With the wing ready to go I looked around to see what I have left to do before I put the tail section together. Unless I am missing something the only thing I can find left to do is install the radio switch. Your radio will come with an on/off switch for you to use to turn the receiver on and off. If you look at the switch itself you will see that on one side of the switch there is one wire coming out of the switch but on the other side of the switch there are two wires coming out of the switch. On the side with two wires on it one of those wires will be what you connect to your battery pack, and the other wire will allow you to connect your charger to the battery in order to charge it (it will also allow you to connect a battery tester so you can check the level of your battery while using it. On the other side of the switch that has one wire on it, this wire will connect to you receiver. If you use just the stock equipment you will mount the switch on the side of the fuselage so that the slide of the switch is on the outside of the fuselage, you want to do that in order to turn the plane on and off without having to take the wing off. If you are going to use the stock switch I recommend that when you put the wing on the plane to fly that you take the “extra” wire and hang it outside of the fuselage and then put the wing on the plane. By doing this you will be able to check the charge left in your battery at the field without having to take the wing off, it will also allow you to quick charge your batteries at the field without taking the wing off.

As I said in the beginning of this thread I have tried to use the stock equipment that comes with the plane, but for the mounting of the switch I will use an “add on” part. I am going to use a Du-Bro switch mount. If you look at picture #1 and #2 you can see the switch mount that I used. What the mount does is turn the switch 90° so that the switch is inside the fuselage now and then has a “pull button” that you can use to turn the switch on and off. It also mounts the charging jack into the mount so that it's accessible from the outside of the plane, I particularly like the Du-Bro mounts because the have a small “door” that you can swing closed over the charge jack while the plane is in flight, this keeps fuel and exhaust reside from getting into the fuselage. The mount comes with a template that you can use to mark where you need to cut the hole for the mount (picture #3). Cut out the hole and place the template where you want to mount the switch (picture #4) and trace the cutout onto the side of fuselage (picture #5). When you are getting ready to mark where you want to mount the switch make sure you have taken a few minutes to plan out where you want the switch to be. You will want the switch to mount so that it doesn't interfere with anything on the inside of the fuselage. Picture #6 shows where we have traced for our cutout. There are a lot of different ways to cut this cutout in the side of the fuselage but I prefer to use a rotary tool to make the cutout (picture #7 and #8). I think I have said this before in this thread, but I'll say it again, a rotary tool can be one of your best purchases in this hobby. I find that I am using mine all the time. I don't really want to spend too much time discussing actually installing the switch mount itself because there are several different types of mounts out there, and they are all a bit different in the way that you mount them on the plane. If you follow the instructions that come with the mount itself you should have no troubles at all in mounting the switch mount on the plane (pictures #9, #10, #11, and #12).

Since I've run out of picture space again I'll wrap up this post and in the next post I'll continue on with mounting the switch into the switch mount.

Pictures
1. Switch mount assembly
2. Switch mount assembly
3. Switch mount comes with a template to use to cut the hole in the side of the fuselage
4. Locate where you want the switch mounted on the side of the fuselage.
5. Trace the template onto the side of the fuselage.
6. Outline to use as a guide for cutting your hole
7. A rotary tool is great for cutting things like this
8. Use a rotary tool to make the cutout.
9. Install the switch mount in the holes that we just cut.
10. Install the switch mount in the holes that we just cut.
11. Install the switch mount in the holes that we just cut.
12. Install the switch mount in the holes that we just cut.

Until next time

Ken