Yesterday, Memorial Day, after cleaning up from a weekend of painting the inside of my house (8hrs on Sat and 10hrs on Sun), I was able to do a little work on the Smoothie.

I got the servo mounts installed in the wing, trimmed the balsa sheeting in the center of the wing to give it an old timey look, sheeted the bottom of the fuselage, and built up the horizontal stab and elevator sections. Following the instructions, everything went very smooth with no anomalies. One thing I wanted to do, but forgot in the fervor of sheeting the fuse, was to put a removable hatch in the last 3"-4" of the tail so I could add weight easily to balance the plane if necessary. I might cut a hatch out, but at this point in time I doubt it... Hopefully it will balance OK.

The pictures show the wing in the final stages (no ailerons yet), the horizontal stab with the elevator, the fuse with the engine partially installed and all the parts to date. I still need to cut hinge slots, shape the edges of the horizontal and vertical stabs, shape the flight control surfaces and install the landing gear. After some filling and a final sanding, I think it will be ready for covering... unless I missed something.

While I was mowing the lawn this evening, the UPS man dropped off a couple packages for me. The final 2 pictures show my newest ARFs. They are ARFs from The Wings Maker and cost me a total of $187 shipped to my door... Not too bad... It was like Christmas. [sm=thumbup.gif] But those are for another day.

OK, take care and good flying, Jerry