I received my Global Freestyle last night and commenced working on it. The fuse, wing, rudder, stab and 1/2s, and ailerons, seemed light. The wing is a foam core balsa covered design, with open bays. First step was to re-iron down EVERY piece of covering, as there were wrinkles. The actual covering material is 1/2 the quality of econo-cote. The "dark" colors on the bottom of the wing were ironed on-top-of the white, thus, there are air bubbles under it. However, 75% did shrink down nicely to the eye. Upon shrinking down the wrinkles on the fuse sides, I noticed that aft of the wing saddle, there was inter-bulkhead warping of the thin fuselage sheeting.

All the instructions say, "cut open space for pushrod exits, rudder, and stab." However, this ARF has those openings already cut out. Additionally, the Gear already has holes drilled in for the axles and pants, and they don't look right. My feeling, is that somehow, this is not a fresh kit, but rather, a compilation or something that other people sent back, with some work done.

Onto the wing: I joined the wing up with epoxy. One alignment tab of at the LE of one panel was broken off, which I repaired. I hinged the ailerons without incident, and am generally pleased with the fit.

Wing saddle: Wing fits nice. HOwever, you have to glue on a rick-edy fiberglass section over the bottom of the wing. I made this a little more rigid by gluing 1/4" balsa stringers along the edges, and to provide more gluing area. The fit of this is close - but no cigar. I resorted to clear silicone to glue this chincy fiberglass onto the section of wood of the wing I exposed for glue adherance.

fuse: ALLglue joint visible are of the "glue-gun" type, with "fillet" style glueing. I used thin CA on all joints I could reach. ALL wood visible on the interior of the fuse seems to be very dry and "splinterable" or open grained. I soaked much of this open grain type of wood in the "wing-bolt-hold-down-plate" with thin CA.

Wing, stab, vertical fin alignment::::::::: With wing installed (actually bolted in), I inserted the horizontal stab and vertical fin for trial fit and visual. Most troublesome. The vertical stab was off by a no-kidding, 5 degrees. Totally unacceptable. Plus, the stab was off to the wing and vertical fin. I decided to use the wing as the "reference", and took to adjusting the vertical fin position. I needed to carve out the place the vertical fin was supposed to fit in, and then use shims of very thin light-ply, to get the "fin" vertical to the wing and the Fuse portion of the rudder hinge line. Then, I did the same procedure to "shim" up the horizontal stab to the wing and fin. Took measurement, and glued in with thin CA.

Rudder and elevator: Hinged all with no problem and quit for the night:

HITS: I love the "lines" of the plane, specifically, the fuselage. This is without a doubt "proportionally", the "tallest" fuselage plane I've owned (comparing to modern pattern planes). I can't wait to see how it flys. The RUDDER, fin, Horizontal stab, and 1/2s, all look PERFECTLY proportioned, with the moving parts on the "big" side. The Ailerons also look perfectly proportioned to the wing, and are big. Actually, I'm VERY excited to get this airframe flying and I believe after looking at it, that it is going to WILD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111

Misses: I really don't like getting a "5-footer" out of the box, BUT, I do realize that for $185 (kit + tax+ shipping), I can't expect much else. You can't buy monocote and do the ironing yourself for less than that, if you were paid $8/hr. So - OK. I briefly considered sending it back, but thought that for what I want to use it for, it would be fine. However, this is not going to win any "queen of the hangar" award. The wood just doesn't look good. I have "squeezed" and "tugged" enough though, to believe that it will be structually sound. This hot-glue-gun type of contruction has got to go!!! For instance, "ply doublers" on the inside of the fuse, which are obviously supposed to be glued tight to one another, have small gaps. I tried to reach all glue joints with CA. AL gear is a little bit stronger than paper-masche, and won't make it to final assembly.

I'll know more by tonight.

Tailwheel: First class! Looks to be a copy of the MK and excellent quality.

Overriding thought: I like the lines so much that I thought it would make a nice kit.