A little bit of everything - Fouga, C17 & Valkyrie

The final few parts of the C17 nose shaping and planking were becoming too much like hard work, so I moved over to do a bit more work on the Fouga and Valkyrie.  Truth be told, I was a bit stuck in forming the last parts of the undercarriage pods, so I always find it helps to have another build or two to distract you.

I have now painted the cockpit wooden parts in two thick layers of floor varnish, so it should now be ready for primer at the weekend :

Then as I knew there was some P38 filler required on the rear end of the Fouga's fuselage, I mixed up extra to get rid of a couple of dings on the Valkyrie fuselage.  These dings were actually caused by me pushing on the fuselage when trying to remove an alloy spar rod that had "picked up" and locked itself into the alloy fuselage tube.  Oops!  This has since been remedied by a heavy steel version, and a lighter carbon one too.

Then I had a brainwave!  Small, cross-grained sheets could be patched into that pain of a pod on the C17.  1 hour later, I had the nasty niggle nullified.  Here it all is in it's rough-hewn glory, before sanding or filler :

Valkyrie repairs & modifications

I have the opportunity coming up to fly some gliders on a couple of (new to me) slopes, and rather than risk a PSS machine on a hill I am not familiar with, I thought I'd get and kill off a few repairs on aircraft that have been sat around too long waiting for attention.

First up is the Valkyrie - a 100" canard I built in the 2011 / 2012 winter from the RCMW plan.  The main problem with this (and most canards) is the fore-plane is susceptible to being snagged in the grass when landing, and this causes the nose to snap on this particular model.  I think it's had about 5 repairs so far!

So, the nose has been epoxied back together, and I have decided to manufacture this little skid from about 8 layers of 1/64" ply, bent around the wood screws on this jig.  Once touching down, this should give the nose the necessary clearance to keep out of the weeds.

And this is where it fits.  Or should.  I drilled 3 holes through the flat area, mounted it on the fuselage, and smugly bounced the nose up and down on the bench to test it..BOING BOING CRACK.

Balls.

It had broken through one of the drilled mounting holes.  OK, version two coming up with carbon cloth laminated between some ply!