Some may say I am a weight weenie. I say I am an engineer who knows how to trim out excesses and still keep the product reliable. Maidened carbon Supra #48 today. Yes, it is everything people are saying it is. I won't repeat flying characteristics that have been mentioned many times. I will briefly talk about how to "get the lead out". First - the molded fin and horizontal stab are heavy. They weight around 38-40g each. It is not easy to make a molded wing structure this small light. Bagged small wing structures can be made lighter. Phil Barnes indicated that he thought he could make tails approaching Mark Drella's original weights. Phil out did himself. The fin Phil built for me weighed 23g and the stab weighed 26g. This saved me over 27g in tail weight which translates to about 3 oz in total weight when you consider the lead counter weight in the nose that can now be removed.
Second - the ballast tube only needs to be used when you ballast. The ballast tube weighs just over an once. I arranged my servos so that the ballast tube can be inserted when needed. This saved me an ounce. Third - wiring and connectors is an area most people don't even think about. You are carrying around over 3 ounces of wire and servo connectors in the plane even using the small MPX wing connector. I made my own wire harness with Teflon insulated wire and only ran one set of power and ground wires down each wing. Overall I saved about an ounce in wire and connector weight. ...the rest of the weight savings came from a variety of other smaller areas. I don't consider taking these steps as extreme steps. I bought a molded supra because I wanted to take advantage of a well designed molded wing which could hang with the gas bags, but also penetrate and cover ground. If you want to hang, weight is an issue. Prior to the Supra, hanging and covering ground was somewhat mutually exclusive. Just think, with a glass lay-up you could be easily into the 56 oz flying weight range (carbon Supras are 4-5 oz heavier than glass lay-ups). For pictures go the Supra build thread and work your way towards the end (page 8 and 9). Don RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that subscribe and unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off. Email sent from web based email such as Hotmail and AOL are generally NOT in text format
