Dietrich Slick suggested wing check.

[BOSSIER_ROB]

I was going to call you Monday Kevin. It's no big deal to me. I'll have it back in action within a few hours. Like I stated earlier, I was just pointing out a possible issue and love the plane. There are no ill feelings here. I just don't want to see anyone break anything. I hope I can get some more time on it tomorrow. It is a fun aircraft! Thanks for the reply Kevin. I didn't want to bother you "off the clock". How's the new baby doing, and where are the pics?

[Mithrandir]

Clearly a stress riser... I would suggest everyone drill a new antitork pin hole ahead of the hingeline.

[Rabbit Ron]

	Quote: Originally Posted by Mithrandir
	Clearly a stress riser... I would suggest everyone drill a new antitork pin hole ahead of the hingeline.

Ah what do you know you just the head design airframe engineer for a very successful UAV company that can't build them fast enough for the ARMY, Air Force, and half of Europe LOL.

[snap a saurus]

	Quote:
	Quote: Originally Posted by Mithrandir Clearly a stress riser... I would suggest everyone drill a new antitork pin hole ahead of the hingeline. Ah what do you know you just the head design airframe engineer for a very successful UAV company that can't build them fast enough for the ARMY, Air Force, and half of Europe LOL.

And to make things worse, you fly mode One.

[GmanBill]

Yeah Ron and Mike, then you have me;
I have seen this in about 1 in 30 planes made with this type construction, mostly other manufacturers but I have seen it on one other Dietrich and so have Ron and Mike. On the ones I have found I have not had to drill another anti rotation pin, but Mike and I had talked about this on another of my 3D planes that we have wrung out for about 3 years now. Personally I opened the crack up as much as humanly possible and filled it with foam safe Gorilla Glue, pulled it shut wiping off the excess and put a piece of blue masking on the crack line then taping the wing together where the glue would not force it open and that was all it took. I did investigate on a few of the other companies planes that this happened on and it seemed to be a problem with the grain pattern of the wood and lack of glue more than anything on the manufacturing of the wing panels.
The weekend this happened last time we put a piece of white vinyl tape over it and went right back to abusing the airframe without a failure. I am not the lucky type either (ask Mike, anyone can put in a plane for no reason at all and just say "HUUH") and this stuck together for the two days we had at the field with about 10 to 20 flights once we noticed it. Once I got home I pulled the wing apart to find out and there was a lack of glue in this spot on mine and the grain pattern of the wood in that area caused a crack, the root rib and aileron rib could be removed in this area and the wing would still be strong enough to fly without the wing failing with only the wing tube and front bolt holding it (trust me I have done it). Dietrich aircraft has a few tricks built in to the wing for strength and structure, it just is not a piece of foam wrapped in wood, and if anyone can break a plane in the air it would have already been done with the prototypes but still give me a call when you get a chance Monday and I will make it right.

[BOSSIER_ROB]

Ok. Here's what I did. I cut a slot through the wing to slide a piece of ply in to join the foam core to the all balsa piece that broke loose. The piece in the picture is just a rough template. I cut the final piece from ply to an exact fit in the slot. I brushed the ply with gorilla glue and as soon as I can find a needle, I will inject more poly glue along the crack that runs from the hinge line to the root rib to bond the balsa to the foam. I think this will work well. Once the glue is cured, I will cut patches from the supplied covering strips to go over the entire repaired area. Hopefully I will get to fly it today and will report on how well it holds up. I also had already planned to add a second anti rotation dowel somewhere near the front wing bolt. I'm confident that this will be the last issue in the wing area. The only other problem that may pop up will be the servo boxes debonding from the foam cores. That happened to my 260. I will also inject gorilla glue along the boxes to get a strong bond to the foam. After that, I think she's good for an asswhippin'!

EDIT: The glue has set up for over an hour and just for the heck of it, I gave it a good pull. ZERO FLEX!!! Now I'm almost positive that this issue is gone. That seemed to lock everything in place perfectly. Thanks to Jeremy for the suggestion. That worked great dude!

[buttface]

No offense here...and please don't take this the wrong way ,but it seems like you are putting a band-aid on the problem.
I would also install a new anti rotation pin ahead of the hinge line like I described earlier.This will take the force off of that small wedge.

[BOSSIER_ROB]

Re-read the post and you will see where it says that I intend to put another anti rotation dowel in the front of the wing. This band-aid has made it stronger than it was. I will give a report this evening. Right now, it's off to the field to get some more flights. I don't foresee any problems with the repair. It's very rigid now. Thanks for the input though.

[scottflyrc]

When I had my plane loaned to an XFC pilot to fly, it had a mishap during practice and most would have trashed the plane. I rebuilt it and got it in the air. Both wing panels had broke the same way but was caused by a major impact nose first into the ground. I had to rebuild it from the wing tube forward and repair the wings, thats how bad it was.

I used 3/8 x 1/4 hardwood about 6 inches long and just recessed it into the top and bottom of the wings. I used epoxy and made them flush to the wing surface and patched the covering. I also went to a .065 wall wing tube. I could not break this plane with anything I did in the air with it, INCLUDING 3/4 THROTTLE WALLS. This was the first prototype plane and this stuff I had to do to it to see if it would stay together for the production run planes. It passed with flying colors.

Just wanted to add what I did for the wing repair. LIKE I SAID IT WAS FROM A CRASH THAT CAUSED THE WINGS TO BREAK ON MINE.

THX Scott H.

[kregan]

You guys need to step back and listen to buttface before you take any further action.

	Quote: Originally Posted by buttface
	No offense here...and please don't take this the wrong way ,but it seems like you are putting a band-aid on the problem. I would also install a new anti rotation pin ahead of the hinge line like I described earlier.This will take the force off of that small wedge.

[wingburner]

I know I would step back and take a close look at this if I were selling this product..

[bodywerks]

	Quote:
	That makes more sense especially if the ailerons are cut so close to the root and plywood root cap is made from thin light ply and the anti rotation pin is too far aft of the aileron cut out.

It's a pretty inferior design if you ask me. I would have questioned that right away. The pin should be closer to the hinge line for having such a thin section of fixed trailing edge, especially for being a foam core wing. The only plane I have had that had a pin aft of the aileron hinge line was the H9 100cc 260, but it's a built-up wing and the fixed portion if the trailing edge is much wider, in relation to this Slick.
I would consider taking Butt's and Mith's advice for sure, although I do like the way Rob thinks, as far as adding that shim goes - but it is a band-aid fix.

[BOSSIER_ROB]

I don't know who Bob is , but my fix worked like a charm. I beat the hell out of it today and it's still solid as a rock. Do what you want with your wings, but I'm sure mines good to go now. I was just throwing some info out on the table for anyone to take in. If you choose to use it, good. If not, well, just figure it out when yours breaks. Adding that strip of 1/8" ply to join the sections together made that area stiff as a 2 x 4. A friend shot some video, but only about 2 minutes of it is useable if I spliced it all together. It was a bunch of 20-30 second clips, half of which was in focus and only a few clips were shot during a manuever.

[scottflyrc]

Hopefully this is an isolated incident with the root rib/aileron area breaking.

I was a rep for Kevin and have had two 42% 260's and a 39% 300LP along with the first SLICK 540 prototype. These planes all have foam cores and the construction is all the same. All of the planes have had hundreds of flights on them and never had a wing problem.

One of the 260's I flew so hard I bent the wing tube four times and still never cracked or had damage to the anti-rotation area or any other parts of these planes.

Like I said, hopefully it is an isolated incident.

Scott H.

[scottflyrc]

Rob,

Your fix was alot like mine in the use of splices, i just located mine a little different, same result. Never had a problem with it after the repair.

Good to here it's in the air and sorry to hear it happened to begin with.

When mine was in the wreck both wings went forward and ripped the wings apart in the same area. The tube was bent so bad I had to cut it in half inside the plane to get it apart to start the repair.

The thing flies great!!!!

Scott H.