Going to go back to the fuse and build some hatches for the electronics and pneumatic access.

I will also need a smaller hatch for the charge receptacles. Note the correct zinc chromate colour

 This one is much smaller and will only have three plug in ports for the three batteries

Work is proceeding some what slow with too many distractions but will keep moving it forward.

Electronics tray roughed in. Waiting on some components

 Gear installation

 Gear door installation  is always trial and error with patience needed.     

. One more to go .

The instructions call for a simple spring mechanism but I have read that it can be problematic

so I have decided to go with a couple of air rams instead to open and close the doors. All of my planes use these and they are trouble free.

Time to make provisions for the electronics hatch. First I will reinforce the area with some carbon fiber. I am using an actual panel location that exists on the full size so it will look ok when closed.

Well got started on the kit. The company is Comp Arf. The ARF stands for almost ready to fly! Anyone who has built one of these will tell you that they are anything but almost ready to fly.  The first thing is to get the tail wheel installed and rigged. The instructions only use one servo for both the rudder and the tail wheel steering. This is problematic as you cannot adjust the tail wheel from independent of the rudder. I want to be able to adjust the travel from my transmitter so to do this you need a separate servo. To accomplish this I will need a strong but light mount for the servo.

This is what I came up with. Now I have control over the steering of the tail wheel.

The next step was to do the cable rigging for the steering and the rudder. This is where you need some patience. It is trial fit after trial fit until you get it right.

There you have it. Now to resolve the problems with the tail parts. The stabs are pre drilled into the aluminum spar. Also the elevators have been pre drilled into a carbon torque rod at the factory. I presume that this is so they are done correctly however the holes in the stab and the holes in the elevators do not line up with the holes in the aluminum spar and carbon torque rod. Seems they are trying to avoid incompetent builders only to be incompetent themselves.

Also the vertical fin does not fit and needs work. I think they packed the wrong parts for this plane and someone else has mine. There drill fixtures must be the line of sight kind.

 And so the journey begins.
The Comp arf P-47 has arrived and after uncrating the kit I realize how big this plane is. It is the same scale as my Corsair but that one piece wing when lying on the bench looks pretty big.

To put this in perspective here is a picture of the scale main gear leg and wheel.

I am going to start assembly and rigging this weekend but it is going to take awhile.

Lots of polished aluminum on this one!

Ok it is time for a new project. Since I had so much fun doing the flight metal on the 104 I have decided to do the same on a large Carf P-47 Thunderbolt.
Here is an example of what it could look like when done.

This time I will do the flight metal last as it is easily damaged with the handling.
I have a spare 5 cylinder Moki 250cc radial fresh off a maintenance check ready to drop in so that is part of my decision to go this route. 

Well the maiden flight of CF-104 703 is complete. It took about two and a half days to work out some small problems but it now is officially an aircraft and not a model any more. The video is a bit shaky and in some places it looks like the plane is wobbling  a bit but all in all it is pretty good and I would like to thank Frank Musil for taking it.

Here is the link to the video!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1clw2a7w18

Well engine run complete and a brief taxi test. Test flights coming up next month.

Also was out with my buddy Jack Lowe who had his new scratch built P-51 out for an engine run and some taxi time as well,

This little beauty has a Kolm 100cc inline four stroke gas engine that sounds fantastic.

I have a bit of time prior to the taxi testing and flight testing of the 104 so I thought it would be a good time to service the A-10 landing gear.
This gear is very scale. The oleo is air over hydraulic and the brakes are a disc pack like the real ones.
At the end of last season I noticed that one oleo was  a little low on pressure as it sat a bit lower on that side of the plane.

Here you see the disc as it sits in the wheel.

It is a beautifully made little unit. It sits on the splines of the hub which you can see in the picture.

Once the gear is off the plane there is a valve at the top of the oleo that must be in the upright position or you get covered in hydraulic fluid. There is a little plunger that comes with the gear. You suck up some hydraulic fluid into it and once you have released the air from the unit you can remove or add fluid to the oleo. After that you can add a set amount of air in the strut (this varies depending on the model) and you are done.
Now resembled and ready for another season of flying.

One thing that I forgot to do was to make up some inlet covers. The Princeton jet site is semi arid and the soil there is like sand and gravel mixed. It can be very windy in the afternoons which usually shuts down the flying. Planes just sit and the dirt and sand blows into the inlets unless protected.

The A-10 has some nice engine nacelle covers (made by my dear wife) and that solves the problem for the Warthog.

A few adjustments and the plane is ready for initial engine run  and testing.

The hardest part is yet to come. TEST FLIGHTS.
Taxi testing I will do at my club field here in Victoria but the flight testing will need to be done in Princeton BC which has a full size runway. Nice to have 5000 feet of pavement in case you are up wind and the engine quits.

The C/G and the weight is all done as you can see on the screen of the electronic c/g meter screen.

This screen shows the plane with 0.18 LB nose heavy. I am planning on test flying it that way and will possibly need to go to a lighter pilot to save some ounces forward of the C/G to move the balance back a bit.

This screen shows the all up weight and the weight on each of the main gear legs and the nose gear leg.
I have some programming of the ECU to do for the turbine and some minor radio programming changes to make. Taxi testing  in another month or so, as soon as the runway is firm enough.

I am finally in the home stretch with the 104.

Been working on the placement of the batteries for proper C/G.

Did a final test on the lights after relocating the battery.

position and nav lights working

Landing lights working

Radar working

It has been slow going as I test each of the electrical and hydraulic / pneumatic systems prior to finally attaching the nose section. Had some lights that failed do to a mistake on my part and had to go back in and replace the burnt out lights with new ones. :(
Should be able to get the receivers and electronics tray installed now as well as the charge ports for the 5 batteries.

The 104 is so long that it is hard to take a picture of it. Need a camera on the ceiling.