2 and that is slow going. I'm sure I'll be back with more questions as the project goes on.

Thanks all for your input.

Pete