What was wrong with the old wing?

As I mentioned, I just happened to have a spare Q-2 wing laying around. There were a couple of things about the old wing that I didn't like. Foremost, was the use of the wrong filler that I used 22+ years ago. The Quickie dealer I shared a hangar with, urged me to use this stuff that he used and he purchased from a local hobby shop. (Obviously, I didn't know squat back then). He said if I mixed this stuff with microballoons it would set up in an hour and I could start working it the same day, instead of waiting a day or two using Safe-t-poxy. Seemed to make sense at the time.

I barely knew the difference, but this stuff was a polyester resin. It seemed to work well for finishing, but my problems didn't surface until a few years after I was flying. It seems the polyester soaked through pinholes in the wing's surface and made it's way to the foam. I believe it actually cavitated the foam and over years left a series of little depressions in the thing. Mostly on the underside. One year I drilled small holes in the depressions and injected wet micro, but that was mostly a cosmetic fix.





Composites are really strong, but that always nagged at me. Then there was another mysterious problem. Just outboard of the fuselage on the upper surface, there was a mysterious indentation in the wing, about the size of your hand. The casual observer would never see it, but I knew it was there, but didn't know why.

Was it because of the polyester? Had it been overstressed? Did it happen when I once plopped a little girl on the wing for a photo op? I don't know.

So, I elected to make a new, stronger wing. I used the same shape, but I made two changes. First, I added one more uni spar cap on the top and the bottom. I adjusted all the layers to suit. I also terminated each spar cap with a "point", rather than being squared off, per plans. This should avoid the composite equivalent of stress risers.



The last problem was with the rigging of the wing itself. Early in my flight testing, I had a mechanical failure of the rudder system and went off the runway, and the plane flipped over and broke the wing. A new wing was build and installed, but I think the angle of incidence was incorrect, since I always had to fly around with the ailerons reflexed up about 3/8". So, replacing the wing would allow me to try and correct this at the same time.