I have finished the aileron and flap servo install and the gear main door actuators as well.

I could not resist putting a bit of flight metal on. That is scale as seen on the full size. The whole wheel well will be painted once I can roll it outside for the spraying. Not likely to happen until March,

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!