Funny how that works.

I removed the shear web that interfeered with the leadout cable and things went for the better. I tried a 63" set of lines and they worked well so that's what I will use from now on. No other changes to the power and I had good tension throughout the pattern. I re read the articles Mr. Cunningham wrote in a newsletter about the model and it's doing everything he wrote about. From what I can glean from the small plans the kit has the c/g a bit further forward. Which is good. Right now my c/g is close to the aft limit which would put it in the middle of the page size plans. And that's without using any special wood or going crazy with light weight stuff or super thin finishes. The battery makes it about 8 ounces heavier than a fuel load. It carries the weight very well.

Serious trimmings.

I've been paying more attention to the plane in flight. It's been hard to get it settled down. Today while I had it in the air I felt something in the handle I haden't noticed before. A scraping feel that said the leadouts are rubbing on something. At home I looked inside and spotted one leadout touching a shear web. I installed those to beef up the wing the webs don't come in the kit. It was tough to get the clearance needed for the cable but I managed. I left the nose weights in and will try again in the morning or when the fog lifts. I've had two Flite Streaks for a coupld of years. I built a new fuselage for one using the ARF wing. A new stab/elevator and fin/rudder. I covered it with poly span and painted it. I didn't like the way it flew and had we had the contest this fall I would have put both in the raffle. I took out the re built one and put an OS LA .25 on it. I ran the engine which didn't run well. I noticed that the back plate looked loose so I removed the engine and the plate was loose. There wasn't any gasket left either. I made a new gasket and re installed the back plate with lock tight on the screws. At the field it ran very well and the plane flew quite well too. I found some longer lines for it for the next time out.

A good find.

I had a sticky spot in the controls of the MO' Best. It turned out to be paint build up on the leadouts. I used a razor blade to scrape it off. I checked all the other planes and found those that were painted had some contamination on the leadout cables. The Monokoted wings didn't have that problem as no paint got near the cables. I've been using Monokote since it came out and just recently started using paper and dope again on the wings. Both planes, Mo Best and L-17 are flying. The L-17 has flown as the P40-Q for a few years so it didn't need much trimming. I did find the leadout slider loose though. It has a slider for each line and both had loosened and departed from the slotted piece. Luckily both bolts were still in the slider blocks. I found that the washers were too small and upon getting loose enough the slider block fell into the wing. I made a hole under the wing tip to get at the blocks and removed the bolt and replaced the washers with larger ones and re set the leadout location. It was an easier fix than the other plane. The thing is I flew it with the leadouts loose and did the pattern with it. Who knew?

Ready to fly.

51.4 ounces withour the battery. Ihave to double check the leadout position and it's done. I also finished the new remake of the L-17 Navion. That is ready to fly also. The clear coat is not too good as the plane sat around for 6 months before painting and has fish eyes.

Painted.

I got the graphics and then waited for the temperature to get up into the paint range, 70 to 80 degrees. I set up a fan in the window and opened the doors, put on the respirator, mixed the two part paint and had at it. I was surprised at how fast the paint flashed off. I cleaned the spray gun as best as I could. Maybe it is still usable. I used 12 ounces to put one coat on two planes. The Mo Best with landing gear on weighs 39.5 ounces. For me that is good.