And finished the hatch.

Winter has but one purpose: the generation of balsa dust.

Time to align the wing. I glued a small scrap piece of balsa across the rear of the fuselage to provide a center point for my pin and then aligned the wing by matching up the center points of the wing with the center of the fuselage and then using a string to make sure it is on nice and even. I think I got it pretty close.

I'm having trouble posting more than one or two pictures at a time.... So here are more pictures. I'm pretty happy with how this alignment came out. I think it is pretty close.

The picture thing is not just you. For now, post a single pic. If you have more, click "Edit" and add another. Re-Edit for each additional upload.

It's a pain, but hopefully they will have it fixed soon.

Someone posted in one of these build threads that if they ever built one of these again they would fill the entire area between the center ribs with balsa block because they were unsure if they were hitting the small doubler when drilling for the front dowels. Well, I wish I had done that because I am not 100% confident I hit them on both sides, and you can't really tell with the sheeting on both sides of the wing.

These pictures are driving me crazy. Why does it keep blowing them up to gargantuan size?

I just shoved as much epoxy as I could in there and I'm hoping for the best!

This is were I started having all kinds of problems. I was careless drilling for the wing hold down bolts and ended up with one side that was too close to the edge of the block. I didn't have any bass wood so I glued a piece of ply to the edge to give it some reinforcement. I think this will work okay. So I tapped the holes and strengthened the threads with thin CA.

I am having all kinds of trouble with the engine mount that was included in the kit. I've never used a two piece mount like this and will never use one again. It makes it so much more difficult getting the two pieces aligned with the engine and each other. I like the one piece mounts or the ones like the great planes mounts where there are two pieces but they snap together making one piece. Anyway, I've gotten this one all screwed up beyond repair and I'm chucking it!

I have one of these coming UPS. http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXXD37&P=7 It is pricey, but after the frustration of the Sig mount I like the idea of no drilling or aligning or other nonsense. I'm going to knock out the blind nuts, fill the holes with oak dowels, and redrill for the blind nuts that come with this mount. Yay!

dash: the Wonder is like any small airplane kit- many of the operations can be tedious and difficult. The wonder tends to build nose heavy, is why they put that type of mount in there. It allows you to get the engine right up against the firewall. I used an OS aluminum mount for my 15 CVA, and didn't have any problems with balance.

Keep truckin.

I`m building one too,,and also went with an OS pre-drilled mount for my OS10 going on it,it takes a lot of guess out.

My big plan is to "try" and put landing gear on mine,,But as I`m getting the fuselage closer to done,,and with No room on the firewall to mount the nose gear,,I`m having a little bit of trouble figuring how to do it.

I drilled out the enging mount "tongue" to accept the Sig aftermarked gear,,but am thinking twice as a bad landing might tear the firewall out.

If anyone who has built one with gear can chime in,,how did you do it??
Thanks
Rt4957

There are some pics of a wonder with landing gear on the first page of this thread. Taildragger would be easiest to do in that you could just bolt some aluminum gear on the bottom of the fuse. Why the gear? Do you fly off of concrete mostly?

Dash I discarded that method of putting in wing dowels years ago for that reason!

Harry Higley has a way of building the dowels into the wing ribs that I've been using for years. I modified it a little.

Here is how I do it.

1 I make new ribs that are as thick as the dowel being used.

2 Make two side plates that match the front of the rib from the main spar forward for each dowel holding rib.

3 mark out where the dowel will go in the front of the ribs. I'll make a new dowel if necessary to go all the way back to the wing spar.

4 Cut out the slot for the dowel in the ribs.

5 Glue in the dowel.

6 Glue on the side plates.

Now you have a dowel that is 100% glued in and is perfectly strait and will not come out without taking off the front of the wing with it.

Cons 1 Hard to sand leading edge of the wing with the dowels in place. 2 Harder to glass the center section of the wing, you have to cut holes in the cloth for the dowels.

Harry Higley's books "Mostly Mounting" and "There Are No Secrets" are must haves!

Rt:

I've never done landing gear on a Wonder, but I had some on a couple of Lanier Shrikes. What I found is that when the bird is balanced correctly (so that it won't snap out of turns and crash) it's impossible to flare, so must be landed from a fast glide in a level attitude, allowing it to touch down very gradually, like on a belly landing. Anything else gets a big bounce. Trying to slow it down in the glide prior to touchdown results in ballooning.

The Wonder likes to land the same way. I've never been able to flare mine, but have to bring it in level.

If hand launch is spooking you, do what I did: mix a touch (maybe 1/8" max) up elevator into one of your switches. It makes the nose stay up during launch. I toss mine with full throttle, slightly nose up, and one finger on the "launch" switch. I find I can turn it off as soon as I've released the airplane and I get perfect launches every time. You definitely do not want to launch these birds trimmed the way they are for level flight. They'll go for the dirt every time.

Here's how I did the nosewheel on my Shrike, before I removed the landing gear. The steering servo was upside down, way in the back to help with the nose heavy problem. You might also try putting the nosewheel mount on the backside of the firewall.

Hello Bob

Mine flares quite nicely, maybe you should move the CG further aft ... I have *very* little elevator throw, and my cg is definitely aft the advocated cg (as per plan).

Concrete/asphalt is the plan,as that is what is at the field I plan on Flying from,,plus I didn`t want to risk engine damage by scraping or busting the prop.

The closer I get to a finished Fuselage,,the more I`ll know,,I have already purchased the servos,two 311 Hitecs and also one micro,that I "Was" thinking of using for the nose gear steering,,now I might switch the micro role to the throttle,since it shouldn`t require much torque if I build it right.

As of now(Last Night) the Fuselage is almost done,bottom sheeted and waiting to be trimmed and sanded,wing is near done only the center sheeting and dowels (Beefed up the Balsa mounts for them thanks to reading this build) and will probably start the Horizontal Stab/Elevator tonight (if feeling better.home from work today).

Thanks for the tips
Rt4957

Hey, Strykaas

Nah, I've been bit too many times by aft CGs. I'm a member of the conservative crowd.

Gonna start another Arrow, soon. Electric this time.

A regular sized one ? Which e-setup (motor / batt / prop) do you plan to use ? [:-]

Strykaas: Full size, just the hull, going to use the wing panels from the glow one. (Which just flew great at the Midland RC club snow fly today.)

Looking at a Rimfire 25 (Great Planes) with an 60A esc and a 3350 4S pack. I have one in a Wing Mfg P-39, and it kicks butt.

I was finally able to get out to the garage and work on the Wonder a little bit. I filled the holes from the old mount with hardwood dowels and installed the new OS mount. It's niiiiice. So easy to align and no drilling or tapping.

They are sweet mounts, aren't they? I've used them in 15, 46, and 120 and they all work great.

Strykaas: got the motor for the "Green Arrow". Decided on the 32 size, as I want this thing to WAIL.

Yes very nice. I will definitely use them again.

Did the cowl last night. a lot of aligning and taking the engine on and off a number of times. I'm still liking that mount. The instructions called for sanding it all down with the engine installed but I did not want to do that so I marked the location of the spinner on the ply spacer ring with a pencil and sanded it down with the engine off. This went pretty fast with 80 grit sandpaper.

I know I dorked up the holes for the fuel lines. The drill bit slipped. I'll fix that with covering and white silicone later. You'll never see how ugly it looks.

Lookin good, Dash

I never did care for completely sanding cowls with the engine in place. I always roughed em out first and then did the final sanding with everything bolted on and some tape over the carb.

Mustang Fever, did you say you used a .15 CVA in yours? Where did you put your battery and other equipment to get it to balance out?