Oh how TRUE!

Hi Bruce. Marshall here in WINNIPEG.

I've taken about 2 months off from the building of that AIRHOPPER - My contract with that school photo company is all but done with but the shoutin' - just a few more retakes and I can get back to work.

Even though the 2 mo. vacation from my project is over - I still had it in the back of my mind each day. Each day - even so - I would manage to stick a few chunks of balsa into place. Hah! I keep forgetting to stick that fairing in front of the rudder. LOL.

It's very much akin to planning a long, well deserved, vacation. The planning of it it - is half of the fun!

I don't recall where I left off with my images of it, - but I know that since you sent me a couple of drawings of the rudder/stab - and changing it into a flying stab. I have built the entire rudder 2x, I have made the horz stabs - no less than 3x.

WOW! What a learning process! I am just now, trying to get the alignment of the rods thru the rudder and into the stab itself to move smoothly. I keep getting a little bit of binding but as I keep making changes - they manage to work themselves out.

Also, if you recall, that the rudder was an integral part of the fuselage design. The aft section of the plane becomes the very weakest part of the entire build. Unltimately, I rebuilt the rudder and added the last section of the fuselage in reverse by taking the load bearing spars of the fuse and actually adding them up into the previous section. I also made those main parts a little thinner than specs asked for but used POPLAR instead. When all was said and done, -- RUDDER mounted as straight as the devices would allow, and I added a bit of epoxy to a little webbing to add some exterior srtength as seen in the attachments.

Overall, the fuselage with the rudder and the stabs added, (without any monokote) is weighing in at 19 oz.

I'll finish off the stabs this week (hopefully) and get started into the fabrication of the gull wing.


Marwen