Raptor Glider Canopy Latch

...the single-wire solution

The Raptor glider comes with a smooth-fitting carbon shell of a canopy but unfortunately, despite R2hobbies' product description, this doesn't come with a canopy latch mechanism.

After some deliberation, including two type of spring-loaded canopy latch mechanisms, I decided to go with the single-wire system. For those not familiar, this basically entails gluing a strip of spring wire to the underside of the canopy, with the ends extending past the canopy shell front and back.

The idea is that the front wire is slid under the fuselage rim at the front of the canopy recess, and then the canopy is pushed far forward until the back wire can be slipped under the fuselage rim at the back. The canopy is then slid back into it's recess.

For the wire, I used a length of excess control rod cut from the fuselage push-rods, and hot-melt glued this to the canopy. The extent of gluing affects the amount of retention force - closer to the extremities means shorter wire flex and therefore greater retention force, although this also places more stress on the canopy so this is a balancing act. The length of wire also needs to be adjusted as excessive length can cause fouling at the front or problems tucking in the back.

I'm a little uncomfortable at having to deform the canopy each time it's fitted and removed, but it doesn't appear to stress it unduly.

The appeal of this system is that no modification is required to the rather delicate canopy as would be required with canopy latches, and that the result is an unblemished external appearance; the canopy held in place as if by magic...

Radical Dude

...thats hot!

Following on from the successful motor transplant in the Radjet, I wanted to give its very-battered nose a bit of reinforcing, consisting as it did of fragments of foam superglued and bounded by tape, which basically holds everything together. Due to missing bits, however, superglue wasn't really working anymore, however I had a great idea - hot melt!

I have tried this out and it worked brilliantly - basically I have injected all the cavities between the foam pieces full of hot melt which, due to its bulk, fills the voids and bonds everything together. So now the Radjet nose is about as rigid again as it's ever been, although still not quite as pretty as it once was.

I've also wanted an easier way to fit the chubby 4-cell batteries as, in the past, I've had to forcefully ram these into the fuselage. Having some unused hatch hinges and some recently arrived, and long overdue, magnets I've decided to make a battery hatch a bit back from the canopy opening.

So far I've just fitted the hinges to the hatch, then I'll glue this to the fuselage and finally install the magnets, probably hot-melted in place and covered with felt tape to prevent them pulling out.

That will almost complete a substantial overhaul of the high-flying speedster, the last thing it needs in a canopy. If only they stocked spares for the 800...