Following an earlier epistle covering the untimely and unplanned HTOVL (horizontal take off and vertical landing) of my Star Lite in Wales, a few notes below cover the end result.

You may recall that I ‘stuffed’ my Star Lite into the ground at some speed, with amazingly slight damage, mainly to the centre wing panel which had a crushed leading edge and severe delamination to the D box as well as to sheeting behind the spar. Fortunately the carbon box spar was undamaged. The forward wing retaining nut had pulled out of the fuz.

The knowledge that a new panel was coming did ease the pressure and tempted me to ‘explore’ the old wing and be bold if necessary. I drilled a series of very fine holes at 30mm intervals along the lines where the balsa had split and delaminated. I was then able to use stiff, ‘L’ shaped, wire hooks through every other hole to pull the balsa up into close contact with the outer glass skin. With small springs on the stems of a couple of wires and judicious use of fingers to hold the third, it was possible to use my free hand to inject thin cyano glue through the intermediate holes, letting this wick into the crack. The wires could then be removed and these holes also treated with cyano. Sections of wing were treated in this way.

For areas of delamination where the balsa was not cracked, I merely used the same drill to just perforate the outer glass skin to allow cyano to penetrate and gently dress the skin down into contact with the balsa substrate as the cyano entered. This also worked well. I did this to the whole area of damage including the area surrounding the damaged leading edge. Builders expanding aerosol foam filler was then judiciously injected into the damaged D box. 1mm acetate sheet being carefully clamped to, and bent around, the wing surfaces to help avoid distortion of the box section by the slight but unavoidable foam pressure which builds up behind. This was ‘fiddly’ but worked remarkably well.

I then cut away the badly damaged glass/balsa/glass wing skinning to a neat scarf line back as far as the main spar. A piece of balsa sheet was then preskinned with fine woven glass cloth on one side (inside face), cut to shape and glued into place after trial fitting. I had very carefully pared away any ‘humps’ in the foam, ensuring the balsa bedded flush to the adjoining wing skin. The glass skin adjacent to the scarf line was then carefully trimmed back from its balsa substrate to a width of 10mm and new glass skin applied with epoxy over the new section and this 10mm border overlap.

Once the epoxy had cured the whole area was rubbed down with wet and dry and any slight hollows and lips brought forward with filler. Initially I used fancy model-makers sandable filler, believing this to be flexible and lightweight. PROBLEM – when cutting this back with wet and dry, as also after spraying with primer, I found it to soften and rub away – obviously not waterproof or suitable, so it all had to be removed and the exercise completed with conventional resin based filler. Harder work rubbing this down but at least it will last.

Having got this far the final stage entailed respray with vehicle paint. After this the wing was balanced and a lead strip corrector weight epoxied onto inside face of the bottom sheeting through a slot routed in the end rib.The end result is not perfect to the eye (very slight surface undulation and loss of ‘mirror’ finish) but appears strong and looks fine at anything other than very close inspection. 40 grammes balancing weight suggests a total weight penalty of just over 80 grammes which is reasonable on an inboard panel.

The fuselage was a simple epoxy glass repair.

Having got best part through the repair I had reason to visit Chris Barker at European Sailplanes (on the pretext of collecting my new, replacement, wing panel).

I caution anyone against visiting this lovely chap and his stock of exotic models. He doesn’t try and sell you anything – ‘but just take a look at this which I have just got in’. In the run up to Xmas I could not afford to indulge myself!

The 1.5m span all moulded ‘Shooting Star’ which he exhibited at WSA club talk caught my eye and Chris showed me a wing which had been damaged in transportation from Czechoslovakia. The damage was not bad, but was similar in nature to that of my Star Lite. Chris offered me a very fair deal with the encouraging comment that I could probably sort the wing out.

I left with a pristine fuz and vee tail plus one scrunched wing, thinking that if I made a decent repair it would make a brilliant Xmas present for Martin. Using the same technique as before (only a whole lot quicker the second time around) I soon had the wing in one piece. It took nearly as long again to identify a matching paint. We eventually found a match in Piaggio (scooters?) colour range.

The good news was that this model was completed at 12.05 Christmas Morning while Martin was still asleep – his present delivered on time. The bad news was that as it turned out ‘good enough’ for him, I don’t get to keep it!

This little beauty has been flown twice over Christmas (the second time at the WSA slope fly-in) and is an absolute delight. It is fast and nimble yet smooth to control and holds lift extremely well. Dave Camp has already given me a formal warning for hogging the transmitter after Martin let me have a go – I must get a Shooting Star for myself!!