Happy holidays everybody! Over the past few days I've been working on a bit of ARF-type assemblies; mounted the engine (looks like a hotrod with it!), fixed the problem with the throttle pushrod, mounted the new gear, finished the hatch, and started to carve the curved pieces between the horizontal stab and fin. Some pictures below. Notice a quality increase? A free camera came with an online order my dad did and it literally doubles the specs of my 6 year old camera .
Just one problem arose: with the taller landing gear, will the plane have trouble standing on its 3 wheels? I put on my engine, wings, stacked the tail surfaces on top of the stabilizer mount, and placed the battery in the middle of the radio compartment. When doing this, the plane was like a see-saw (witth the fulcrum at the wheels) even with all the counter weights. I'm a little afraid that the plane will be more unstable on the ground, especially with a full tank of gas. Should I find a way to move the gear forwards a bit or wait until the plane is properly balanced and covered? I'm kind of scared the plane will be very nose heavy, with a big 4 stroke mounted far forward, big heavy wheels, and an aluminum spinner. I really don't feel like buying new wheels and all to balance this thing out but I guess I may have to...
Anyway that's all, have a great holiday everyone! Hope you all get fun toys for me, money to support the build! (I'm broke now, still need to get the receiver and servos!)

Stay tuned!
Mike<br type="_moz" />