RE: Lightning Build
Happy New Year to everyone!
Since my favorite football team decided to call it a season a bit early this year, I have plenty of time to work on the Lightning and not worry about bowl season as much.
The fuselage is about ready to seperate from the jig. The last steps before I do that are to install the landing gear plate and attach the fin. The landing gear plate is 1/8 lightply, laminated with carbon fiber on both sides. The gear mounts on the bottom of the plate and on the top of the plate is a 1/8" by 1/4" carbon strip to add flexural strength. The plate is glued into the fuselage with Hysol.
After the fuselage is removed from the jig, a fore and aft sub-former will be added to lock the plate in.