Sling 4 Ninja

I re-started my elevator as I had botched the first one (entirely my fault). Here it is ready to be skinned: And I finally got a *perfect* trim tab, very very straight! Third time's the charm:

After talking with the factory, I had a try at buffing out the damage. Luckily, I had the tools: some brown scotch-brite, and some 3M cut & polish wheels, one light and one medium (also used for deburring edges): I'm not going to detail every single spot that had issues (in the end I found 7 skins with scratches/dents), but it turns out this is real easy to do! Before: After: In one spot, I had chose to use some aluminum epoxy filler: Luckily most of the damage is on the inside of fuselage skins, or on inside skins, so no matter what, the work will never be seen. I still wanted to smooth everything out to make sure that there's no chance of any scratch/dent becoming a crack. Unfortunately there is one noticeable 1.5-1.75cm dent that WILL BE visible from the outside, on the fuselage, forward of the wing leading edge, pilot side: I'm going to have to ask for a new one of those ...

So inventory is nearly done, and here are my findings so far ... First, no longerons! Apparently the kit is made up of TWO crates (Or more precisely one create and one tube) and Jean forgot to send me the tube!! Doh! How does that happen? Secondly, there's some damage from improper packing it seems: I'll have to check with TAF, especially those two bottom ones, they're on a main piece of skin, and since skin is structural ... I'll have an up close look soon ...

The fuselage arrived on Friday! Very happy about this major step forward! I am electing to do this first instead of the wings (traditionally one does the wings first) because there's the possibility of new wings being available down the line, and also new wing tips that will fix my lighting issues easily. With the cover off: And with the top layer off: Lots of parts in there, and a very heavy box! Inventory will take some time.