Hi,

I have been "learning" to fly for 2-3 years. I have been flying a Sig LT40 and it is turning into one big glob of epoxy and Monokote patches - but it was flying pretty well this weekend. I have a Sig 4*40 on the building board but it is a slow process on my first build and need to get the Kadet ready to go again. I was having a very good Labor Day at the club by myself but I need some opions on what to do about two things.

First, in a crash last year the plane got stuck in a large tree about 30' in the air. It came down hard on the nose. I fabricated a new firewall which is not quite right. The fuselage cheeks were reinforced but still cracked. Would it be ok to cut off the cheeks so there is nothing to the left and right of the engine? Won't be pretty but I'm afraid they are going to vibrate off in flight. I did not line up the engine mount with the steerable nose gear assembly. I can not tighten the screw that holds the nose gear aligned enough to keep it from coming loose every landing. Is there anything I can do improve the nose gear?

The main problem....I was picking up the plane to load back in the car and "kicked" the rudder/fin assembly. Can I just glue to fin back in place with CA or Epoxy? I have attached pictures of both problems below.

Thanks,
Jim