Reliable Removable Wing Halves

by tomsun | November 9, 2013 | (6) Posted in Tips

The Bixler, AXN and lots other models come with two wing halves that are held in place by friction. You might be able to get away with that: the wing spar helps somewhat and the forces on the wing apparently don't act very strongly in an outward-pulling manner, except on bumpy landings - but why take the risk? You can glue the wings, but then the Bixler will barely fit in a medium sized car...

I've had my Bixler stationary up until this Autumn and a few strips of clear tape was all I used initially. That approach didn't really feel secure enough, but at least I didn't have any accidents during those first 30-40 flights.

The past month I've had it with me to various locations, by car, by ferry, by feet in a cardboard box on wheels... The tape method wasn't really cutting it anymore, so I opted for perhaps my favorite build material of choice after hot glue and zip ties:

Velcro!

How do you secure your wing halves?

 

I used the blue 75mm sticky-back velcro variant from Hobby King (on recommendation by Xjet originally).

Good stuff! But why is this harsh blue the only color option?! 

 

A generous piece of velcro on each winghalf.

All four sides are hot-glued for added strength. Otherwise, they might come off when the wing is taken apart, since the mating piece is large too and hence applies quite a bit of downward directed force when you pull on it.

Alternatively, give the above pieces considerably larger surface area than the mating piece.

 

This third larger piece goes onto the fuselage and connects with both wings.

I carefully removed the protective paper from the middle section with a knife and hot-glued the remaining pieces of paper from all sides, since no stickyness is desired there.

Again: you could probably get away with this piece being a bit smaller: to have it sticking out 2 cm or so is probably plenty. I went for maybe 5 cm, totally overkill.  

 

The large piece of velcro stuck to the fuselage just behind the servo leads.

The receiving ends of the aileron servo y-lead are glued to each side of the fuselage, to avoid confusion when plugging in the servos.

 

Wings mounted, ready to fly!

 

I've used the same velcro approach with no issues on my first larger model, the AXN a couple of years ago and later on the tiny Nine Eagles Sky Runner.

 

The Bixler 2 comes with wing bolts, but Jon has opted for velcro too: less hassle and more space inside the fuselage. This approach with a long narrow velcro strip seems to work fine too!

COMMENTS

patrick_stadler on November 10, 2013
great idea ! thanks for the tip
Log In to reply
ghostrider03z on November 10, 2013
Ha, im surprised that was never thought of before but it is great! Velcro will NEVER come being pulled on sideways and it is cheap too! Great idea man, this will probably be very helpful to people.
Log In to reply
AndyPants on November 11, 2013
I do the same on my Bixler2, it's extremely sturdy but saved my wings when I crashed into a tree, only broke the carbon spar. If the wing fixing screws were in, I probably would've broken the interlocking tabs inside the fuselage off.
Log In to reply
cacomistle on November 11, 2013
Thanks for sharing. But why not just get rid the remaining white paper and tape the exposed glue? I assume it would be much lighter and durable than hot glue.
Log In to reply
FlyingSloth on November 13, 2013
I do similar with my bixler, instead of Velcro I use elastic bands and command hooks.
Hot glue small command hooks on the sides of the fuse to hold the bands when disassembled and larger hooks on the wings. Works great and gives more movement on hard landings while still being nice and tight. I usually have 2 elastic bands holding it all together.
Wing hooks are glued to fibre packing tape as I find the tape is less likely to break away from the foam. The tape also holds the spar channel cover in.
Log In to reply
jweymarn on February 21, 2014
Hi all, Jon from the last picture here. If you have thicker Velcro I would recommend that. The Velcro side holds fine but the tape side against the wing has failed on mine. Easy to fix with glue but still its a risk...
Log In to reply

You need to log-in to comment on articles.


Reliable Removable Wing Halves