Fairey Firefly MK5 from Vance Mosher plan

I agree BB, its not the best i've worked with. Looking at the photos of the cowl and of the real plane it looks like the horizontal panel lines above and below the exhaust outlet should be equi-spaced. That should give me something to work with, perhaps or perhaps not........

Did a little more on the Firefly. Got the cowl to fit quite well. Only a little filler will be required. Considering the state of the cowl to start with I'm pleased with it.



Fitted the observer canopy. On the full size aircraft this fit flush with the fuselage skin. So I rebated the edge balsa skins and sat the canopy into it. I shall frame both canopy's with 1/64th ply. So the edges will be framed to the fuselage skin as per the full size. Should look ok.

Looking very good Ralph

Had a pretty crap day at work so decided to leave early and do a bit more on the Firefly.

The job tonight was to fit the motor. Which required getting the thrust line lined up with the plan, lining the cowl up square to the bulkhead and the spinner back plate lined up with the front of the cowl with an even gap! Not too much to ask. Well I must come home frustrated and stressed more often!! It went extremely well. I printed a temporary spinner back plate for alignment purposes. Everything lined up, nice gap between the spinner back plate, on center to the front of the cowl and the back of the cowl lined up perfectly. Not wishing to push my luck i stopped there and had a glass of wine to celebrate!!

lovely work as normal Ralph!

Focused on the tailplane this weekend. The rudder is fabric covered on the full size so I covered the model rudder in Solartex. Film covering is not one of my favourite parts on building model planes and I've never used Solartex before. So a good recipe for a cock up, teddy's getting thrown out of the pram and the wheels pulled off it for good measure.

It actually went on quite well and is easy to form around curves and teddy is still in the pram. The secret is having the right temperature on the iron, 100 - 120C is good and slightly higher, 130C, for tightening. It was recommended not to use a hot air gun just the iron. Very pleased with the result. Only got to make some rib stitching and add that, something else I've never attempted.

Fitted the tail lights for the scale look.

Servo's, Hitec 5085MG, were fitted and linkages made. Works nicely. A little bit of tidying up just before paint and this part is ready.

Looking very good Ralph. super work, i always found Solartex to be the easiest of all the coverings to apply
and i still have just over three rolls of it,

Ralph
That is excellent.
I cant wait to see how you do the fabric stitching.

Ditto the above ! I'm not sure which I admire most, the skill or the patience !

Lovely work Ralph! when I built my tiger moth back in the late eightys I simulated the stitching with blobs of pva applied with a hypodermic and doped torn strips of fabric over the top once dry.

You do build a nice model Ralph and I find your build logs so much more readable than the vast majority of others.
Top work!

There is a very good thread on RCMF forum by a guy that used to be on here, think his name is Chris
The thread was a refurbishment of a German first world war plane

Why settle for a small model?

www.platinumfighters.com/inventory-2/195...on-ltd.-firefly-as-6
Anyone want in on a joint venture here?
I can cough up a couple of hundred quid...

Kjell

Now that both wings are fitted out with servos and linkages and are all working its bottom wing sheeting time!

I installed some wiring for the nav lights and landing light. Then I levelled off the building table to make sure it was absolutely level. I made up some templates from Vance's plans using thick cardboard. These are to secure the wing and give the washout during the sheeting process. The cardboard formers are glued to the table with some hot melt glue.



The wing is laid into the formers and secured at each end with a couple of dabs of hot melt glue.



The sheeting begins



Its nice to be making progress. I should have the other wing sheeted next weekend.