7th Apr 2000

I wanted to make a light weight dAzi so I can fly it in light winds, I did so last night the wind at Long Reef East slope was about 5-6 knots, this new 2mm dAzi60 flies beautifully, I took extra care in marking it out, getting the angles right, and making sure the flutes were square on to the drawing.

I have modified the layout a little so the angles at the nose are multiples of 60 degs, with the previous layout getting the measurement right for the foldover section was a little critical, a bit out one way or the other would mean you would have a gap or an overlap, and if you wanted to addon a bit to the foldover so you could be sure to have an overlap at the Trailing Egde(TE), you still had to do the first measurement right and then addon the amount you wanted.

Ok, you can see here the differance between the old layout and this dAzi60, the nose is only 25mm longer than the older version, but the Leading Egde(LE) and the inside edge of the foldover are now in a straight line, and the angle is the same at the wing tips as well, so anyone with a straight edge and a protractor or a 60deg triangle should have no trouble marking this out.

here are the 2 new layout pdfs dAzi60-Layout1, dAzi60-Layout2, I also made the doubler smaller and pentagon shaped

This 2mm version of the dAzi60 is bascially the same as the drawing layout, the differances are the 2mm clear coreflute/correx/coroplast that I obtained from Andrew in Sydney, also have a look at the Mugi forum on Yahoo

I have used 3mm coreflute for the doubler and the spars, I cut a hole in the doubler for the 600mAh battery, but did not cut a hole for the HiTec 555 reciever, or cut a hole all the way through for the hitec hs-81 servos, I just cut the top panel and the flutes out to make a recess for the servos.

the doubler was stuck down with very thin 40mm wide doublesided tape, the spar was tacked on with hotglue bottom egde only, the servos, battery, reciever and switch were attached with the same double sided tape with tiewraps added to secure the servos. the antenna was taped down inside the wing.

the push rod were made from 2mm carbon fibre rod, because I wanted something light, strong and nonbendy, this plane will NOT! be used for combat ;) , a 2-56 metal cleavis was threaded on at the servo end and superglued in place, next I carfully lined up the carbon rod with the flutes on the doubler and temporarily folded the wing over, the black rod is clearly visable thru the 2mm coreflute, next with a piece of straight wire a bit larger than the 2mm rod, I heated the end of the wire with a flame and melted a 50mm long slot in the upper wing to allow the carbon firbe rod to pass through, use the carbon rod as a guide, see the closeup pic here.

for the control horn end I used some wire that was the right size to fit the holes in the control horns, I rolled this around a 2mm drill bit end about 3 turns, this should make a close sliding fit on the carbon firbe rod, oh! cut the carbon fibre rod with a dremel cut off wheel if possible, or use a file, DoNot! try and cut it with sidecutters or pliers, it squishes out and is bloody hard to cut that way.

now you should be ready to close the wing, I found this 2mm is not as springy as the 3mm, so I was able to use the 40mm thin dblsided tape to hold the wing closed, with the 3mm I needed to use staples as well.

Stick down the wing after making sure the radio and servos work and the screws in the servo horns are in, pass the carbon fibre rod throught the slots in the upper wing, remove the paper from the dblsided tape and stick the wing down after making sure its all nice and square and on a flat surface.

for the wing tips, use the pizza roller to get a nice crease, fold up the tip, make sure it will foldup square, trim a little from the upper wing if it doesnt, apply a bead of hotglue, foldup the tip and hold in place with a heavy block of wood or something similar and hold the wing down so its flat on the bench, also while the glue is still hot run a piece of scrap wood along the glue line to smooth it it off, hold everthing together until the glue has cooled.

I used 3mm thick x 80mm wide balsa to make the 2 elevons at 580mm long and 50mm wide at the wing tip to 30mm at the wing middle, taped in place with clear packing tape. Fit the control horns, and then slide on the rolled wire hooks onto the carbon firbe rod, switch the radio on to make sure the servos are at neutral, hold the wing and elevon flat down on the bench and apply a drop of Zap superglue to the rolled wire section, hold until the glue sets, repeat on the other elevon, trim off any excess carbon fibre rod.

the COG line is 210mm from the nose, I added 40gram of lead to the nose to trim the plane, the elevons are pretty well flat to the bottom section of the wing, I thought about using a smaller lighter battery, but as it turned out I still needed to add lead to the nose, all up flying weight is 550grams, it was handling the 5-6knot wind very well and still finding lift that 2 guys with an Eraser and a PC9 were having trouble staying airborne in.

I plan to make another dAzi60 in 3mm coreflute as I am very impressed with this one.


dAz