So I am continuing work this evening as I started last night. One little item that I found a little different is that the airplane comes with a small DVD instead of an instruction manual, and it is kind of generic covering several different airframes. Really not a big deal to me, the only things you should really need it for is the firewall to thrust washer measurement, and the recommended cg. Otherwise if you have assembled an arf or two it really just kind of falls together.


With that being said, the DVD calls for you to install the horizontal stab, elevators and rudder right off the bat. I do not like assembling in that order as I think it is much easier to get the engine lined up and mounted while tail feathers are not in the way. This allows you to stand the fuselage straight up while getting everything set. One thing I did notice is the recommended distance of 115mm from firewall to the thrust washer seems to be 3-5mm too short. I followed the recommendation and the pattern on top of the cowl going to the turtle deck is a bit off. I am not going to worry about it as with the heavier engine up front I do not mind having it set back a bit, but it is worth mentioning.


I now have the engine, throttle servo, fuel tank and rudder servo mounted. I have also fitted the cowl and trimmed it to the muffler and spark plug boot as well. The cowl came withing 1/8" of clearing the plug boot, but I did have to make a small hole to clear it, kind of looks like an igniter hole for glow. I still need to block off the hole opposite of the cylinder head in the cowl, and I am going to cover the open structure of the F2 former to prevent the fuselage from being pressurized by airflow, and to prevent exhaust gasses from going into the lower fuselage. I will probably cover the top, bottom and sides of the engine box while at it. Lord knows I have more than enough scrap white covering.


Once that is done I will move to the tail feathers and landing gear. The ignition box for the 10gx comes with quite a long spark plug lead so I will have some flexibility in where I mount it while making sure it is not too close to the receiver. This should help however with getting the cg right without having to add any weight. So far I am very impressed overall with the airframe, especially for the price. If it flies as well as I hope it does then I will be pretty pleased.


Some pics...