Hold down assembly - complete
Blade boxes - complete
Spring blades ground down and fit - complete

Whew! I guess it's all about the learning curve, takes me 3X to do the first piece.

Gonna fly tomorrow, I'll get in the shop and have a look at getting the spar together. Maybe beging the wrap on Monday.

Still need to do the servo wire holes... also need to clean the bench, what a mess I have going! Sawdust and metal everywhere.

Progress is coming along, My initial hope was to have something in the bag by end of my holiday break. Not realistic. I think I can have the pre-work just about complete, but I expect cutting mylars to take some time for precision.

I will also bag a few pieces as you only get one shot....

I'll add some pics tomorrow...

I'm off work until 2 January! I plan to make use of this time. Flying and building! This evening I cut and measured the spar web material. I was planning to use a carbon sock over the spar, but what I ordered is just too big. So I'll stick with the script and press on per the plans (Kevlar wrapped spar). I still like the carbon sock approach and will do that with the Supra spar.

Today I fabricated the aluminum hold down bracket. I just had a door in the house replaced and there was a very nice piece of scrap aluminum left over it worked perfectly. I also cut bass wood strips that will laminate into the spar at the center with the hold down bracket. I also cut the web, measuring it against the leading edge with the spar cap in place. Tomorrow I'll get the joiner boxes complete, on Xmas say I should be able to wrap the spar! Goal is to get the center section into the bag by Saturday.

We went flying this afternoon, more carnage, Arnold lost his Hera, something bad happened on launch, didn't rotate, just went straight out ... then in. Looked like some sort of radio problem. This happened around noon, he had it fixed by 4PM, Arnold is an excellent builder.

Winds were up, sustained around 15mph as the flying session wore on. We'll be out again tomorrow, promises to be a nice day winds 5-10. This all makes for nice tuning of the Super Sapphire. Flew with the new ballast system today, tomorrow will be totally different. The airplane is getting to be dialed in. I I recently picked up an AR9000 with a logger and satellite recievcer, next little project is to get the Ava converted over to 2.4.

It seems like ever since the first time I looked at Harely's Genie plans, I pondered, worried, obsessed about the cutting of the cores for the spar. I considered all kinds of wacky schemes to figure out a way to cut the spar with precision.

Finally, as he often does, Harley gave me a gentle nudge, and I just moved on. Sure enough, it was pretty simple. It turns out I can cut within the width of a fine line, any variation is handled easily with a sanding block.

So that hurtle complete, I move on to fabricating the spar, end caps and joiner boxes.

Off tomorrow to Knoxville for a business trip, "working from home" on Friday, I expect to make some progress.

I've been on 5 cites the last two weeks with heavy travel for work. That redeye from SFO on Thursday was particularly exhausting

I ordered a new TV from Costco, it showed up and I just had to install that sucker. It's a 47" LCD, and is something else connected to the Fios box. Well, I had to watch it a bit during the horrible weather on Saturday.

Sunday we flew our annual Pro-AM. I'm proud to say me and my Pro won!

I did get the shop cleaned up a bit, I'll be joining the cores, cutting out the spar slots this week. I broke out the cores and I have to say ... that is one BIG wing!

Goal for this week is to get the cores joined, spar section cut be Friday. This weekend will be joiner boxes.

Plan of being off between Xmas and new years so things ought to get rolling.

Thought I'd get more done this weekend, but such is life. I spent a good deal of time, more than I planned frankly, working on the main ship in my quiver, the Super Sapphire (Sapphire fuse, Thermal Dancer wings, Ed Whyte stabs). I finally came up with a suitable ballast system that's easy to use, basically it's a series if 1.5 oz lead sinkers held together by heat shrink all attached via a wingnut through a washer at the end. Wing nut to bolt at the end of the servo deck holds it in. First slug I made was about 14 oz. Why not a tube after all the effort I put into bagging one? Well I couldn't get it in the way I liked it due to a reinforcing tube going across the fuse. Anyway, this method was much better.

I also had to rework the flaps. For whatever reason, when I installed the servos on this ship I messed up and could only get 45 degrees of flaps. Got that fixed and now I swear I have a new airplane! I can just walk it right in to the tape!

After all that work we went out Sat to fly expecting a bad day and canceled contest on Sunday. The Sapphire flew well and I continued to work on my radio setup, fine tuning here and there as well experimenting with some different switchology.

On Saturday I witnessed an inadvertent shoot down, it was sick, a beautiful HKM Space Pro lost. It was a fluke, two guys who fly together often, one on ch22, the other on ch23. Long story short, guy waiting to launch shot down his buddy after coming off the winch. BUT THEY WERE A CHANNEL...Continue Reading

ACP supplies showed up a few days ago. The only thing left is the fuse, another week or so.

I've just about completed my stabs. I'm very pleased with them. They have the proper shape and look of the Genie, but have a carbon spar and leading edge per the great Ed Whyte, who's stabs I've been flying for a few seasons on the Sapphire. Just need to sand them a bit more, I'll wait on covering for now. As noted before, I'll also wait on the fuse before I start on the rudder.

Been traveling a bit for work. I watched some Phil video on the way back from MKE this evening. This was good prep for this weekend.

This weekend I'll begin working on the "reference wing" Les sent me some extra pieces of Supra cores to play with, they had flaws in them, perfect to practice on.

I'll build a center section and wing tip for practice. To save $$ the spar cap will be hard balsa, only partially wrapped. I'll make one set of joiner boxes, cut and face aileron & flaps. I'll only use glass, no carbon, it's too pricey. IT's sort of a dry run to get the process down.