RE: Christen Eagle - Building, Alterations and Modifications
It is Friday and I spent 3 hours working on my GP Christen Eagle II last night. Progress and another WOPPER. This is getting rediculous. Maybe this plane is out to get me?
I finished installing the servos and push rods on the wings -- No problems, my soldering worked out well for a change. They are Hitec digitals so I also reset them and centered them as close as I could. One thing I noticed, was the airlons do not marry to the wings flushed on both the top and bottom -- the leading edge of the airlons seem to be slightly smaller in thickness than the trailing edge of the wing. I lined up the airlon's deflection with the bottom of the wing.
NOTE: One problem I had while installing the CA hinges on the airlons was that the hinge slits were not deep enough. I had to go over them with a long exacto knife blade.
After installing the airlon push rods my instruction manual told me to checkout the hinges on the tail surfaces and following the same procedures I used for the airlons. Unfortunately, I stopped reading there and commenced to install the elevator hinges. I had an exceptionally difficult time enlarging the hinge slits because the trailing edges of the horizontal stabilizer appears to be constructed out of very hard wood. At one point I gave up the effort and was going to install Robart hinge-points. Fortunately/unfortunately my hinge-point drill guide was too big for the medium size hinges. I retuned to enlarging the CA hinge slits and eventually managed and completed the CA hinge installation. Just about the time I finished the last application of CA it dawn on me to look at the tail end of the fuselage. Alas, the horizontal stabilizer is designed to be installed in the fuselage before hinging the elevators. JXYPHCMF!!!!!!, why did the instruction have me do anything with the tail surface hinges at this time? Well, it looks like I'm going to have to saw out the trailing edge of the fuselage to install the hinged horizontal stabilizer -- shouldn't be too much of a problem.
Is there anything else in this airplane's assembly that I can royally screw up?
BTW, I plan on editing my posts this weekend to add progress pictures.