Andrew,
hope with my new post it`s easier to understand what I wanted to say concerning to the flap suspension:
If you have a look at the building sheet where the wing section is shown. There is part no. 105 (it`s called PIPE in the part list) and part no. 106 (called FLAP ROD). Part no. 105 is made of brass, part no. 106 is aluminium. This means that the metal rod will move in a suspension made of brass. My first glow aircraft crashed because of misfunction of the radio. Some colleagues with more experience told me after the crash, that`s totally forbidden to make any movable metal-to-metal connections. I had connected the metal hinge of my magnum engine directly with a metal wire...[:@] After this experience I pay attention to this and I avoid movable metal-to-metal connections when possible. So my suggestion is: just leave out parts no. 105. But make your own thought about that issue!
Building of the vertical stabilizer:
I`m trying to attach a draft of the building plan, where I marked the position of the dowels. I did not glue them on the bottom of the fuse and also did not drill a hole in the horizontal stab. I doubled the top of the belt with plywood, only. So far I did not overstrengthen this construction but I´m only flying scale-like with this aircraft: no loops, no turns and things like that! So I think it`s a good idea to glue the dowels at the bottom of the fuse. But then you`ll have to drill a hole in the horizontal stab.
Nose wheel:
I have to clarify that my model has not a retractible gear. I have attached some pictures of my construction. Picture 1 shows you the first nose wheel I used, picture 2 is the newest version (only the changed position of the mount for the nose wheel, the new landing gear isn`t ready so far). I had to change it because I want to use another muffler. Therefore version no. 2 is still under construction. For version no. 1 I used the nylon mount (grey part that is screwed at the fire wall) but I bought an additional nose wheel which has two shanks (I`m not shure if "shanks" has the correct meaning but have a look at picture 1) I solded a metal hinge to the wire and then I covered the hinge with ABS-plastic and a thin coat of epoxy. When I connected the nose wheel with the servo of the steering rudder I realized that the servo had real problems! That`s why I installed a seperate servo for the nose wheel.
If you are still interested in using a retractible gear: visit the homepage of Top Flite (
www.top-flite.com) They have released a kit of the Piper Arrow II. You can download the manual as a .pdf-file. The manual shows the mounting of Robart retracts. Maybe you will be inspired by these pictures!
British Airways livery is nice. I firstly decided to paint my model in colours of Lufthansa or LTU but than I`ve chosen the marks of a zebra. Looks like a safari-plane.
Cheers,
Michael
P.S.:
I`ve seen that I could not upload the drawings of the plan and of the nose wheel because they are .tif-documents. I hope you`ll see everything about the nose wheel on the pictures!