M-19 Wing

M-19 Wing Construction

November 22, 2000, Update:

What? You mean you don't see a set of fiberglass wing tips here? Well, I do! This is some building insulation board, 1-1/2" thick extruded polystyrene, just what we need to make some rough billets to shape into wing tips. The prototype M-19 has flat, square ends on the wings, made of 1/8" plywood and cut to the wing template outline. I wanted something with a little shape to it (see my color scheme and 3-views). So we'll make some wing tips.

What? You don't see a set of ailerons here? Well, I do! The ailerons are cut from a slab of 1-1/2" thick foam, and are about 8" in chord and 11 ft. long, so I'll have to glue pieces together end-to-end to make the total length needed.

October 30, 2000

This box contains all the foam pieces which make up the wing ribs for both wings. There are even a few extras in here. These were all cut by Joa Harrison (joa@deschutes.net) using his CNC equipment, from 1-1/2 sheets of 3/4" foam. I drew the ribs in AutoCAD, then created a "nesting diagram" to maximize the number of pieces cut from each sheet, with an allowance of about 1/4" around each piece for the cutting head, then he used my drawing to guide his machine.

Here are the rib pieces out of the box, stacked to show how tight a bundle they make. Very light. Joa tried to keep the cutting head from cutting the pieces all the way through, leaving a slight bit of 'flash' on the edge of each piece for me to sand off to final dimension.

Here are a few of the ribs laid out as they will be arranged in the wing. The building table is 4 ft. across, so it's close to the wing chord dimension as shown. The nose pieces are spaced about 8" apart when the wing is built, and the center and tail pieces are spaced 12" apart. What you see is how a 2 ft. section of the wing will have the ribs spaced. I changed the size and arrangement of the lightening holes in the ribs, trying to maximize the strength and stiffness while minimizing weight.

So, if you're not building yet.......why not??

Return to My M-19 Project