[RCSE] "What do you get when you cross a Stork,Pike and NYX?"

[GordySoar]

A 'gordyplane' :-)   Last season it was a Majestic converted from Vtail to AVA type rear end...and its still winning RES for the guy who ended up with it in Ut. The season before it was a Pretty Mantis with a Luchanbach molded Xtail set up....it died a not morned death when its wing pivoted and cut its wing wires in Austin, hit the road so hard pieces splashed in all directions for more than 50' (ask George Parks). This time?   I picked up a Stork 1 in excellent condition very fairly priced....7037 133" flexy fused V tail.   An early entry moldy from Sweden.  Same guy makes the Stork 2 and the Scar.   While it has ballast capability it is still a 7037 and big. The fuse was always its biggest fault.  Way pretty finish but basically a lot of white filler and glass, so in the sun it would turn to licorice...seriously.  And its giant one piece V tail is a total hassle for traveling or shipping...and it would wobble really bad after the fuse got warm. Really bad.   So I had a rear end from a dead Pike Superior (before I got the antenna away from the fuse days) in perfect condition, belcrank steel tube pushrods intact, live skin rudder perfect.   It being cold and uky here in Kentucky, this time of year I go into crazy idea mode.    The idea popped into my head to cut off the vtail mount part of the Stork boom and weld the Pike's rear end to it.  The diameter of the Pike boom was about 1/8" bigger but I figured if I slotted the bottom of it, I could compress it to fit...   The Stabs were the concern.  I didn't want to use Pike Stabs from one of my 3 contest Pikes, because if and when I sold the plane, only Pike stabs would fit. (the Pike uses almost a 3/8" carbon tube main joiner).  So I held off and thought about it for a couple of weeks...just sort of let it rattle around in my head some.   Then my club pres says "Hey I have a set of gorgeous NYX D tube tips for sale, know anyone? and by the way I also have a set of stabs too."  Hmmmn.  So I bought the parts from him complete with a set of joiner for the tips and put them up for sale...they WERE gorgeous too, the guy that bought them is gonna make them into a sweet DS ship and when he sees them will be very happy for the very little he paid for them,( they should be there this week) and kept the stabs.   Now the NYX stab joiner is small, about 3/16" main joiner but apparently works just fine for lots of happy NYX owners...but that wasn't gonna fit the Pike's big joiner hole in the vertical.   So I got sat down on my bench stool and put my McGyver hat on, then started scanning my box of spare carbon rods and tubes.  Turns out that I have a piece of carbon tube that fits the Pike tube perfect, and the inside is just slightly too small to fit the NYX joiner.  So I glued the spacer tube into a section of Pike joiner tube, enough to fill the vertical's joiner hole, then drilled out the inside to fit the NYX joiner.   That solved, I found that the rear actuator joiner was the same size but slightly forward of the Pikes belcrank hole. Since the Pike uses a piece of copper plated circuit board for the belcrank and has a piece of copper tube soldered in to recieve the actuato joiner, I figured the best thing to do would be to drill a new set of tubes into the NYX stabs.   A couple of serendipidy events drove this project along. First, I owned a Stork for about a month, well before I had any idea about soaring, so that and its flexy when warm fuse put it in the hands of someone who enjoyed it for a few seasons.  but I knew what the plane was.   Next having saved that Pike rear end for about a year, it banged around my bench and shop from spot to spot, almost like it was waiting for a project like this one.   My club pres popping up with a nice set of stabs, the right color even.   AND the Stork uses stainless steel tube pushrods, as does the Pike.  But here's the cool thing.  The Pikes are once size up from the Storks, so it was just a matter of sliding the Storks into the Pikes to make the pushrod connections.   What about that flexy tail boom?  I epoxied in mix of old carbon pushrods nto the top and bottom of the tail boom to bring it up to current stiffness.   Yes its still a 7037 but its a sailplane that leaned heavily toward form versus function...extremely gorgous lines and curves...and who knows maybe with out all that fixed stab incidence restriction of the Vtail.....the full flying stabs and tall rudder should turn this sailplane into a sweet light air performer....if not just a fun project.   It will be outfitted with the new Shadow1 crystal-less DSP Rx from Kennedy Composites and of course Volz Digi Powered.  Should be ready to test fly by the time I get back from this two week trip thru Tn, Ark, and TX.  Want to let the resins cure a while.   I'll let you guys know how it went. and maybe even a photo or two :-) Gordy Murfreesboro tomorrow or bust, 23 degrees in Louisville today