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.