Restoring the A-10D Mitchell Wing
SN# 275
By
Episode VIII
Props, Stabilators and Tips, Aluminum Corrosion, Wax Disappointment, A Solution, The Wing and I (the sequel), Hurricanes and Hangars
The weather really wasn’t too bad. In fact, as summers go it was pretty benign. It rained a lot, but even that was beneficial in reversing the previous years of drought. The rain also forced me to focus on the condition of the temporary garage structure that I had erected as a hangar and work space. I must emphasize here the word “temporary”, which translated from the Chinese instruction manual means: “Eighteen months or less, maybe more if used indoors.” Obviously my linguistic command of Mandarin was lacking as I thought it said five years. Whatever the case, the hangar covering was fast turning to cheesecloth. It was so bad the local bird population was amusing itself by luring squirrels to the top, only to watch them fall through the weakened fabric, impact the wing and slide, unconscious, off the trailing edge. At first I thought it was simply another sadistic, extreme sport. Later I realized it was probably payback for raids on the bird-feeder.
Having moved most of the A-10’s reconstruction effort into the garage I really hadn’t spent much time in the hangar. A quick inspection inside revealed a number of holes, a large rip and one very confused squirrel that immediately bolted for the door. The center section of the wing was still on the wing stands where I’d left it after polishing away the corrosion, trusting its protection to the now rapidly deteriorating hangar cover. It wasn’t long before my sense of economics took hold and I realized that the cost of replacing the center section of the wing would be prohibitively expensive if I didn’t correct the situation.
A quick trip to the local “buy stuff cheap” store yielded some blue plastic tarps that were pressed into service to cover the holes in the roof. Some cheap nylon line held them together in a sort of patchwork fashion and secured them to tent stakes to keep them from blowing off. Noting the tarp material was the same as the original cover I figured I now had about nine months of grace to come up with a more permanent solution. This minor bit of security evaporated completely two weeks later when the official opening of hurricane season was announced. If I was wise I’d come up with an emergency plan in case one of these mobile catastrophes veered north.
In the meantime, I still had to solve the replacement prop problem. My research had provided me with a considerable database of esoteric and often unrelated facts about propellers. Two blades were more efficient than three. But three had less vibration and were less likely to set up harmonics in the airframe, especially when operating behind the wing as a pusher. Two blades had less drag when soaring with the engine off or at idle. Wood was cheaper than composites but was more prone to damage by debris. Leading edge protection could help, but it wasn’t cheap if done right. Moisture was the bane of wooden props but composites weren’t affected. Blade stiffness was important to prevent another occurrence of damage to the wing’s trailing edge. Wood was stiff, but most of the composites weren’t unless they were very thick. A fixed-pitch, purpose-made prop was more efficient than a ground adjustable unit. On the other hand, it couldn’t be fine tuned to the best compromise between climb and cruise or for optimum engine loading. Vortex shedding at the tips of standard blade designs effectively reduces the working diameter of the prop, sometimes shrinking operable blade length by as much as two inches. If I went with a diameter of less than the standard (for an A-10) 54”, say 50”, in order to gain more ground clearance, I could actually be dealing with the equivalent of a 48” diameter. On the other hand, shortening the blade length meant the prop would be quieter at the same RPM but would require more pitch to get equivalent thrust and engine loading. Yah da, yah da, yah da…
I struggled with the problem for about three weeks, even posting a request for suggestions on the Yahoo Mitchell Wing group. Unfortunately, the Internet group yielded only pop-up ads which had nothing to do with aviation. This left me to wobble through the decision process alone, flip-flopping more than a career politician. It even invaded my dreams, causing the wife to become suspicious that there was another woman. Finally, faced with a tearful 3AM accusation, I was forced to explain that 54x26 really meant diameter and pitch and Power Fin was not an aphrodisiac (at least for me).
This little incident convinced me that I needed a decision ASAP, if only to get some additional sleep and cheat the local divorce lawyer out of a retainer. I therefore retreated to the sanctum sanctorum of my garage workshop and vowed not to emerge without an answer, (Actually, all of life’s really major decisions are made in the bathroom, but with two teenage daughters I have to make a reservation just to get in the door.).
So there I was, in my own personal Fortress of Solitude, surrounded by the piecemeal essence of the A-10 and the newly acquired Lazair, when the answer fell at my feet, literally. Looking down at the cardboard box I recognized the logo of Prince Aircraft Co., purveyors of custom propellers for all types of aviating devices, including classic ultralights like the Lazair. On a whim I opened the box and was once again stunned by the workmanship and unique design of the two small props inside. These things were works of art, complete with vortex defeating winglets at the tips and a curious anhedral built into the blades. Eureka! The following day I was on the phone with Lonnie Prince explaining my problem. Not only was he familiar with the Rotax 277, but he’d already made a number of custom props for them. Some information and a credit card number passed into the phone line and the decision was made. It was going to be a two-blade P-Tip unit cut from ultra-stiff, damage resistant, carbon fiber with a hardwood core, 54x26, with a 3 1/8” bolt circle, four-bolt pattern, and integral leading edge protection. The decision to go with the full recommended diameter was based on two things. First, I now had a measured prop-to-ground clearance of about 15” resulting from the use of larger wheels and the new, properly configured rear landing gear. Second, the anhedral built into the design would move the tips backward away from the trailing edge. This, coupled with the exceptionally stiff nature of the material should, in theory, prevent any trailing edge damage. The P-Tip design would give me a full 54” diameter thrust circle with a bit of noise reduction thrown in, and, in carbon black, this thing would look exceptionally cool. Delivery time: eight weeks, maybe sooner. Cost: I don’t want to think about it. Thank God for VISA.
On to the next issue, actually two. The first was that the tropical Mid-Atlantic was having a heyday hatching hurricanes, one of which was predicted to make the long right turn that would aim it toward Southeastern New England, and my backyard hangar. The second had to do with the fiberglass stabilator tips, which I’d paid to have repaired along with the pod and wingtip shrouds. After unwrapping all four of them I discovered that they weren’t much better than they started out. But they were now painted yellow and, for good or bad, had been filled with expanding foam. Three were roughly the same size and shape, the fourth wasn’t even close. Instead of an aerodynamic teardrop, it sort of approximated a double ended wedge. Damn…
If there are any lessons learned from this whole project, at the top of the list would be the statement: “Nothing on this thing is ever easy.” This would be followed closely by: “Expect nothing to fit, even if it comes from the factory.” Therefore you can understand my trepidation at pulling the new stabilators from their shipping box. True to form, the new units were not identical to the old ones. And true to maxim number two, the tips were now too thick to fit into the ends of the stabilators. The planform of the new stabs had a sharper leading edge and the trailing edge was held together by pop-rivets through doubler strips rather than the aircraft type squeeze rivets used in the old ones. They also had large areas covered by some corrosion-like coating and one had a puddle of adhesive that had leaked out of the overlap seam and hardened. Okay, it was expected, so let’s make them work.
Step one was to pull out my trusty A-10 Assembly Video and crank it to the footage showing how to make a stabilator. After a few re-runs I pretty much had the procedure and measurements committed to memory. A make-over for the tips seemed to be in order so I started there. After some sanding, the pockmarks and flaws in the three nearly identical units looked a bit more mellow. These were then hidden under some Bondo Glazing Compound which resulted in a blotched but reasonably smooth exterior. I dug out a large section of the expanding foam and attempted a trial fit into the end of the stabilator. Per the video I had carefully trimmed the round, wood reinforced spar to the correct length and marked it for drilling to accommodate the fork-bolt hinge and the eye-bolt that would be the control arm. The tip was still too thick to fit easily into the end, but with the foam removed it was considerably more flexible. The question was how to get it to slide between the spar and the aluminum skin. After some fumbling I reached for my putty knife and used it to guide the tip skirt into the stabilator end. Grudgingly, it went in and I carefully pushed it as far forward as possible. It was not a great fit, as the tips were shorter than the stabilators were wide, leaving gaps fore and aft. The tips were also thicker than the new stabilators which caused them to bulge a bit at the ends. But it did look close to the final product in the video. I decided that I would fill the gaps fore and aft with gray silicone caulking after the tips were riveted in place. This would keep out the weather along with any vagrant insects and silence the tendency to whistle at higher speeds. It occurred to me that any noise generated would be completely covered by the engine, but then there was still a very good chance that this thing might actually be soarable and, in a sailplane, silence was golden. I’d have to live with the bulges.
The fourth tip had been severely distorted and required some special attention to bring it close to the shape of its three brothers. Having faced a similar problem with the wingtip shrouds, I immediately reached for the West epoxy and featherweight filler. A piece of paper with the approximate skirt outline of the other three became the pattern which I would try to emulate. My intention was to add filler to the epoxy mix until it reached that golden mean just before peanut butter consistency. If done right it would maintain its shape and there would be no voids when it hardened. Unfortunately, my mixing skills were a bit off. After applying the paste it began a slow, but inevitable, meltdown that left the tip looking like a badly coated ice cream bar. While the family managed to find this amusing, I did not. As soon as it hardened enough to be workable, the abrasive cutting wheel on my Dremel Tool got a workout removing the excess that had slipped below the skirt. Some freehand sanding and shaping followed that brought the profile very close to the outline. A bit of Bondo Glaze finished the job by filling in the few remaining flaws.
All I had to do now was repaint the tips, reinstall them and drill the final hole for the control arm at the proper end. A quick coat of gray auto primer on all the tips ended the ordeal. The finished product looked pretty good, not perfect by any means, but they beat hell out of what I’d started with.
The stabilator hinges were next. I would have to space the fork-bolts to match the hinge arms that were already installed on the outer wing sections. Overall this should not be too difficult. My plan was to attach each stabilator to the wing using the inboard fork-bolt and then mark the positions of the remaining two bolts. It worked, and I now had two functional control surfaces, even though they weren’t yet permanently attached to the wings. Yes, trumpets did sound somewhere in the distance announcing a milestone in the restoration process.
The next problem was to rebuild the stabilator counterweight assemblies. The two units that came with the A-10 were nothing like those shown on the assembly video and, in fact, weren’t even identical to one another. One was also straight (??) and other bent. They appeared to have been cobbled together from whatever materials had been at hand. This was not unexpected. I remember the owner telling me that more than one had been ripped off due to low overheads during ground transport. So, I assumed there had been some license taken in their repair. After taking some careful measurements, I put in an order for some aluminum U-channel, bolts and tubing. The real challenge would be the weights themselves. I began considering ways to improve the design and cast my own weights. There was, however, to be an interruption.
The hurricane watch was announced with equal fanfare on all the local television and radio stations. It had been quite a few decades since the last big one hit Rhode Island and the local talking heads took every opportunity to hint at the possible devastation. Besides increasing their Neilson ratings, the real effect was to empty local store shelves of bread, milk and potato chips. I’ve never been quite sure why this is, but it seems to be a Rhode Island tradition related to any weather anomaly, from the first few snowflakes of winter to a category five hurricane. My suspicion is that weather control has become a reality and it’s all a plot by the potato chip industry to raise sales. Had the X-Files not been cancelled I’m sure they would have exposed it.
As for me, I gassed up the emergency generator, checked that the Glen Fiditch bottle was near full and then laid in a hefty store of AA batteries. With two teenagers in the house the prospect of a personal CD player power failure could constitute a major crisis. That done, I immediately implemented Emergency Plan A to preserve the ultralights, (I really didn’t have a Plan B, although my neighbor’s intention of riding out the storm comforting chorus girls at the Mohegan Sun casino did have a certain charm.).
Okay, back to reality. The Lazair was already safely in its trailer tucked away in the back of a friend’s new hangar at Quonset state airport. On the other hand, the A-10’s piecemeal condition made it far less mobile. Fortunately, the only major component at risk was the center section of the wing, still under the dubious protection of the rapidly decaying backyard hangar. Plan A was daring. It called for the wing to be moved to into the garage…the wife’s side of the garage. Fortunately her car had not resided there for a number of years, the space having been quickly filled by an eclectic assortment of memorabilia and trash that she claimed had some use (by whom and for what purpose still remains a mystery). Moving this junk would require co-conspirators, i.e. my two daughters. After some perfunctory negotiations and the promised acquisition of certain CDs by the rock band AFI, the deal was cut. Thus it was that, under the cover of darkness and with Mom out shopping, the three of us emptied the out the space, moved the wing and wing stands into the target area and then backfilled with the displaced trash. The mission was accomplished with the storm only hours away from careening up the east coast toward New England. Fortunately for everyone, except my casino-bound neighbor, the storm missed us, coming ashore in the Cape Hatteras area (not so fortunate for them). On the up side, this whole episode was beneficial in that it gave me new motivation to fix the hangar. It resulted in a new, custom-made cover to replace the old one which finally disintegrated during the first winter storm.
The move also made me aware of an unexpected corrosion problem. While in the hangar, the Swiss cheese nature of the cover had allowed rain to reach certain parts of the wing, causing a reappearance of the gray aluminum oxide I’d worked so hard to remove. It was obvious that the protection promised by the polish and the wax was far less than expected. Had the A-10 been tied down out in the weather over the summer I’d have been back to square one with corrosion on the wing skin. Needless to say, the discovery did not make my day. I needed an option other than watching my aluminum wing turning itself to gray dust. Therefore, I went back into research mode. It didn’t take long to find out that once the Alclad surface had been penetrated by corrosion the process would continue indefinitely without some sort of intervention. Painting the metal was a common solution to the problem, but I was not enthusiastic about adding the weight of several coats of expensive automotive or aircraft grade paint to an already marginal ultralight. Weigh a gallon can of urethane paint sometime and you’ll see what I mean. There had to be another way. So, the research continued, but with a new appreciation for the paint schemes used on light aircraft in the area. It took a while, but the answer did come in the form of a chemical called chromic acid. Alodine, as it’s known in the aircraft world, has been used for corrosion-proofing aluminum for decades. It was recommended by a member of the Yahoo Lazair group to another member with an older aircraft in the process of restoration. This prompted a string of messages posted on the same subject, including a few questions from yours truly. It seems this stuff was well known and available though Aircraft Spruce. In fact, it came in two different forms. One left the aluminum a natural gray while the other turned it gold, ostensibly to allow the user to ensure that the entire surface had been covered. I chose the natural gray and ordered a gallon from Spruce.
It arrived by UPS amid a host of hazmat warnings and the usual very nervous driver. I didn’t think much of it at first, having been desensitized by the arrival of the Alumi-Prep solution. This changed very quickly. Not long after, I was talking to a chemist friend who works for a large power plant in Massachusetts. I mentioned my corrosion problem and the intended Alodine solution. It seemed to make no impression until I mentioned chromic acid. I think his heart stopped at that point, because it took awhile to regain his composure and color. There followed several recommendations: First, see the movie Erin Brockovitch; Second, wear a yellow plastic suit and respirator within a hundred yards of the closed bottle and third; be prepared to account for every drop of the stuff to a host of state and federal agencies. Hmmm. Perhaps I’d been hasty. The specter of a dozen personal-injury attorneys perched like vultures on my roof was not comforting. Suddenly, the weight of a little extra paint was starting to appear tolerable.
The question was where to get it painted and by whom? This was likely going to be a one-shot event and I hadn’t spray-painted anything large in twenty years. It had to be done right the first time. That decision was made, now for some research into painting without an Alodine prep. My first resource was an acquaintance who was finishing up a Zenith homebuilt, and who had stacked up some very recent experience with painting aircraft aluminum. As I’d hoped, he was a wealth of knowledge, a good deal of it gained from the Yahoo Zenith group. After some pertinent question and answer sessions via e-mail I went with a Sherwin Williams automotive product which had worked quite well for a lot of Zenith owners. This was based largely on the fact that there was a supplier just across the street from where I worked. A number of hours were spent there thumbing through pages of color charts trying to decide on a color scheme that wouldn’t bankrupt me. At nearly a hundred bucks a quart this required some major consideration. Fortunately, the guy behind the counter had some thirty-five years in the business of painting wheeled vehicles of all types and was fascinated by the prospect of an Ultralight. He was especially helpful when it came to the primer. I went with the self-etching primer recommended for the paint. Yes, this stuff is toxic too, but most auto body paint shops could, and did, handle it on a regular basis. Therefore I was now on firm ethical grounds.
Actually finding a shop to do the painting was yet another challenge. The nearest outfit that painted aircraft was in New Hampshire. I called them and talked to their paint manager. He had no idea what a Mitchell Wing was, but I got the impression that he had mentally tucked it away somewhere between Cessna and weird homebuilt. While on the phone I convinced him to go to the Ameriplanes website and look at the pictures of an A-10. Now he was intrigued. The only problem was that he was booked solid till June. Winter is their busy season, but he promised to get back to me with an estimate, assuming I somehow got the wing on the premises. “No problemo,” quoted I, now a logistics wizard after retrieving two ULs from far flung corners of the nation. Naturally, having dealt with contractor types before, I maintained serious doubt as to whether I’d ever hear from him again. And, I was right. Several weeks went by with zero response, giving me the opportunity to call a friend at Falcon East and ask who did the painting for his Falcons. This led to contact with a local (read that upstate NY local) auto body shop that specialized in Corvettes. So, another call was made and another twenty minutes on the phone went by which established that he was also busy, but would do it if the wing sections fit into his spray booth. After reciting some lengths and widths he determined that the center section would indeed fit into the booth. He would call back with a rough estimate for a coat of DuPont Imron primer and one of color (maybe two depending upon how thin the first one came out). Of course I never expected a return call, having become savvy about these things and recognizing the magic phrase “I’m really pretty busy”, I was not disappointed. Okay, strike two. There were some local body shops on the list, none of whom had ever done an aircraft. One of them couldn’t get the wing in their booth and the others strongly suspected I was a lunatic. There was also an undertone of liability fear when they realized I wasn’t kidding about a real aircraft wing. Exactly how a paint flaw might cause the thing to crash was undetermined, but they had obviously dealt with a few of the vultures that were on their roof.
It was at this point that I was able to score a major victory by attending a meeting of my local ultralight club. After a bit of whining to other members I discovered that the club president, besides being an ultralight kit assembler/ dealer and all around nice guy, was in the process of finishing the construction of his own personal paint booth, complete with HVLP paint rig (including air mask). At last, the road to Nirvana. The only kink was that there was no heat in the booth. A quick call to the paint dealer revealed that the stuff cured the best at sixty degrees F and higher. So, we agreed to wait a few months until the spring sunshine could push temperatures into the sixties. No sweat, or so I thought.
Now back to the counterweights. The problem was to recreate some reasonable facsimiles of what came with the A-10. I’d also need to make new counter weight support arms and mount them to the stabilators. It took a bit of thinking but I finally decided to make a mold out of an old piece of aluminum flashing. The first step was to wrap it around one of the old weights so that the edges of the sheet overlapped. I then secured it in place with two stainless steel hose clamps. This would cast a fairly reasonable cylinder, but I wanted to see if I could also get it to produce a domed nose. For this, I used a small blob of artist’s clay which I dropped into the bottom of the mold. I then pressed an original weight into the mold and shaped the clay into the depression I needed. The inside of the mold was then marked with a Sharpie marker to make sure that I didn’t pour too much lead. Next, I went to the hardware store and came back with some carriage bolts which I intended to cast into the weights. I also bought a tap with the matching thread size. My plan was to tap the support arm tubes and then screw the weights into them with a nut to lock them in place. The question was how to hold the carriage bolts in the center of the mold while the lead was being poured. It took some tinkering with short pieces of stainless steel wire, but I was able to make a wire loop arrangement which held the bolt reasonably well. After that it was time to try it out.
I pulled out my bullet casting gear and fired up the small electric furnace. I had an abundance of wheel weights, collected over the years, so those went into the furnace for the melt. Although the wheel weight alloy is slightly less dense than pure lead the actual difference in weight would be negligible. After mixing in a bit of casting flux and checking the temperature, the liquid metal was ready. Fortunately the height of the counter weight mold with the bolt in place was compatible with the clearance under the furnace. The first pour went very well, although the metal was still a bit too hot. The mold was left overnight to cool and opened the next day. The cylinder was a bit out of shape and the domed nose was not exactly smooth, but the weight produced was functional. A total of four weights were poured, each one a little better than the last, as experience was gained. Cosmetically they were not works of art, but Bondo and some judicious carving with a utility knife would soon change that. It took another day or two, but after a coat of gray auto primer they looked pretty decent.
Bending the support arm tubes was next on the list. I had already contacted Larry Smith at Ameriplanes and knew that the arms had to be bent about ten degrees down. The thick walled tubing that I had purchased, however, was not easily bent. Most tubing benders were made for thin walled materials and the one I had simply wouldn’t hack it. There followed some brainstorming and a visit to the local Home Depot which yielded an electrical conduit bender. Unfortunately, the bender did not have a lot of fine control for creating “odd angles” (anything other than 90 or 45 degrees). This led to moving the bender from the floor to my bench vise which I used to apply the pressure necessary for the bend. Some scrap wood was fitted into the jaws to prevent the tubing from being marred. After some adjusting and experimentation, the bends were made quite easily.
I then cut some aluminum “U” channel for the mounts and drilled them for the bolts that would hold the tubes to the stabilators. The final products were very close to those shown in the assembly video. They also looked one hell of a lot better than the originals that came with the plane. Fitting them to the stabilators was not a big deal, although, as always, the AN bolts I had on hand were the wrong size. A quick order to Aircraft Spruce solved this and I had two, complete stabilators (drum roll please). I then disassembled them for painting and put them aside.
My elation at passing yet another milestone was short lived. The only major fabrication effort I had left was to fit and finish the fairing for the right wing tip. Using the experience gained on the left fairing, I didn’t expect any large problems. And, as usual, I was wrong. When I wrestled the fiberglass shroud around the rudder for the first fitting I noted that the slot I’d cut for the wing support (used when folded) was in the wrong place. This was not unusual, nor was the fact that the fairing did not even remotely match the wing profile. I braced it internally, as I had done with the left fairing, and then proceeded to make careful cuts with the abrasive wheel on my rotary tool. As the fairing came closer to fitting the wing tip I noticed that the rudder rake angle didn’t even come close to matching the top of the fairing. A rough measurement indicated that there was about fourteen degrees too much rake to the rear, which left the bottom of the forward part of the rudder high above the top of the fairing. It also dropped the tail of the rudder below the back of the fairing, preventing it from retracting to neutral. #&@#^$#%!! I couldn’t believe it. How had I screwed up doing the rudder assembly installation? It was done exactly like the left wing, which fit the fairing nicely. Could it be that the part itself was wrong? A few measurements with a protractor verified that, indeed, there was about fourteen degrees difference between the new factory parts. I then checked it against the original broken part. Again, fourteen degrees. Damn!
The following day I e-mailed Larry at Ameriplanes, outlining my problem. He acknowledged that his current run of rudder assemblies did have a problem and that he was trying to straighten it out with the metal fabricator. Unfortunately, this was going to take quite a bit of time, and all the assemblies he had on hand had the same problem. He made some recommendations to adjust the installed position of the part, which I tried without much success. It seemed I was, once again, out of luck. Strangely enough, such setbacks have become the norm with this project, so I was really not that upset to find myself drifting up the fecal creek sans paddle. I immediately decided to make my own part.
Using the original part as a model I faithfully copied its dimensions and isolated its components. It was really quite a simple design. I could make the pieces but the welding would have to be done professionally. Unfortunately I had no idea what alloy the assembly was made from. So I e-mailed Larry again, stating that I was going to make my own part and asking what material it was made from. He wasn’t sure, but 6061-T6 seemed like the right stuff. I found some 6061-T6 plate of the right thickness at a local hardware store in their metals section. I then ordered more hinge as well as a length of the 6061-T6 angle from Spruce. After cutting the plate, shaping and drilling it, I took it to a local sheet metal shop to have it bent using the same radius as the original part. It immediately broke along the bend line. Obviously the original was not 6061, or perhaps it had been annealed prior to the bend. Whatever the case, the sheet metal guy sheepishly handed back the pieces and I went off to consider my next move.
That weekend I went to work on my Lazair which was now being stored for restoration in a friend’s garage workshop. He had finished his homebuilt and moved it to a local airport for testing. This left his garage space unoccupied (until his next airplane), and he graciously offered it for my temporary use, my own garage and hangar being the repository for the A-10. As things were going, it was quite possible that the Lazair was going to be flying long before the Mitchell Wing. And, come hell or high water, I intended to have something in the air this year, (My wife has learned to ignore these declarations of intent. To her, both planes are destined to be lawn ornaments.).
It wasn’t long before friend Gary wandered out into the garage to check my progress. And it wasn’t long after that when I told him of (Or was it whined about?) my problems with the A-10 rudder assembly. He recommended that he take the pieces of my new project to the welders he was using for the cooling and exhaust systems on his homebuilt. It wouldn’t be cheap, but they had a guy there who was Michelangelo with a TIG welder. I agreed and handed over the parts. They have since been dropped off at the welders’ and I’m still waiting for the fateful call to pick them up. In the meantime, the Lazair marches steadily forward and I keep watching the daytime temperatures to see if it’s time to start the painting.
So, that’s where I am, not as far as I’d like to be, but then I’m much farther along than I was three years ago. Tune in again for more frustration in Episode IX when I get my new prop, get the rudder fixed and maybe do some painting.
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