Marty_d

Yes I was wondering that too, but then on one landing you see the shadow of the stick on the ground.

You'd think with a critical piece like that where you're bolting / riveting through at least 3 layers, they wouldn't try to hole match but instead just have the holes on the steel piece and leave it up to the builder to align that and drill through.

Yeah, nah.

What a tragedy that a grand dame of the skies like her was broken up for scrap. Didn't it ever occur to them - "Hey, this plane is one of a kind and unique in so many ways - maybe we should park her in a museum for future generations"?

That's a Smart idea.

Stalls can happen at any speed - that's the point. "Stall speed" usually (AFAIK) refers to level flight. If you're going down vertically in a nosedive and you try to pull out too suddenly, if you don't rip the wings off, the AoA can go past 16 degrees and your plane will stall even though it's doing 500kph. Plenty of fighter pilots found this out the hard way in WW2. (Probably in WW1 too, but the speeds would have been lower). When the air starts separating from the top of the wing instead of flowing around it, the wing is stalled. Regardless of the speed or direction o

Thanks Bob, I talked to Blueadventures and Nomadpete, and they both agree with the gel coat too.

Thanks Planey, good advice! The trouble with my shed is that I'm building a plane in the back half of it, and my wife uses the front half for her business. Paint and fibreglass fumes tend to migrate to the other half. So for the last bit of glassing I did, I moved to under the carport where I have no walls at all to keep in the fumes. Also wore a full face 3M mask which cuts down the fumes as well as stray fibres. Hoping to go back to the fibreglass shop tomorrow and stock up for the first attempt at a cowl. Luckily our nearest neighbours are a

I hadn't heard of Gel Coat before. So you put that on first and let it go off fully before the first layer of resin? Now for the mat. From a few videos I've seen, chopped strand mat seems to be the choice for car panels. Would you use that or woven mat for a cowling? From what you're saying, it seems that it doesn't much matter if the first layer has gone off or not when the second layer is started? Thanks Peter!

That may be true, but both India and Pakistan are nuclear powers and neither has (so far) dropped the big one on the other. I think that when it comes to government-level people, pragmatism will overcome pure dogma. The old cold war theory of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), although a horrific and risky premise, holds especially true here. Unless you're a full on true believer (and my theory is that most people in any government aren't) then the thought that any nuclear attack on the other guy is going to bring about total destruction of your own country is a sobering proposition.

No photos this time, but have taken the plunge into fibreglassing and strengthened the outside of the mould with another layer - after reinforcing with some timber strips glued on with construction adhesive. I'm now eyeing off the inside and will do some gap filling with Bondo or equivalent, before sanding back with increasingly finer paper. Then will be the ultimate challenge of producing a relatively good cowling from inside the mould. Having seen how quick the resin goes off, I'll need to have my ducks in a row with all the sections of glass fibre cut to shape first.

This is from RC experience, but yes the elevator is the primary turn control. Bank with aileron and up elevator to turn. Rudder was only ever used to balance the turn, and at least with RC (where you didn't have to worry about making passengers throw up) the rudder was often omitted completely in turns. When you think about it, it makes sense - the aileron puts the aircraft in a different attitude laterally, ie you're now flying with one wing down, and the elevator changes the pitch of the aircraft so that pitching up in a non-level attitude will cause you to turn. To take it to the ul

Interesting fact about the Pepsi-painted Concorde - they only had it in that colour scheme for 16 chartered flights, and because it was blue instead of the normal white, the pilots had to fly maximum of mach 1.7 instead of the normal maximum 2.04. (Because of skin heating). Must have cost a fortune for that advertising campaign!

If it were me, I'd remove both rivets. The steel motor mount is held on with AN bolts so the strength from those would be greater than the first 2 rivets anyway. If you feel you need that second rivet then I'd move it so it clears the engine mount. But your best bet would be advice from the manufacturer, if in any doubt.

Seems to be working fine now, even the photos went in the right way up. Thanks Ian!