When the plane knows best.

After the Legacy 40 chewed my hand up and some healing had taken place I figured it was time to go fly again. The Legacy 40 was first up. After hooking the lines up I ran a cloth up the lines to clean them. While at the handle I checked to see if I had hooked them up properly. As I moved the handle I felt a crunch. I went to the plane and moved the leadouts the crunch was there internally. Then I noticed that the rear line was out of place and moved fore and aft freely. I put it away for further inspedtion. At home I found the slider had broken and the broken piece was in the wing. I shook the plane and the what I thought was the broken piece, came to the wing tip. I had already installed a fixed position guide by cutting the loop of the leadout end, poking a hole in the covering and threading the leadout wire through the new guide. As it always happens the broken piee wasn't broken, it was one part of a two part slider. I forgot about it and only tightened one screw and the other fell out. So I removed the fixed guide and reinstalled the original piece biting the screw end threads on both screws this time. So I figure the plane knew there was a problem that could end badly and let me know bu chewing my hand thereby giving me time to get my mind straight and find and fix the problem. I'm in the process of filling and sanding the Mo'Best. I'm using talc and dope as the filler. It works quite well.

Another alignment helper.

The slots for the flap control horns at the trailing edge of the wing cut out in the fuselage are on the wing chord line. Even though I make a mark on what I call the extended chord line to help with flap centering I can not guarantee it's perfect location. From what I have seen the 1/64 ply sides cut outs are perfectly placed. The wing built such that there was no sanding of the cutout to get the wing to fit. Same with the stab. cutout. And using an incedence meter the cutouts are zero zero. So I figured that the flap fairings could use the control horn slot to place them perfectly in reference to the wing chord line. I had to make new fairings that use a 1/8 center with a tab that plugs into the slot and top and bottom layers of 1/16 to bring the thickness up to 1/4 just like the kit pieces. The 1/8 needed a bit of sanding so it will fit smoothly without forcing it into the slot. I'm going to use Sig Bond so I have time to align the three pieces. After the flaps are hinged and glued in place I'll install the new fairings. Some sanding for good gaps is necessary.

Adding some fancy stuff.

This Mo'Best has flap and elevator fairings. They can be troublesome to get them perfectly straight in line with the center line of the wing or stab. The stab is 1/8 inch thicker than the elevators and the wing needs another method to center the flap fairings. That's why I mark the wing chord line on the fuselage side early in the building process. The stab is flat but thicker than the elevators. I used a dial caliper and measured the thickness of the stab. Then measured the thickness of the elevator. Subtract those measurements and divide the answer by two to get the shim thickness that will center the elevator in the stab. Do that for each side, my measurements were a bit different. The left elevator needed a .065 shim top and bottom the right needed .068 top and bottom. I got som two pieces scrap 1/4 inch balsa and clamped them to the stab in the area of the fairing. Then slid the fairing and shim sandwich between the 1/4 inch pieces, installed the elevator and fit the fairing to the fuselage concentrating on the gap between the fairing and elevator as that may need filling to get the proper/good looking gap. Both sides on mine needed about 1/32 fill. An interesting note is that the fairings have a curve to match the taper of the aft end of the fuselage so be careful which side you sand on. I used a straight edge, my trusty 6 inch scale, to double check the position of the fairing to the stab. Now you will find that the elevator can't be removed. You will have to rotate the elevator almost verticle to clear the fairing. The flap fairings will get added a bit later using the mark I made to center them. Using the stab fairings to set the flap fairings simply wont work.

Flap details.

Instead of using the supplied horn pockets I always use brass or alunimum tubing and epoxy to accomplish the same thing. The suplied hinge pockets will do the job if you lay it up this way. Both ways will account for any twist in the horn and produce perfectly flat control surfaces, elevators and flaps. The close up shot shows the tube installed after drilling a slot along the flap end to the pocket and another drilled hole from the slot to the hinge opening in the flap. I cut a piece of tubing long enough to butt against the inside end of the pocket end but not too long to stick out of the top and interfeer with the horn wire. This also keeps the epoxy out of both ends of the tube. I use a straight edge at the leading edge with shims to allow room for the horn upright and shims under the flaps to allow room for the bottom of the horn upright. A shim is needed under the horn ends to center them. In this case the flaps are 1/4" and the tube is 1/8" so that makes a 1/16" shim under the tubes to center them in the pocket. I used celophane tape to keep the shims in place under the pockets and mainly to keep the epoxy from running out. A few light weights on the flaps will keep them aligned until the epoxy cures. Make sure the weights are placed over the shims. Taper the flaps/elevators if you want, I don't.

Mo' Best

And there it is. The elevators are done and hinged the ailerons have to be hinged and set up for the control horn. The kit parts look interesting but I use brass tubing for the horn pockets.

Found something interesting.

I was given 14 boxes of avaiation books. I've been thumbing through them sometimes reading about a plane or battle. Today I was going through a book on B-17's and one picture cought my eye. I went back and there was a WW 2 shot of "909". I remembered that 909 had crashed at Bradley field a short while ago. The plane made over 140 bombing missions in a row without a miss. A record for the group. I found another book on B-17's that had a picture of 909 in it. I have a lot of books to go through and I may find more pictures of it. I came across another story on the 909 from Collings. They took another B-17 and fixed it up to look like the 909.