Bug HLG

> Can some one please kindly send me details of the cruciform tail. I have a bunch of pictures posted under Ex-Bug of my cruciform tail. You can't get dimensions off of it, but the pushrod setup you can see from the pictures. > how much rudder / elevator travel would you allow? With my elevator, I enlarged it to 3/4" wide and for normal flight, I don't use more than 1/8" up/down. For high rate, I crank it as far as it will go (for those five consecutive loops off launch :-) For the rudder, I usually give it 1/4" left/right as a starting point and go more or less depending on how you like the standard dihedral. > One more thing, I presume the tail is to be glued to the boom under > the stab on one side of the fin, therefore not exactly centred. Does > it matter? Do I need to make adjustments for it? As you can see from my pictures, I used a cutout in the vertical with small pieces of fiberglass to hold on the vertical. The glass is .75 oz weight and around a 3/4" x 3/4" piece glued with as few as possible drops of thin CA. It's plenty strong and reinforces the weak point of the vertical. If you offset yours, either side is okay at this size model. You shouldn't notice any difference on launch because you'll be all over the rudder first few throws to get it up straight. Once you can, trim out the rudder straight for flight, and (if you can) add 1/16" of right rudder launch preset. If your radio can't do the preset, don't try! Mine will fly straight up even without the preset. The transition from extreme yawing on launch to heading up is short anyhow. The larger planes need the rudder to help get them straight again, since they're heavier and have more inertia trying to keep them in yaw. > What battery do you use? 4x 50mah nicad cells. I'm also using an 1/8" boom (which flexes, should get an Avia tapered kite rod) so I don't have any ballasting problems. > Ahh... the part list on the downloads specify 1/64" balsa sheet - > this proves impossible to get in NZ. Looking at the article / plan > again I don't see where this is needed. Please explain? Um, I don't recall any 64th. You use 1/32nd to sheet the wing center section, but that's as thin as it gets on this plane... > I bought myself a small / cheap second hand (like 1/4 of price for > new)scroll saw. What blade do you use with it? You can't really > cut a straight line with scroll saw can you? You can cut pretty straight lines if you're patient :-) I just use a sanding bar (either a hommade block with sticky paper or a metal hobby bar) to smooth everything down. You'll probably find that you can cut 99% of the parts for the Bug with an X-Acto knife and a sanding bar. When I'm building anything larger, a scroll saw is my cutting tool of choice (behind the x-acto). If you'd like any more pictures of the tail or plane, drop a line and I'll send you a bunch. Dan > Thanks > > > Henry