Andrew & Spiderbaby,
I`ve built the Arrow II in 2003. In Germany the model is distributed by Krick. The Piper is a very good flying model but indeed I had the same problems when building it!
First of all, I decided not to use retracts because I thought is was to complicated to make changes to the middle of the fuselage. But the Piper Archer/Warrior looks similar to the Arrow II and has a fixed landing gear!
For the wing section, I did it like Spiderbaby showed in his pic. It was not to complicated. I sanded the surface of the wings and glued the thin plywood with epoxy.
But Andrew, you are totally right, the building-instruction has fatal errors:
1.) Mounting of the vetrical stabilizer:
You cannot glue the stabilizer on the upper belt of the fueselage end! This is horrible. I doubled the upper belt of the fuselage with 5 mm plywood. Then I drilled two 6mm (I think it was 6 mm) wholes in the belt and also in the foam of the stabilizer. Then I glued 6 mm round wood in the stabilizer and in the two wholes of the belt. I put the round wood as deep in the foam as possible. Important: Before you assemble this, you should glue in the horizontal stabilizer. This will ensure you that the round wood that looks into the fuselage does not disturb you when gluing in the horzontal stab.
2.) Horizontal Stabilizer:
You will have to sand it! I had the same problems, the stabilizer did not fit into the fuse. I sanded the section very carefully and tried it many times - at last it worked but to be honest: the left end of the stab. is approx. 1 cm higher than the right end. It has no bad effort on flying charackteristics! When sanding, try to put the stab. in the fuse. from both sides!
3.) Mounting of the nose-wheel:
Just throw the nose wheel, which is provided in the kit into the trash-box! I used an additional part with double-suspension. It is not that hard and it`s not a good solution to fix the nylon hinge of the wheel with a metal srew. I think the nylon material is to weak.
Two additional tipps:
-In Germany the distributer offers a special muffler. When it is the same in your country: Do not buy it. It is to big to fit propperly and my engine (brand new O.S. 91 FX) stopped twice when airborne! But the Piper is a very good handling aircraft - Twice I managed to hit the landing-strip softly - Thanks God (and my flying-skills)! So far I´m trying to solve this problem by using another muffler.
-It is suggested to make the suspension of the landing-flaps metal by metal. I think this could cause problems to the radio. Therefore I just left out the metal coins in the foam of the wing because I think the plywood is strong enough for the metal axles of the flaps. Just think about this.
If you two are interested, I`ve going to take some pics. of my model and put them in the forum.
Hope my English is good enough...
Have fun when building the plane.
Michael