The Airframe is Missing:

The airframe was meant to be away for a week but this turned out to be 10 days -- not that it mattered, as we had plenty to do in the interim. I learnt a lot about the build process and was very pleased with the construction path that Rotorway had taken. This second phase meant a lot of grunt work on metal fabrication and fibreglass -- probably the low point of the build process for me. On the other hand, I was delighted that the "seriously tricky gadgets" came fully assembled. This includes the elastomeric rotor assembly (the exploded diagram for which is thoroughly frightening); the engine and the tail boom. I wasn't initially sure if I would be bolting on cylinder heads to a short engine and my skills in fabricating sheet metal for a tapered tail boom would never have made the grade, I'm certain.

What is necessary is to make various metal parts out of basic sheet, using templates for accuracy. The body also requires fitting to adjacent parts at this stage, for the first time at least. The "tub"; the forward, lower part of the fuselage, needs marking and splitting. Air ducts need fibreglassing into place and a whole lot of fitting and sanding takes place. The body panels provided don't just match exactly -- they need to be made to fit properly, if you desire a nicely finished aircraft. The panels are held together with "cleco" bolts; an expanding split pin that just holds things in place until you take it apart again. You get used to using a lot of these !

We had also sent the skids to a motor bike shop to be polished. They came back just like chrome.

The rear fin; horizontal stabiliser plus its own fins needed to be shaped, fibreglassed to cover the metal/fibreglass junctions and then sanded and filled a few times. They end up looking as good as a blended wingtip -- amazing !

Now we await the return of the airframe.

Metal Fabrication from Templates

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