The 2M Chrysalis is also a great kit... The Chrysalis kit had just a little too much heat applied during the cutting, so lots more discoloration, and the wood was a bit more varied in quality.

From : Don Stackhouse

What you're seeing is some initial "teething problems" that I believe are now sorted out. As with any wood kit, we are at the mercy of our wood suppliers. Our laser vendor in particular was getting a wide range of wood from his supplier. Harder wood requires more power to cut all the way through, and this power setting results in excessive charring on the softer pieces. We've both been putting pressure on our wood supliers, and our laser cutter is now sorting the wood differently to make it easier to match the cutting power to the requirements of each individual piece. He's also changed his holding and cutting procedures to reduce charring and make the entire process less sensitive to the power setting. I'm very impressed with the aggressive way he's attacked the problem, and I think our customers will be too.

The wing is fairly minimal, good laser-cut ribs and tip pieces. Like the Chrysalis HLG the leading edge is a dowel, allowing a semi-elliptical planform while maintaingin a polyhedral wing.

When Joe and I began the design of the original HLG Chrysalis, we figured that a lot of beginners would be building it. From our years of experience instructing beginners we knew that two consistent trouble areas for them are carving leading edges to shape, and applying D-tube leading edge sheeting. We decided that the Chrysalis would not impose either of these on its builders. The dowel leading edge is strong and pre-shaped.

To eliminate the D-tube sheeting we studied the entire covering sag issue. If you look at the covering between a pair of ribs you will notice that most of the region in the middle is relatively flat in the spanwise direction. If we could just get that region close to the correct airfoil shape, we'd have something close to the accuracy of a sheeted wing with a fraction of the weight and work. We measured the sag of a prototype wing in each open bay area, then developed corrected shapes for each segment of each rib to lift the covering in the middle region of each bay in the structure up to the desired airfoil shape. It was a huge engineering effort, requiring about a half-dozen individual corrections to EACH individual rib (and ALL of the ribs on the Chrysalis are different!), but it achieved the desired results. You can see it in the finished wing; if you watch a reflection move across the covering as you tilt the wing in your hand, you will notice that there is no kink in the reflection as it moves across the spar in between the ribs. This covering sag correction, plus the proper covering selection, and a full-box spar to provide sufficient torsional stiffness eliminated the need for leading edge sheeting.

he fuselage is very curvy (it builds as a collection of ugly blocks, then you sand the hell out if it)...

One of the other things we had in mind, especially with the 2-meter Chrysalis, was the teaching of traditional wood-working skills. With all the ARF's out there these days, a lot of beginners don't get much chance to learn these rewarding and fundamental skills. Even if they never build a model other than an ARF, they still need to learn these skills in order to do repairs. We designed the structure to be easy to build, but to also include examples of most of the typical woodworking operations, including how to carve a block to match a shape. In the 2-meter we also spent some effort teaching proper glue selection for different operations. I had some fun with this one; I drew graphical "international glue symbols", such as a glue bottle with a rabbit on it for fast cyano-acrylate, one with a turtle for slow C/A, and one with a cow on it for white glue. BTW, if you look closely, you might notice that the cow is happily chewing on some daisies, all drawn on CAD with splines and arcs.

the V-tail matches the wing planform. You can also build a conventional rudder/elevator setup...

The kit includes all parts for both tails. The stability and handling for the two are essentially identical, but the V-tail is a little lighter. It also seems to be a little easier to pack in the car.

I finished my fuselage with four coats of dope, and it looks great. The wing is transparent blue. A very attractive aircraft, it's so pretty to look at you don't realize just how big it is until you go to carry it through a door.

One of the biggest complaints we hear about 2-meters is that they're too hard to see, at least in comparison to open class models. In addition, beginners tend to build heavy. We gave it enough wing area to carry a little extra weight, and enough tail moment and wing chord to give it a "visual footprint" similar in size to a typical open-class model. The fuselage and tail are as big as a Paragon's, and the root chord of the wing is actually bigger.

I finished mine, but then undid part of the wing. The centre wing join was made just before some guests arrived, so I didn't check it while it was setting - unfortunately it moved a bit. Enough to ignore, but it was enough justification to do it again. Also I thought of a mod that will improve the bolt-on conversion. Rubber bands are a bit ugly... I plan on making a solid centre section for the wing to replace the two inner ribs and the sheeting. The solid part will be stronger, both in terms of the wing joint and for the wing bolt & locating dowel. Also it's a good excuse to try out my new mini-router, making the spar channels. Procedure is to trace the old rib templates for A & B, add sheeting thickness, stick one on either side of a balsa blok of the correct width and then sand between the two outlines. Route spar channels, sand an angle on the inside face, make the other one. I will also be able to make the spoiler servo setup neater. I don't know what Don or Joe think of this, I emailed them but no reply.

Sorry, but for a number of reasons, sometimes it takes me a while to reply to some e-mails. At the moment I have a number of hard deadlines approaching on several projects. Also, for some questions I like to think about the answer, in some cases even do some research, analysis and experiments before replying. A few of the treatises I'm infamous for on this exchange have taken me weeks to research and compose. Eventually I get it done, but sometimes it takes a while to fit it in amongst the demands of family, home and work. My apologies for the wait, but I'd rather write a proper and accurate reply, even if it takes a bit more time.

Adam's mod sounds like a very good one for an experienced builder. We don't have access to the right equipment (such as a 5-axis NC router) to include such a part in the kit at a reasonably cost that would be within the typical abilities of a beginner to assemble properly. It requires either some very involved machining work on our part, or some very precise woodcarving of a complex and awkward shape by the builder, something I would not want to impose on a beginner. If done properly, however, it should work very well. It will be slightly heavier, but not enough to be significant. It will be more durable. My only other caution would be to make sure that either the supplied plywood shear webs are used, or else you should sawcut along the front and back faces of the spar caps and install some 1/32" ply shear webs with the outer grain of the ply vertical. The spanwise grain of the balsa blocks alone will not be structurally adequate.

Don Stackhouse
DJ Aerotech