It is probably a good thing that I bought an "ARF". If I had to build a plane from plans or a kit right now it would probably take me a year based on the amount of free time I have had to complete this project

Today I finished up the cutouts for cooling air movement. The front top of the fuse already has a scoop built into it. I added cutouts in the cheek cowls and in the belly for air exit. This is definitely something that I feel should be done by the manufacturer on any prepainted plane. (especially at Oxai's prices.) Cutting into a prepainted fuse leaves raw balsa edges and small paint chips at the edge of the cutout. Unless the edges are sealed it is likely that the paint will probably chip as well. Add to this that no matching paint is available from Oxai makes this more of a PIA.

I made templates for the cutouts out of a plastic tracing paper. It is partially see thru which allows for easy placement. The templates were cut out and taped to the fuselage. Material was sanded away up to the template line using a Dremel and hand tools. The main part of the fuselage is a balsa fiberglass sandwich so raw balsa is left exposed in the belly cutout.

The only major item left is the battery tray. Hopefully I can get to this tomorrow and weigh the plane to see how much weight I can afford for batteries. TP 5300's will be no problem as far as weight goes. Falcon's batteries will probably put me just over the limit and some of the other new cells will definitely be too much. I haven't ordered any yet as I am hoping I have a choice based on weight. I have been trying to cut a few grams were ever I can but I do not think it will be enough for anything but the TP 5300's. I'll know shortly.

Stuart