A bigger DH Venom

Still grinding on.
The skin over the replacement duct and EDF is complete, filled and sanded.
 
The RH inlet duct and wing root is made good.
 
The wing reinforcement (carbon tow?) is next and then onto rebuilding the nose.

Eric Don't worry the state of the Rx. It is accessible through the battery hatch. 
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Now ro start rebuilding the cockpit and nose, virtually from scratch.
 
I have used Carbon Fibre Tow to reinforce the wings.
 
I sanded a shallow grove in the Depron wing skin and glued in the tow both sides top & bottom. 
It covers the area where the wing failed. not at the true root but the point between the substantial intake fairing and the start of the wing proper.
The tow weighs very little about 5g in total for all 4 including the glue, It certainly reduces the wing flex but much of the wing foam has been overstressed so to be safe flying will be restricted to "gentle".


   

Spent nearly all day working on it but the Swiss Venom now virtually complete.
 
When the paint is fully dry it will have a light spray of clear acrylic.
Hopefully there will be time to test fly it before I take it to the DVMFC 'open day' on Saturday..

I dont have a picture of the damage but the Swiss Venom had a serious crash about a month ago. Not quite sure what happened but I suspect I got too low, too far away and it went out of sight behind a stand of trees. As I had little idea of its orientation I chose to close the throttle and hope!
When I got to where it "landed" It had touched wing tip first which not only cracked the wing but demolished most of the nose almost back to the air inlakes.
Of couse the canopy was fling clear undamaged and all the controls and EDF still worked!
Anyway the event forced me to get on and repair the Venom and both the other crashed EDFs, the Skyray and the older lightweight Folland Gnat interesting as it used my first printed inlet duct.
 
Fortunately its wing was completely undamaged.
I suppose it tells me somthing that all three require varying degrees of nose rebuilds.   

First the newly repaired Swiss Venom.
 
And the beginning of the nose rebuild for the Gnat using 3mm flooring underlay. Rather soft but it is light and very cheap!
 
The nose skin like the rest of the plane will be planked using the last of my 2mm Depron. .

  

Slowly planking the Gnat half fuselage in 2mm Depron!
 
Lots of pins!
I hope I have built the fuselage back far enough to meet up with the fuselage when the damaged area is cut away. 
I suspect it will need a bit bodging to get it all to line up but that is one thing you can do successfully using thin Depron sheet. When finished you likely can't even tell it was a bodge!

Just to give an idea of the problem of joining the new nose to the crashed fuselage.
Currently the fuselage looks like this. 

This is what its got to look like - eventually!
 
Unusually the canaopy/hatch was not flung clear in the crash but was also totally crushed
It could take a while.   

The new Gnat nose planking nears completion.
 
The open cockpit area will need additional internal reinforcement for rigidity but that will have to wait until the nose has been "grafted" onto the fuselage so that is the next job.

A picture of the damaged nose cut away and the bits for the bin.
 
The question now is whether the completed new nose can be made to fit neatly?
Let bodging commence!.  

Some progress on the Gnat. The new nose is installed.
 
It took quite a bit of bodging to get it to fit accurately and required many clamps to hold it in place whilst the glue set.
 
When it was set enough for the fuselage to be handled I made good the small area of missing planking on the underside.
Now it needs to be left alone for a good 24 hours for the glue to set rock hard.
In the meantime I have to work out how to mount the gyro, Rx and ESC in their former positions as there is very little spare in the joining cables.
Finally a new removable canopy has to be built. 
 

The fuselage has been painted.
 
The ESC is in and tested (it easily blows the door shut) but still musing over exactly where the gyro and Rx can go.
In its original layout it was virtually impossible to disconnect (or reconnect!) the servo plugs on the Rx. The intention is to avoid that problem this time! 

Just to complete the saga of the nose rebuild the ESC, gyro and RX all fixed in their final position.
 
To my satisfaction it all works correctly, including the gyro which can be switched off at the Tx.
Note all the connections are accessible, even the gyro sensitivity pots!
Next the wing to be added.to ensure the canopy follows a smooth profile.