Bump it up!  The last post here was just over 1 year ago.

To answer your question Andy, No, the posts do not get forwarded to members e-mail. members   really have no idea about any discussions unless they make an effort to sign in and visit the blogs, Forums, or discussions. 

  If you notice when I make a post and want to inform the members of my events or to encourage participation in a discussion, I e-mail the members and try to direct them to either this website (always tying a link to the post) as well as using the Facebook page to make information available. The FB page will get nearly a thousand hits when I post something new on there. I'm not saying it's the best way but we have an abundance of ways to inform members of current happenings. Calling Post, I like this and I abuse it but it's a sure way of reaching members . ....Email.. .. emails have all the pertinent information contained in one sending. And then I can always follow up with new or additional information. It also gives members an opportunity to ask questions. Emails go out to nearly 500 addresses on my list. Other Chapters, as well as all the members. Weekly Flyer.. it's really just another reminder through an e-mail, then we have the web page.. however and I haven't really put my finger on it, but I see it's just being used by our members as much as we may think. maybe because it takes effort? maybe it's a bit complicated to some of the less computer savvy people? maybe it's not all that interesting but like anything your only going to get out of something as much as you put into it. So if you guys need help broadcasting for a program or event or idea for discussion, let me know and we can make sure ALL means of communication are being utilized to inform the members. Keep up the great work! DannO

I think your right StevO. That might be the way to do it... if the forum notice is updated to everyone, maybe the effort to opt out rather than in.. will at least get members to visit the page and elect that option.

 Good thought!

    Another milestone accord last night in our chapter hangar last night, we load tested a wing section for the peoples airplane to destruction.  Some of the members of chapter 582 have been taking an active role in designing and building a LSA trainer over the past few years and the load test was performed in order to test a few design elements that are at least somewhat unique.  The biggest difference between this airplane and all other airplanes is that this airplane is not being built for a single owner but will belong to all who are interested in learning how to fly.  

    So I would like to say thank you to everyone that has helped on behalf of all the people that will not be involved with the design an construction of this prototype but, will learn to fly in it in the years to come.  You are a collection of selfless volunteers that are giving of yourself so that others may benefit and experience the freedom of flight and the thrill of piloting an airplane.

    Now on to the post failure structural discussion.  Fortunately we have a collection of qualified engineers that have analyzed and predicted performance of the wing structure.  I will leave the bulk of the technical discussion to them.  Myself being the conceptual designer I am very happy with the results of this failure.  To most that is a confusing statement but the engineers know what I am taking about.  There may be no better example of how a failure can be so supportive of success and we are convinced now that success is assured.  This will be a safe wing to fly under.

    A laymen’s explanation of what happened is this,  the wing only made it to 3.8 Gs which sounds good if you don’t know about load requirements but even though that is the max load allowed on a standard category airplane, it still needs to hold another 1.9 Gs for a safety factor.  It held about 2508 pounds and we needed to add another 1254 pounds to make the guidelines in Part 23 of the FARs concerning aircraft construction.  That makes a total of 3762 pounds.  We have chosen to meet these requirements to insure structural integrity of the design.

    In short the wing bent too much under the load and cause other parts of the structure to buckle and then fail.

    So if the wing failed so short of the required load what makes the test so good?  Like I said some of the wing design is somewhat unconventional in that the way the different elements are used is slightly different than other wings.  The two elements that gave me the most concern were the foam rib leading edge and the zig zagging wing ribs.  I am very happy to say that they both performed flawlessly and will work in the final wing so, no worries with them.
Both of these element contribute greatly to the strength and ease of construction as well as keeping the cost down.

    What did fail were the spars.  I am not concerned about this because there are reams of data available to address this and we have already redesigned the construction to address these problems so that the next wing will with much certainty make the cut.  Here is a link to a video that Glen Meiring made that caught the precise location of the failure.  https://youtu.be/aVV8F6AW-Yk

    So lets start the conversation and hear some analysis from our experts.

Bill David

PS  Did I mention how much fun this has been?

 Does anybody know why you can't get anything on the Flair project button (errer404) or on the forums button  ?