Challenger

[Brookes745]

An infill piece was added into the large hole before 2 part body filler was applied…..a second coat will probably be required.

[Brookes745]

I had roughly shaped the bottom of the fuselage and wanted to add a cooling hole for the electrics, so this was marked out….

[Brookes745]

Then cut and sanded to shape…..

[Brookes745]

Finally for now, the hatch for the underside of the nose area was made up from a spruce frame and Proskin. I may add additional cooling slots later….

[Brookes745]

So after a bit of sanding the cowl was ready for spraying with primer…….

[Brookes745]

While the primer dried, I moved onto the tailwheel, once again out of my spares box……

[Brookes745]

A 1/4 ply mounting plate was made up and epoxied in place and the rudder fitted using my preferred pin hinges. The tailwheel assemble was then screwed into place.

[Brookes745]

The motor was mounted and adjusted for spacing, note the aluminium spacers behind the bolts……

[Brookes745]

Then the cowl was offered up and screwed into place using the spinner as a reference. Note the yellow high fill primer used on the cowl.

 

• This reply was modified 9 months, 3 weeks ago by Brookes745.

[Brookes745]

So more progress on and off this week in between getting the fleet ready for resumption of flying.  Due to the shape of the top part of the cowl, I had to rethink the top part of the fuselage and the to match access hatch to match so the old section was removed and a new one added……

 

[Brookes745]

And from the other side……note the holes for the locating dowels from the hatch which I was able to keep the same spacing on…..

[Brookes745]

Next the hatch was carved to shape to match the new profile and a filler piece added to allow for the height difference…..

[Brookes745]

Once dry the whole thing was carved and sanded to shape……got to say I’m pleased with how it came out.

 

[Brookes745]

With the completion of the nose area fairing, the construction of the plane is essentially complete apart from the tray that will hold the battery and to complete that I need to figure out where in the fuselage it will go. In order to do that I need to get an idea how the model will balance and to find that out I need to dry assemble it with all the electronics, control surfaces, retracts etc. To start with, the ailerons were shaped, hinged and the linkages made up…..

[Brookes745]

Next the rudder and elevator…..elevator shown here.

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