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GONG V3 reference setup

Inspect a community-supplied GONG V3 fuselage, download its updated STEP and place a scaled reference beside your own wing. This is an experimental CAD reference, not a verified compatible mount or an official GONG product.

What is in this revision

The 2026-10-29 contributor revision supersedes the earlier STEP. The contributor reported correcting a hole position that was 1 mm off, changing the front-wing interface radius to the fuselage radius and adding 0.6 mm of thickness for use as a Boolean cutting tool. That thickness change is not a specified universal clearance. The modified geometry is preserved as supplied. No additional scaling, hole correction or fit allowance has been applied by Winghopper.

The source chain is community CAD shared through a contributor, including a public Onshape model. It is not a manufacturer drawing. The exact hardware variant and a physical fit check of this revision remain unconfirmed. Earlier community measurement notes in Strength are separate reports, not certified dimensions of this STEP.

Design a mounted wing

Choose Design a front-wing socket or Design a stabilizer socket above. Both keep the current wing and open Design > Mount. Enable the socket, choose front or rear, and adjust housing walls, mouth extension, center height, axis rise aft and underside screw clearance. Changing the planform still uses the ordinary wing controls. A small root chord is refused when the insert and closed-end wall will not fit.

Preview mounted wing builds the same exact CAD used by standalone wing STEP / STL export. Inspect the socket end, underside screw access and whole wing. If inputs change, the old preview is marked stale. The main designer viewport, lift estimates and strength analysis still show the lifting surface only; they do not model the local socket housing or joint loads.

The front source segment is 84.5 mm long with 30 mm hole spacing. The rear segment is 75 mm long with 26 mm hole spacing. These dimensions come from the STEP, and differ from the earlier community measurement notes. The source coordinate ranges and bounding-box datums are recorded with the generated interface metadata. They are not manufacturer incidence datums. Download the front interface STEP or rear interface STEP to inspect the separate mating sections, including the tail geometry.

The housing is a local, unfaired circular envelope around the source profile. Its closed end covers the insert tip. The front mouth opens aft beyond the wing trailing edge; the rear mouth opens forward beyond the leading edge. A 2 mm base extension keeps the opening beyond the local planform; the extension control adds to it. Screw-access bores run from underneath through the source thread-hole volumes while preserving the top housing wall. Screw-head seats, thread engagement, reinforcement, fatigue life and manufacturing clearances remain your design and validation work. GONG describes V3 wing and stabilizer fasteners as being underneath the foil. This source-derived experiment is not an OEM-verified fit preset.

Export a fit coupon from Mount before printing or machining a complete wing. It uses the same socket and screw access as the mounted wing. Wing STEP, wing STL and coupon exports use existing Pro access. A failed CAD/socket build refuses the export rather than silently downloading a raw wing. Core, mold, ply, print-kit and full-foil assembly CAD exports are blocked with this mount enabled because those routes do not yet include the housing.

Make the socket as a separate insert

Separate laminated insert in Design > Mount splits the mounted wing into two parts. The insert is a sleeve that follows the outline of the source insert at the wall thickness you set. A 12 mm collar forms the open rim, where the fuselage shoulder leaves no room for a separate sleeve wall. The pocketed wing keeps the same fairing and underside screw access as the mounted wing, with a pocket that matches the insert plus the bond gap you set.

The idea is to make the precise part first. Print or mold the insert, check it on your fuselage, then lay it into the wing. A failed fit then costs an insert, not a wing. The workflow follows Maarten Sikkema's open MS-Connector, a connector he makes on its own and then molds into the wing.

The export refuses to build if the source insert comes closer to the sleeve surface than the wall you set, or if the sleeve leaves less than 0.5 mm of wing outside it. Collar surfaces sit on the finished wing surface, so allow for any skins that run over the insert. The screw bores pass through the top of the sleeve, where the source thread holes reach. The wing above still closes them, so plug them before laminating. The bond between insert and wing carries the whole foil load. Winghopper does not analyze that joint. Overlap continuous plies across it and test before riding.

Use a reference only

The preview and source STEP download are public. Add to current wing as reference uses the existing Pro ghost-model flow. That handoff preserves the source millimetre scale and centers the reference on its bounding box; set its rotation and position in Design > Reference. A ghost alone does not cut the wing, alter the mounting configuration or define a leading-edge datum.

Before making a fitted wing

Confirm the actual fuselage version, hole centers, screw clearance and seating surfaces against your hardware. Check a small printed interface sample first. A successful fit does not establish the strength or fatigue life of a complete wing. The hosted file has not been physically validated by Winghopper.

Next: Full foil projects