The Supra is a F3J glider designed by Mark Drela. I am currently working on the fuselage. The plans are available here. At first, I glued four balsa sheets together already considering the canopy cutout. The canopy block is tacked back in position with double sided tape before shaping the fuse.

I chose this order instead of shaping and then cutting out the canopy because the canopy becomes more accurate. Also, the horizontal cut doesn‘t have to be made, since it is the interface between two balsa sheets (orange area). 

 

 

 

The fuse geometry is transferred to the balsa block by drawing the top view on the block, then planing and grinding the top view to the correct shape. Then the same is done with the side view, leading to a rectangular cross section.

 

By grinding off the corners of the rectangular cross section and then smoothing out the whole fuse, we get an idea how it will look like. Good thing the canopy doesn‘t need to be cut out...

 

 

Now comes a lot of spackling and grinding, I will just show the highlights: The rear end of the fuse pod, which will later be the interface to the tailboom, is made perfectly circular using a 2€ coin as a spackle template. 

 

 

 

Last Updated (Thursday, 10 September 2009 17:51)