ARF Assembly

Thanks for your purchase of the WindDancer 2 meter electric sailplane. Properly assembled and trimmed you will have one of the best flying 2 meter electric sailplanes available today. Design and airfoils by Mark Drela insure a light, super flying plane, suitable for sport or S-400 LMR events.

Wing

  1. Obviously if you have the ARC (almost-ready-to-cover) version you need to do your finish sanding and covering. Leading edge templates are provided for an accurate airfoil. One note of caution, the wing sheeting is only 1/32nd" so don’t go crazy with the sanding.
  2. Drill through the wing bolt holes to allow insertion of the two 8-32 nylon wing mounting bolts.
  3. Place wing center section on the fuselage with leading edge flush with front of the wing saddle. Check alignment by measuring from the wing tips to the rear center of the boom. Make sure the measurement is equal on both sides. Mark the wing bolt locations on the wing saddle and drill and tap for the 8-32 bolts. Mount center section and recheck your measurements. This is as far as we will take the wing at this time.

Tail Surfaces

  1. Mount stab to tailmount with provided 4-40 nylon bolts. Careful here as there is a big ring and a small ring on the mount, big ring obviously goes to the front. Temporarily tape the elevator to the stab. Slide the stab assembly onto the boom so that there is approximately 1-3/4" of boom behind the trailing edge of the elevator. This just enough room to mount the vertical fin. If the assembly won’t go quite far enough foreward, the rings can be split on the bottom. Mark the area where the mount will sit on the boom and slide th whole thing off and scuff the boom in that area with a fine sandpaper. #320 or 400 is fine. You are not really trying to gouge the boom, just remove the glaze.
  2. Slide the assembly back in place and align by sight with the wing center section. When you are satisfied with the alignment, both fore and aft and horizontally with the wing, place a small drop of thin CA on each ring to boom joint. (READ, VERY SMALL) You don’t want enough glue at this point to be able to wick into the holes and glue the stab mounting bolts fast. Re-check your alignment, if satisfied, remove stab and elevator from the mount and zap each ring with some more thin CA.
  3. The boom is then slotted for the vertical fin. Best done with a dremel tool with cut-off wheel but a razor saw will suffice if you are careful. Remount the stab for alignment and make the vertical fin 90 degrees to the stab halfs. The alignment mark on the fin goes flush with the bottom of the boom and the hinge line should be 90 degrees to the top of the boom. On the ARF a small peice of the covering on each side should be removed for glueing. I like to make this about 1/8th to 3/16th" above and below the boom. Satisfied with alignment the fin can then be glued to the boom with thick CA with a nice fillet top and bottom, both sides. The fin hinge line should be about 1/8th" behind the boom and the front of the fin should clear the elevator.
  4. Both sides should be reinforced with a small piece of the included fiberglass.

Complete the Wing

  1. Wing tips are removable and simply attached with 1/2" tape when assembled for flying. I like to install a peice of 1" clear wing tape permanantly on both the tip and outer edge of the center section and do my attachment taping on this. It will save a lot of greif with covering coming loose. I also like to fashion some sort of alignment pin for each side and not rely on the tape to keep everything properly aligned.
  2. The flap is a simple attach with a tape hinge. With wing in place you will need to round out the back of the flap to clear the fuse. Mount flap servo (HS81MG is good here) and solder up the linkage from the supplied parts. Finish center section.
  3. If wing is full house version, same deal for the ailerons, they are bottom hinged.

Fuselage

  1. Mount motor/gearbox assy to supplied motor mount. Sand motor mount down to the diameter of the gearbox with a slight taper to the front. Slide assembly into the fuse. It should go nearly to the front. (front of fuse should be sanded to the mold line)
  2. Align with the thrust line at 0-0 relative to the top of the boom. When satisfied with the alignment, tack the motor mount to the fuse fith a couple of drops of thick CA from the front. Remove motor assembly and glue in the mount. A tiny bead of thick CA front and rear or the same with Zap A Dap A Goo will work fine here.
  3. Finish trim the hatch.

Finish Tail

  1. Simply tape hinge the elevator and rudder to the appropriate surfaces and you pretty much have yourself an airplane.

Install Gear

  1. Electric sailplanes are sensative to gear installation for proper balance and this one will balance beautifully with no additional weight. The best configuration I have flund is for an 7 or 8 cell pack to lay flat on the bottom of the fuse just behind the motor with the servos mounted to the extreme rear of the fuse as far back as the wing saddle will allow. Reciever on top of battery under wing and speed control in front of that.
  2. I reccomend the new Sullivan 587 pushrods. They are the yellow housing like the carbon/spectra HL pushrods with an .025 music wire. The simplest and most practical way to install them is on the outside of the boom exiting the fuse just in front of and above the boom attachment area through two tiny holes.

Trimming

  1. CG should be located at the back edge of the wing sheeting. The plane can be flown safely a little fore or aft of this but this seems to be the "sweet spot"
  2. Set up all the rudder throw you can get, you won’t need it and it can always be toned down but "not enough" is always a bad thing. Down elevator should be all you can get without having to notch the elevator to clear the boom. An equal amount of up should do just fine.
  3. My experience with the plane indicates that it likes a LOT of aileron differential.
  4. Double check the wing washout. There is about 3/32nd washout built into the MID panel. If not there or uneven, adjust with the covering.
  5. FLY THE DANG THING :-) )

Good luck and enjoy flying your WindDancer!