Finally the time came to transport our two Skysurfers to NTU and have them assembled. We opened the box excitedly like children opening Christmas presents. This excitement quickly turned into dismay when I realised that the dents in the retail box extended into the airplane foam, causing major deformation. To add insult to injury, the damage did not just occur in obscure, unimportant areas; there was major damage to the critical areas of the airframe also! Bummer!

Damage to the wing’s leading edge

Wing deformed

More damage – even the aileron was not spared

Fortunately, we bought two airframes so the second one was less damaged and in a more flyable condition. Hence, we chose to assemble that first.

However all was not lost, upon inspection by Kanesh, he determined that the faulty airframe could still be salvaged by flattening out the deformed parts with some weights.

Professor Google also recommended soaking the foam in hot (preferably boiling) water to have it expand. Problem was, the airplane was larger than any pot we could find. Thus, we had to settle for the second best option of pouring boiled water over the foam and then bend it back into its intended shape.

Found a kettle in the MnT lab…

And so began the painstaking work of letting the hot water soak into the foam and then slowly bending it back into its original shape, then putting a really heavy weight on it

Using one of the many discarded power supplies in the MnT lab as a weight to crush the foam back into shape

After a few hours of work, success! The wings are now back in an airworthy condition!

[TODO: add photos of wings after repairs]