Xk A160 Skylark - Carbon Fiber Strut & Flaps Mod

Disappointed with the flimsy plastic wing struts this plane comes with, I decided to make my own rigid set from carbon fiber and aluminum tubing. The finished set is only two-tenths of a gram (0.2g) heavier per wing than the stock plastic ones, so no weight penalties. I have a second wing for another plane I am modding with a two-piece spar and have deleted the struts entirely, so I removed the four stock strut mounting plates no longer needed on the bottom-side of wing #2 and re-used a pair of them for this project to provide a mounting point on the fuselage. Materials: 2mm carbon tubing with a 1mm bore. 3mm aluminum tubing with a 2mm bore. The mounting screws on the wings were replaced with RC car body clips for tool-less breakdown and assembly. Next, I decided to add functional flaps to the wings using balsa wood and shrink film covering to form the aerodynamic control surfaces. I used channel 5 (GEAR) to operate the flaps in unison using a servo lead Y-cable, since I am already using channel 6 (FLAPS) for the ESC. A pair of Eflite linear servos move the flaps, hung on Dubro #118 mini nylon hinges along with the new ailerons. The balsa wood flaps are covered in TowerKote film in Cub Yellow (similar to Monokote). To improve the look I decided to remove the foam ailerons entirely and fab a flap-matching balsa set to replace them too. This pretty much completes this project. Now to move on to A160 project #2 (my PARTS-built J3 Cub with the sparred wing). Hope to get back to flight tests soon. Happy flying!