Wasps Complete First Delivery Batch to Front Line Squadrons
SIL has been a flurry of activity with the creation of this new little plane. For the first time in company history, this test aircraft has been named. Is has been called Wasp, due to a frisky little pest that was flying around during the construction of a couple of these, and in fact landed on one at one point of the build. Truly a spectacular little plane in build and looks, it uses a square sheet of paper has its beginning and ends up with a nice snub at the front with slight tips at the anhedrals. The test fleet is already up to a dozen airframes, and the test flights have begun in earnest. We will keep you apprised of any further developments of this plane in the near future.
Wyverns Get New Mods
Trying to see if there's a different way to standardize the aircraft, SIL has developed new modifications to the basic plane. Early sorties have shown promise, and it is hoped they may lead to an enlarged version of this as opposed to the unsuccessful original variant. The image shows five of the new designs, with the fore example showing mid-mounted strakes and the next one down the line having RWDFs. All of these have new shapes to their anhedrals.
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SIL Continues Testing of RSTE
Another of SIL's borderline-obsessive programs is getting an aircraft to fly with integrated Reverse Slant Trailing Edge. In other words, a paper aircraft with a wing trailing edge that more closely resembles real aircraft. Typically, paper planes either have straight TEs or what SIL terms Delta Diamonds (as on Javelins and Novae). Others can be created through cuts or origamic folding of course, but SIL is looking for a more lazy approach. The current flight test aircraft that has RSTE and is semi successful is ND12-01.
Javelin Gets Mods
And for the first time in forever, Javelins are also getting some design mods. Three of these are illustrated here. The first in line showing an interesting new fore strake. The second having a cut LE to give a vertical strake near the nose, and the last one having more subtle visible changes, these being enlarged anhedrals and fuselage depth with different body folds.
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Nova Tips Get TweakedLarge, small, medium... The Nova design team finally looked into varying the sizes of the winglets on Novae in an effort to get the most out of them. Even a version with the tips given a DD was tried out. And all seemed to do fairly well. Point of fact, the smallest seemed to be the worst, and were still pretty good.
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