It's been a long weekend for me! I participated in a 24 hour fundraising event Saturday morning to Sunday morning and am still in recovery mode. I did get some work done while trying to stay away Sunday night and I took Monday off of work to try an get my body back on schedule. It mostly worked and I spent the day building on the plane and catching up on Critical Role.
So the build.
First off, I think it's going to be a beautiful plane that flies well. I learned a little bit about the design philosophy of Pat Tritle as it pertains to the fixed landing gear. He basically started in free flight models and there, weight is everything. He began converting to powered RC and doesn't subscribe to the mantra that "it doesn't matter how heavy it is because I can just add a bigger motor." In his view, a Cessna 172 shouldn't fly like a barnstormer. He builds to fly scale. I line up with this philosophy well so I'm looking forward to flying this kit.
Second, the wood in the kits is great. It requires a little bit of knowledge and experience to tell the difference but there are different densities of the same sizes so that the builder can make judgement calls about strength vs. weight. Also, the laser cutting is perfect. Couldn't ask for anything better there. I'll get a feel for how the laser cut parts actually fit together as I move to the wings this evening.
However, there are already several mistakes in the instructions and plans that a new builder might struggle over. I'll give one example because I took a picture of it. The rest are pretty similar.
You can see that the instructions call for 1/16 square balsa whereas the wood in the kit doesn't include this. Luckily I have enough stock wood to make up for it. I ran into the same issue at a place where it called for 1/8" x 1/4" balsa. The kit was supposed to have one stick of it but it was nowhere to be found.
I'm expecting to run into more of these as I keep building. Overall, it's an easy kit still and I can't wait to finish it and get her in the air!