The Bipablast is the latest model from ATI Manufacturing, the people who took over the Aerotech range of sport planes and warbirds. It is a large (72 inch span) biplane, suitable for 90 - 120 four strokes or equivalent two strokes. I bought it at the Weston Park show, having walked past the demonstrator a few times, followed by a more detailed examination, followed by a lengthy discussion with the people on the ATI stand. I paid £185 for the basic kit, and a further £43 for the hardware pack, so it wasn't a cheap kit. However, the hardware is all excellent quality, mostly DuBro, including hinges, wheels, tank, clevises, horns etc.

The kit sat in the workshop, occupying nearly half the available floor space until the Cap 230 was declared complete, and the decks were cleared for starting the Bipablast. The kit is a quick build model, with CNC cut sheet materials for the fuselage and tail components, veneered foam wings and fuselage decks and fibreglass undercarriage, cowl and spats. It is actually very similar to the Cap 230, other than everything is twice the size, and twice the number of wings to build!

The slots cut for the ¼ ply wing braces

Assembly started with the wings, as these will be needed at a fairly early stage in the fuselage construction. The instructions suggest starting with the fuselage, so we're off to a good start... It was a bit of a disappointment to find that on both wings, one half was around 2mm thinner than the other, leading to a step at the wing root. Not sure how this will work out when it comes to final finishing. The wing panels glued together with epoxy, followed by the leading edge and false trailing edge capping strips. I used my new solvent free contact adhesive for this, and it worked a treat. The balsa provided was very good quality, but short on the straight, lower wing.

Next job was to cut the slots for the joining braces. These are beefy ¼ inch ply, which need to be sunk into slots in the wing centre. I thought that cutting these would be a really difficult task, but with one of those snap off craft knives, it was actually pretty easy. I epoxied these into place, having mixed some micro balloons to improve the gap filling properties. The joint seemed as solid as a rock after curing. The wing braces have been glued in, and capped with ¼ square balsa. I searched the kit box in vain for the necessary wood, but no, not provided, so it was into the wood box. Minus another point ATI.

The wing braces capped - note the short TE capping

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This page was last updated on 21/02/04

Copyright Jonathan Mead 2002