I’ve always been a big fan of the Q-Tee. I bought the plans for the Q-Tee from the RCM Plans Catalog in 1992 and taught myself to fly with it. Since then I’ve built several of them over the years, and I’ve found that it's a great design for testing modifications and refinements.

One of the problems I had on my very first Q-Tee was the center of gravity. It was tailheavy, and I had to put lead in the nose. I hate it when that happens. Borrowing a trick from the Great Lakes Trainer of 1929, I swept the wingtips back about 1″ to move the desired balance point back 1/2″. It worked like a charm, and that plane was a great flier.

Here’s my latest Q-Tee, which I just finished last month, also with swept back wings.

This is pretty easy to do. Just put some marks on your plans at the wing tips to show where the spar, leading edge, and trailing edge should be pinned down. Pin these pieces at their standard position at the root end, and you’ll end up with a swept back wing. Remember to leave the ribs oriented as shown on the plans.  In other words, don't tilt them to be perpendicular to the spars, leave them pointing directly ahead. Here’s a photo of the plans. Look for the highlighted marks showing the new spar, leading edge and trailing edge locations.