The Buggered Euphoria.

 This is another epic Martin Gay Loft find. Martin let me have the glider for a small donation to air ambulance.. what a gent! Now i know what your saying.. busted spar, bin it! Or turn it into a 60" combat model and cut the other wing in half. I had my reservations especially as i took the wing to Mark Passingham the king of repairs for him to check out... i walked out of his house 20 mins late feeling very despondent with the broken wing.

  

I emailed the manufacturer and asked about a replacement wing... i dunno about your experience with European manufacturers but there coms are shite! You email them a simple question and you then have to wait an eternity for an answer. In my case i got no answer!

 

 So i thought what have i got to loose... I figure this is F5J and not going to be subject to the sort of forces that F3F ships are so give it a go.

Damage survey:

• One busted wing, straight through. I know it is as i can see daylight through it.... ALL
• One busted fuz, broken just behind the wing.
• One busted tail mount.
• No control rods in fuz = busted. 
• Some damage from servos being ripped out. This is really annoying as avoidable. Its the last fuck you glider after a crash and done in anger.

Apparently it hit a tree on landing, not by Martin.

 

First thing first get the spar aligned and glued. Tacked together, get it straight. With a bit of care you can roughly get all the bits to match up see below.

You cant see it in the pic but there is an annoying bend in the wing at the break point. Dihedral built into the wing. So got to get this right. A bit of measuring and eyeballing and measuring and beer drinking and its there.

Once straight the rest is easy. Some balsa to get the shape and lots of carbon tows on the spar. I also put another layer of carbon on top of the balsa on the inside of the wing to link it all together with the spar. Below is looking at the top skin from inside in front of the spar, and filled behind the spar.

Top of wing with more carbon. Cling film is your friend. It can be stretched over drying epoxy. It does not stick to it and leaves a reasonable finish to work with.

Tail mount sorted above with more carbon. Standard fuz repair wrapped in carbon and ground down.

Bottom wing had a huge hole so ground down the edges and put balsa insert glued inside then a layer of carbon weave, then below a finishing layer of carbon. Wish i had laid it diagonally! I did not bother to paint the bottom left in naked. Suffice to say it was strong.

 I was really pleased with my repair added 55g to the wing so total 110g once other side balanced! Not bad at all. I bought a load of dodgy MKS servos off the Rumpster a nice geared motor off some chap on BARCS and got it flying!

 My daughter did an exceptional job filming the first flight. Took it easy on the motor so climb out nice and steady.. did not want the dam thing to fall apart!

Pretty model too

Much to my surprise it flew really well! Mind you the first loop had me squeezing my arse tighter than the first day in prison showers. About 1.9kg all up. Not light by modern standards but perfectly good for the average flyer. The colour i got matched by firm in Newbury recommended by Mark Passingham. They are good! I Masked off the curved lines and the writing. You can see the floors on close examination. If i had the patience i could of got it perfect.

Did not fly as well as my Enigma so i sold it back to Martin G for the cost of materials and servos, only fair really. It did teach me a lot about carbon repair.

 

Low and behold a week after i sold it i got an apologetic email from the manufacturers. It had got lost and they just found it. Passed on to Martin.. The bastards!

 Hi Martin I got a reply from the makers of the Euphoria.. I asked how much a new panel was…
Left middle section 300$

Completed wings 780$

Tips 90$ /2 =180 $
Middle section 1,5m 300$ /2 =600 $

Delivery to UK 65-70$