Firefly Construction  

We finally got around to posting some pictures. Progress has been slow but steady.

Here are a few shots to get those juices flowing!

Fuselage:

As you can see, the fuslage is built on a very simple jig set up over the top view of the plans. The three "jig" boards are all the same height and parallel to one another. All the stringers are 1/8 X 1/4 clear pine. All the formers except no 1 are 1/8 light ply.

Stab and Elevators:

Fairly straight forward construction for a scale project. Mostly balsa with spruce spars top and bottom. Scale hinges.

The above set-up proved that the control horn would be too short and the push rod would interfere with the stab trailing edge.So an extension to the horns was in order. This is accomplished with some .09 thick G-10 fastened to the two horns. Just follow along for the process. The "control horns" are the large glass filed nylon servo arms from Dubro. They have been drilled and reamed for a snug fit on the torque tube that will run in the leading edge of the elevators. Then they are pinned in place!

Here the two elevator halves are being set in alignment and "glued" using slow cure epoxy on the torque tube.

The control horn and hinge blocks now become "captive" to the assembly All that's left to do here is sheet the stab portion and shape everything. This will happen after we progress further on other parts of the project.

Vertical fin and Rudder:

Pretty straight forward construction. Just bigger.

The fin will be sheeted and the rudder will be fabric covered.

Fuselage and tail feathers:

Here is the fuselage with a mock up of the nose section and forward canopy. It is atop an 8 foot table.

The fuselage will be 93 inches from the front of the spinner to the end of the rudder.

Wing:

After the fuselage was framed up the next thing I had to do was add and extension on the work table so I could build the two wing panels at the same time. The wing span will be right around 100 inches.

Here I have added 28 inches to the 8 ft table. Plenty of room now.... Plans ready.... Framing started.

Construction in process at the present time. Stay tuned!

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