Wallace Berry writes:

I used to share your concerns about wooden ships. However, in the 25
years that I've been aviating, I've run into more structural problems
with metal aircraft than with wood or plastic. Metal ships seem to get
more abuse, both in flight and from poor storage (tied out). I've been
inside the wings of a number of wood aircraft and have yet to see a
problem that would have compromised the aircraft in flight. The wood in
the wings of our Ka-8, which is at least 45 years old, looked as if it
were new when we removed the fabric to recover it.

Which raises an important point: with modern Dacron covering systems,
and a good trailer or hangar, it's possible, and tempting, to leave
the fabric on for 20 or 30 years. But they should be recovered much
more often than that, to allow you to inspect the structure and fix
all the popped glue joints. For example, 20 years is probably too
long, see http://www.tux.org/~milgram/k8.html.


However, as to your question about the Nugget. I've heard that they are
great ships, but a little heavy for weak conditions.

Someone suggested a Schwiezer 1-23. The 1-23 D through H15 models are
truly great ships, good for weak conditions. They are not fun to
assemble however. Also, they tend to develop cracks in the wing and tail
skins from "oil canning".

My advice would be to get yourself a Ka-6 and go have fun!

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