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...

Raptor Glider Build Part 1

...going to plan so far

I had hoped to have the raptor ready for a first-flight today, although that turned out to be overly optimistic.It also turned out very mist at the field, so I wouldn't have flown the Raptor anyway with visibility that poor.

So far I have installed the fuselage linkages and servos, and hooked up the tail surfaces. I have also managed to complete the installation of servos and covers on one wing, including the slightly tricky task of feeding the servo cables through the wing spars. Fortunately, with the generous sized cutouts and and improvised threading tool (control wire with a hooked end) this proved less troublesome than I had anticipated.

One thing worthy of note is that extension cables need to be firmly plugged in, given that the cable has to be pulled past obstructions. After one let go during the process, I taped up the connection with electrical tape to make sure it stayed fast.

So I hope to have the other wing fitted out soon, then I should be able to connect everything up for a functional check. I've set up the V-tail mixing on my radio, (right=rudder, left=elevator) although I still need to check whether either of the controls needs reversing, and to make sure the tail does what it's supposed to...