Tim Campling

With reference to the wing joining post. I've been advised that it IS best to glue the wing halves. Good job I've got a fairly lage van .

Thanks Alan. It's great to have all this support. It improves the confidence no end! Next job are the stabilisers. These are a two piece affair with an alli. tube joiner. The same technique of fitting location dowels is first. The moulding on the fuselage determines the incidence and it's a simple matter of drilling matching holes and glueing dowels into the stab halves. I simply made up a template of the stab root to make sure the holes were alligned. When I bought the kit I think it was Martin who recommended to drill key holes in the fuselage to allow the epoxy to squeeze through, I also scraped away the paint to improve adhesion. The rudder linkage has to be inserted before the stabs are glued and it makes sense to make up the pull/pull linkage while there is easy access. Slots need to be cut in the stab halves for the hinges but I would not recommend trying to glue them in at the same time as fixing the stabs. There is plenty of play to allow fixing them later. Once everything lines up correctly it's time to glue the stabs. The masking tape is to catch any drips! For these jobs I like to use slow setting epoxy which gives plenty of time to line things up and reposition as necessary. The epoxy is applied to the stabilisers, dowels and I opted to glue the alloy tube after first roughening it up with sandpaper. This will add more weight but improve security. Keeping everything square at the back is critical and a loop of tape all round holds everything together. By measuring the lengths between the fin and stab you can be sure it's equal and of course this holds it nice and tight as it sets. The rudder and elevators are not attached yet but I couldn't resist a trial fit , love it! 'Till next time, happy landings.

Hi all the wings are now together. On my other warbirds the wing halves are glued together but after checking with YT it was recommended that they remain seperate. There is a root rib template included in the kit and you use this to locate and drill holes for two dowels, neat. The wing joiner is a substantial piece of marine ply. I found that it fitted one way better than the other. Finally I scored the inside of the wing bolt plate to allow some flex. By drilling through the plate the captive nuts can be fitted to the plate in the fuselage. I used an angled washer and a metal bolt (the supplied ones are nylon) to pull the nuts into the fuselage plate without the wings in place. The angled washer means the nuts pull in at the right angle. She's starting to look menacing now!

I learned to fly with a pulse 40, fabulous flyer, probably easier than your trainer! I flew from a sheep field so you can imagine the state of the ground and never needed different wheels allthough the spats suffered. IMO the Pulse can stand a bit of extra weight and after tearing the UC out I fitted a substantial piece of 1 inch ply between the formers. This obstructed the wing dowels but just drill the holes out. If you make this a good fit all the landing forces are dissipated into the fuselage and I never had another problem despite my inexperienced 'arrivals'. Well right up to the point I flick rolled it into the side of a hill! It'll go wherever you point it, you'll have a big grin as soon as you're in the air. Just watch the floaty landings, especially if there's no wind. Happy landings.

Bit more done today. The Lado retracts and the Unitracts oleos have arrived and what nice bits of kit they are too! Also I must add how helpful both companies are. Christophe at Lado returned email information requests at 10.30 pm! The Unitracts oleos are beautifully made to exactly the specification I wanted and very reasonably priced. Anyway, a test fit of the retracts showed that I'd need to shim up the rails. This also gave me the opportunity to add a little extra to the aft rail to throw the wheels forward a tad. With these glued into place the wheel no longer struck the wing skin when up. I made my own axles as the wheel hole is 5mm and the oleo takes 4mm. There are some gear covers included in the kit but I found a demonstration of someone making a contoured set and I fancy a go at that. The Lados open to 95 degrees which should mean that there will be very little splay on the undercarriage. The deployment speed is very cool and smooth, no worries about whether they are locked or not now! These are only test fit at the moment and once I'm sure all is OK I'll threadlock all the screws. The cables have been brought through the holes on top of the wings so the next job is to join the two halves together. Maybe this week.

Cheers I think that might be the way to go.

True enough Steve! Ross I just heard that Traplet have got one, maybe I'll have a look at that. I did think about using what I've got as a plug and getting a CF one made. I've got a guy next door with the vac form gear.  

Cheers BEB That is a site I knew of but you're right about the price! Still, quality costs. To be truthfull it's probably more than I wanted to spend. I was considering painting the spinner anyway, I wonder if I could fettle it myself?