I'm rebuilding an old trainer right now. One of the ex club members called me the other day and said his friend wanted to get read of his and for me to come over and pick it up. It was populated with a old Futaba 72mhz AM receiver, Fox 40 (really gummed up), and a full complement of Fugaba servos. I wish I had taken a couple photos of it before I started. The guy I got it from said the thought it may have been a Sig Kadet but wasn't sure. He suggested pulling the covering and "checking things out. The thing had a strange tail mounting, A big wedge on top of the fuselage and the stablizer on top of that. There was a second firewall mounted in front of the orginal that raised the engine about 1 1/2" from the stock location. There was a Rube Goldberg hatch over the fuel tank. Not a thing of beauty this plane.

I thought I would get it into flying shape and donate it to the clup for another club trainer. SOO, I stripped the fuselage to see what I had to work with. The Wedge thing changed the incidence of the horz stab by lifting it about 1" in the front. Humm. When I checked the incidence to the wing, it was in the ball park. Then a closser look at the fuselage and I discovered that it had been cut in half right behind the wing and a wedge was put in raising the whole aft of the fuselage, hinged at the top. My guess was that the first owner was tired of whacking the prop on landing and rigged up the firewall to get more grown clearance. Now, his thrust line was way off, so he did the fuselage mod to get the tail up in the prop wash again. When he pivoted the fuselage up, it screwed up the stablizer incidence so he added the wedge there also.

After getting into the plane, I think the kadet was a good call on orgin. I cut both wedges out and now have the fuselage back near where it should be along with the espanige (sp). I pulled the second firewall off, it was just bolted on, and pulled the mounting for the hatch. I built a deck over the fuel tank area, conforming to the orginal firewall top. I laminated a 1/8" aircraft ply front onto the old firewall. I add some 1/32" ply doublers back about 8" from the fire wall and extending 3/8" in front. I used 3/8" balsa to capture the firewall to the 1/32" ply and the new deck. I'm just about ready to cover the fuselage. I'm replacing the balsa pushrods with some golden rod, so I need to set up the supports for that before covering. I'm thinking I'll replace the servo tray also, it's one of those plastic gizzmos that you see and it weighs a ton. I'll make a lite ply tray and clean up the clutter around the servo arms. With all that room, no need to squeze everything together. I should get it covered tomorrow. I'm going to leave the wing for now, It has a servicable covering on it and I'll replace it after I'm sure the thing will fly. Oh yes, a Super Tigre 40 for power now. I had a couple of them and also a 45. All used but looking like they have been taken care of. One should run.

I'll get some photos of the progress and post them tomorrow. I hadn't planned this little side trip. I was just ready to start my replacement 4*60. I crashed mine really bad two weeks back, and I would really like to get the replacement in the air. This thing came up and I though a couple hours would have it in order, I'm about 20 hours into it now and a slow as I am covering, I've got at least another 10 to finish it up.

Don