Well, I'm still building my first plane after a couple months, and in the haste, I forgot the all important first step... checking that everything that comes with the kit actually came with the kit.

Except that I've been lucky, up till now, I've yet to have missing pieces.. in fact, the kit came with extra wood! The midwest Aero-star needs eight 1/16 sheets for the center of the wings. these sheets come bundled together with elastics. The funny thing is that I have two bundles for a total of 16 sheets! might come in handy for repairs.

The other kit problem I think I have is that the shaped balsa trailing edge of one of the wings doesn't look like balsa! Unfortunately I've already glued it in place.. but I think that cutting slots for the hinges will be something of a headache. The kit asks me to punch some T-pins through this trailing edge to hold it down at one point, and I must say.. it was not easy pinning that down!

I have no idea how to tell all the woods apart, but seriously, can balsa really be this hard? (I have trouble leaving a fingernail mark on it!) Anyway, I know it won't cause problems, I'll just take more time to make the slots for hinging with a new blade, but it is surprising to see this.