After spending a couple hours on and off, I managed to get the aileron servos screwed into place. There was lots of filing and sanding to be done to my little plugs in order to make the servos fit just right. The little things always seem to take the most time. Here is a pic of both wing bottoms with the servos installed….linkages come next.
Here is the right wing panel servo.
And here is the left wing panel servo.
Although that’s all I accomplished tonight, I do have something to report. As you can see, the bottom of the wing is trimmed with a kind of warped checkerboard pattern, and some of the color borders are set off by thick black lines. After getting the servos installed, I was going over the wing with paper towels and window cleaner just to get rid of fingerprints and any other residue that might have been left behind. While doing this, I noticed that one of the black trim stripes was starting to delaminate near the inboard trailing edge of the right aileron.
As an experiment, I went ahead and removed the entire strip on the aileron (only 3 or 4 inches) and colored in a portion of it with a black Sharpie. In this pic you can probably tell that the last two inches or so of the stripe has been colored. It’s not noticeable from a few feet away, but it is if you know what to look for.
Unlike the rest of the covering, this stuff does not appear to be Monokote. It is a two-part material and the clear portion has separated from the black portion. I also noticed this same problem on the bottom left wing near the servo. However, this one separated cleanly without taking any of the black pigment with it. In this pic, the black arrow indicates the trim stripe which has delaminated.
I should also note that the underside of the wing is the only place this material appears on the plane. I double checked the fuse, tail feathers and top of the wing and was relieved to see no more of this funky black trim. I’m not to optimistic of how this stuff will hold up to glow fuel residue. If it is coming off with just a routine cleaning, imagine how it will behave when trying to scrub glow snot off of it. I think I will shoot an email to GP and see what they have to say about it. I’d be happy with a few feet of black vinyl trim tape so I can replace this defective stuff.
Erik