For the two other pictures above, I used a little trick. First, I setup the hardware for the tail surfaces. I used 4-40 hardware and some Heavy Duty standard, LOL, dubro control horns. You will need some extra long screws for the rudder as it is almost 1/2" thick. I set this up first to get the weight on the plane. Next, I screwed a small brass eye-bolt into the bottom of the fuselage right at the CG (CG is setup on the two wing spar halves you glued together earlier). I used this to hang the plane from upside down to help balance it from wing to wing and from engine to tail. This allowed me to place the engine in various postisions before actually mounting it. I was able to achieve a great slightly tail-heavy setup without having to add any weight.

You can see in my camera phone picture how the plance was hanging. It works! Just be sure to coat the threads on the eye-bolt with medium CA before you screw it in, just for good measure.

Oh, I also forgot to mention that as the wings were being epoxied, I installed the ailerons. Nothing too unusual there. The supplied CA hinges were more and adequate.

Everything is now primarily assembled. Here is there the strings come in handy. You can to this in any order, but this is how I did it. I used 3, 18 inch servo extensions. Two for the rudder and elevator and one for the engine-side wing. I used some Spider-wire fishing line to tie the leads together so they won't come apart while flying. I used 2, 8 inch extensions on the throttle and other aileron servo. Using the string, I was able to tie a knot onto each extention for the rudder and elevator and pull them through the carbon tube in the fuselage, into the forward exit hole for the carbon tube, into the radio compartment in the wing, and right to where the receiver should go. The extentions for the wings are easy enough. Make sure you put the radio and batter gear on the side with the fuel tank to offset the engine weight.

Everything is together. My first day with the plane at the field yielded a problem with the plastic piece on the fuel tank breaking, ending that day before it started. Make sure you check that. On my second trip, the range check was great, no issues there. I guess I could mention I drilled a small hole through the radio compartment hatch and pulled the receiver antennae through. I used three pieces of fuel tubing glued to the bottom of the fuse to route the cable.

It was a partly cloudy day with winds from the south at 5-15. Takeoff was normal. The plane started to climb a bit. It required some down elevator and some left aileron trim to fly straight and level.

I'll be honest here, I'm not the greatest 3D pilot, but I threw some manuvers at it. Knife edges had some coupling causing it to pull to the gear. High alpha KE was a little more extreme and required more correction. This didn't seem too unusual to me. It was easily corrected by 'feeling' it out. Walls are easy, fly in and pull back. It only wanted to snap out hard if you entered them really fast. Inverted flat-spins took a while with this setup, but like I said I'm not the greatest. I was able to get them after a few tried. As far as other stuff goes, I know Troy flew the daylights out of his and absolutely loves it. He's much better than me :-). You should send him an e-mail (on his site) if you have any other questions.

I did have a problem with the engine, it died on me forcing me to deadstick from low altitude. I think the Thunder Tiger Pro 46 I have is older than me. I know this plane would be much better suited to a Saito 82. Unfortunately I was building this on a budget and used what I had available!! Anyways, upon landing, the aluminum gear bent. It was a simple field repair, but I quit for the day, learning long ago to stop when I'm ahead :-) I think some composite gear would be a nice upgrade.

As a final note, I purchased everything for this plane from [link=http://www.maverickhobbys.com]Maverick Hobbys[/link] minus the pushods and engine. I used some of his servos on the ailerons. All the servos were standard S3004 Futaba servos. There are a few things I need to work out with the engine but everything else on the plane is great. If you are looking for a cheaper plane to get into profile 3D-ing, you should really try this one.