Ready for flight!

I've now completed the West Wings Aries and I'm quite pleased with end results.  The nose block was a little soft for my liking, so I am holding out to see how well it lasts, and I'm not entirely sure a yellow propeller matches the white and blue colour tissue.

I am hoping to rebuild this as a monoplane with a couple more inches of wingspan just to see if this configuration will also work well.  I just need to find a supplier of propeller blades as my local hobby shop does not supply these.

Roll on Spring and calm dry weather - I can then get some flights in and report if this is a decent flier!

West Wing Aries - Covered

This weekend I found a couple of spare hours to cover the West Wing Aries.  The hardest part was getting the tissue on the wing tips to pull tight without any wrinkles.    During the the final stage of completion I accidentally damaged the back of the fuselage, so that required some careful re-patching of the tissue.

I just need to now finish off the nose block with the 20 cm propeller and the plane is ready to balance, trim and fly...

West Wings Aries

I've been cracking on with the construction of the West Wings Aries and I now have the majority of the aircraft now completed.  I just need to accurately drill some holes to hold the dowels in place and add a few more gussets in the wings for extra strength.

To make the fuselage more rigid I added some sheet balsa to the underside of the nose and made the box framework between the wings stronger.  This only adds a small amount of weight and hopefully will result in a tougher airframe.

So a few more hours work of final touches and the next step will be the covering...

West Wings Aries

West Wings Aries

I received a West Wings Aries for Christmas to keep me busy during the Winter months.  This is a relatively easy model and promises to be a slow but steady flyer.   This kit is almost identical to the West Wings Topaz, apart from the additional wing.  If the Aries works out well, I may tweak the plans and build an Aries from scratch.

The balsa wood is cut well, however, this kit was missing the trailing edges for the wings and tailplane which was a big disappointment.  Fortunately I have plenty of sheet balsa spare, so I can cut these myself, however, I did feel a little let down by this lack of quality control.

I've constructed the tailplane and I'm now working on the fuselage which I hope to complete by the end of this weekend.   Onwards and upwards!