Getting there…

With the help of my brother-in-law, Mike 🙂 Victor rang this morning and said I’d be daft to put the X-Air on hold until my next-door neighbour returned from holiday, and he was right, of course. He suggested that we use either Regis’s or his large trailer to take it across to Galinat and finish off the assembly work there. There’s only one problem with that, though, and that’s with no doors on it, I can’t leave the X-Air there unattended without secure covers on it. So I decided that whereas I was going to take it across the road onto my neighbour’s land, assemble it and then make the covers I have planned there, I’d do it instead on my front lawn. I’ll then take the wings off again and whip it across to Galinat taking the new covers with me. So that was today’s plan of action. Here’s work underway during this morning.

I need to attach the ailerons and fit the wing battens to get the correct dimensions for the wing covers and I hope that, as with the AX3, I’ll be able when the time comes to transport the wings with the ailerons still attached. I needed to stretch the wing covers onto the wing frames anyway, to be able to fit the ailerons so it was convenient to be able to do it in my garden.

Here are a few shots taken after finishing work at the end of the day, after I’d run the engine. I haven’t fitted the wing battens at this stage and that’ll be the next task.

The wings have only been attached temporarily and it won’t take much to whip them and the struts off again as I won’t be connecting the aileron control cables. We’re popping out tomorrow but with a bit of luck I might be able to get the wing battens in later in the day. But it’s great to at least see the aircraft coming together and almost ready to be flown again 😀