Squirrel made front cover of Mecatronica magazine in Brazil.
A picture of the Squirrel apeared on the cover of the magazine.
In this page, they are adding the leading and trailing edge and then the center rib. The problem is that it will rarely fit properly this way. It’s better to put the three ribs down, then the trailing edge. When the trailing edge is put down we can easily make sure it connects to all three wing ribs.
Also, they’re using a square block to align the Winglets. This really isn’t necessary as a vertical angle is very easy to eyeball. Also when applying the tissue, there is a specific hand technique that reduces the breakages during building. Check out the “Make it” section for the official instructions.
It uses the old style motorstick which is thinner has a nose block. I discontinued that because with soft balsa there were a lot of breakages. They are also attaching the toothpick to the fin spar before attaching it to the model. The difficulty with that is that the builder will not glue it to both the motor stick AND the front of the fin spar.
Also, the wing seat is glued on top of the motor stick which is also a mistake. The original Squirrel used an 1/8th piece of wood which could be used to “thicken” the wing seat. The newer Squirrel uses a 16th thick piece that is glued to the SIDE of the motorstick. This gives a wider platform for the wing mount. The wing mount shown in the magazine will flip sideways when there is high torque from the elastic.
Overall the instructions are great because of the excellent pictures!
Here are a few pictures from some of the early workshops of the Squirrel here in Ottawa.
