I received an infusion of enthusiasm yesterday! – phranticness, a member here on RC Groups that I met at a local park while flying, came out to our club field to check it out and fly with us. Well he brought his FunCub and let me take the sticks for a little bit and I really didn’t realize how much I had missed flying this plane - So now it’s time to get HOT again!
I finished the work on the tail plate so now the vertical fin is permanently attached to the horizontal stabilizer! Then I had to build a ‘fixture’ to hold the tail group in position while the epoxy sets on the tail plate and then I can fabricate the carbon fiber tube ‘vee’ that will be the front support between the fuselage and tail. The fixture will then be trapped in place and have to be cut out to remove it. Of course I'm starting to get excited about finally having the tail permanantly attached and then I think - if I attach this tail now how the heck are you going to paint the aft fuselage? So here I type - waiting for paint to dry! Actually, I'm going to wait a day or two (don't want to take a chance on marring the paint in such a difficult to reach place after assembly)! I guess it's time to get the rudder and elevator servos mounted and close up the back of the fuselage!

I ordered a new canopy and decals (from two different sources), The canopy/hatch arrived Monday but was damaged (GoHobbies is handling it right and shipping a replacement tomorrow)! My decals arrived today and the box arrived mashed flat and folded in half! Just sent an e-mail to the other shop.
I painted the cublandinggear.com gear and reassembled it. I used a pair of o-rings on each side for the bungees, we'll see how they work (they may require a little experimentaition).
On the FunCub thread they were talking about weights and one of the guys mentioned his modified 'stock' gear weighed in at 69 grams and he thought the stock gear weighed in at about 60 grams. It got me to thinking so weighed the gear and it came in 139 grams (4.9 oz.)! I think I'll still be OK but they're definitely on the 'chuncky' side! Maybe I'll reserve some room in the fuselage for a helium baloon!
I had thought about modifying a set of RC car or truck shocks to duplicate the Alpha Omega Suspension System (AOSS) currently used on Super Cubs but at this weight I think I'll just stick with the o-rings! ~ Robin

Got hot on the tail today - Lots of filling, sanding, more filling, more sanding, all the little dings you don't notice 'till you get ready to throw some paint! I also had to install a CF rod out the bottom of the vertical fin leading edge for the front mount and fiberglass over it.
I wasn't expecting a contest quality finish but I'll say this - Krylon Fusion is excellent on a brand new airframe! That being said I was a little disappointed with the repaint, and it wasn't the paint's fault either. Where ever you break the molded surface of the Elapor, it tends to get fuzzy, I spackled it, sanded it with 320 until it was nice and smooth. However when the paint hit it you can definitely tell! I suspect that it really needs to be sealed before the color coats get sprayed. I couldn't find Fusion white primer anywhere locally so I used some fusion satin white and gave the vertical fin three mist coats over the green before I shot the Sun Yellow (it worked great)! The other thing is, my striping tape on the old scheme left its mark on the foam as it was removed! Not to worry - I think it will look fine in the air, from two paces away, and in photos - just don't expect to ever see it at the AMA Museum! ~ Robin

I had considered flattening the bottom of the FunCub fuselage for a more scale-like appearance but decided to just run a carbon fiber tube from the center of the forward fuselage to the center of the tail wheel mounting plate. Now that I've decided to go with the pull-pull setup, I needed to reconsider that decision as the flat bottom fuselage would make it easier to install a hatch which would greatly simplify the servo installation, setup, and maintenance. So here it is!
It should make the installation of the forward, side, and aft looking camera mounts easier (it will be disguised as a baggage pod). I also had to do the bottom cross braces and diagonals (I still need to wrap those joints – and I’m down to my last 24” of carbon fiber tow!) I also gave the fuselage a thin coat of spackle to cover the dings, fair in fiberglass reinforcement strips around the longerons, the rear side window plugs, and fill in the molded in ‘door’ panel lines. The replacement canopy (hatch) is scheduled for delivery on Monday, and then I’ll be able to fair in the front (ahead of the hatch) and start on the cowl! I'm also looking into how I'm going to handle the graphics (I'm open to suggestions if anybody has any recommendations, they're all standard fonts). Thanks for tuning in! ~ Robin

I decided to attack the tail since I'm waiting on parts. This is the problem when you design as you build - I hadn't given much consideration to how I was going to do it, when I tacked it on two balsa side plates on top of the longerons for the assembled photo's I thought, yea I'll just do it that way. However, after looking at N9015U's tail, I knew I had to do better.
So out came the exacto saw, sand paper, tape, knife, and wood, and the foam started fly'n. I had to remove the rudder due to the vertical tail plate that passes thru the horizontal stab to tie in with the aft fuselage, I'll use CA hinges to reattach it after the rudder horns get here and are installed. The main point of doing all this was because of the gap between the bottom of the vertical fin and the top of the horizontal stab is very obvious in any photo of the real aircraft, but I am not going to split the horizontal stab!
The braces are 1/16th carbon fiber rod JB welded into crimp type ring terminals. The anchors are plastic tubing CA'd into the fins trimmed flush and then tapped with a 2-56 screw, the bottom set will terminate at the tail wheel mount plate, believe it or not it really stiffens the tail up! ~ Robin

I've decided to go with a pull-pull system for the rudder and a push-pull cable for the elevator and got the parts on order last night! Here's one photo I missed and a few more I just found of the actual aircraft! ~ Robin

Here she is – a little closer to her next maiden! Here are a few views with the fairing both 'on' & 'off' (it'll be easily removable). I’m leaning towards painting her in the late scheme (with the black wings and horizontal stabilizer) as I think it may be kind of difficult to cover all that green with yellow! I have the 5/16" streamlined aluminum tubing for the wing struts but may just wait until after the maiden to build those up! Note that the tail was in position on a cradle, but just taped on for now! Next will be finishing up the tail and getting started on the cowl. Stay tuned! ~ Robin

Look Ma, no tape! Well finally got the front & back ends together. The wrapping of the joints was a little more time consuming than I anticipated and I still have a few more on the top cross braces & diagonals I Just installed! Anyway I got the four longerons in and put a few pieces of carbon fiber tow across them as well as a 1” strip of fiber glass over each longeron (it’s really stout)! I kept the aft fuselage fairing just in case I decide to do the later version, or I may make it removable so I can have a choice! Still debating on just how to mount the tail with the least amount of alignment issues. Tomorrow I'll partially assemble her for a few more photo's of the progress!

Sorry, I finished up kind of late and had to get up early for work. Preparing the front fuselage for mating up the aft end was a little more labor intensive then I thought! I cut the channels in the foam for the five longerons (fifth one is on the bottom centerline), added doublers in the thin foam areas to support the longerons, filled in the servo pockets with balsa and some foam from the disused portion of the aft fuselage, and filled in the aft side windows (N9015U has them painted on)! I also found out that wrapping the joints was a little more time consuming than I first thought. The first one came out a little lumpy, the second a little better, and the third I was happy with. If you attempt something like this I’d highly recommend that you glue up some cheap dowels and practice until you’re satisfied with the result! Tonight I’ll try to 'wrap up' the remainder of the joints. Note that the tail is just taped to the top of the longerons - when finished the bottom of the elevator will sit about 1/4" above the longerons at the elevator hinge and about 3/4" above at the leading edge.

Still requiring some engineering is the servo mounting for the pull-pull rudder and elevator controls and how to glue in the longerons with CA while maintaining proper alignment! I taped her together for a couple of photos this evening so you can get an overall idea of how she'll look. After the sides are permanantly glued in she'll get a few additional cross braces and diagonals added on top and bottom (and some more wrapping)! ~ Robin

Finally got a chance to make a little progress today! I built the second truss, a tail wheel mount plate, the upper longeron gusset, and joined the assembly together. I gave up on wrapping each joint with carbon fiber tow and epoxy - it was just too difficult to keep straight and keep down until the epoxy set, instead I'm going to try wrapping a joint (dry) with the tow and then wetting it out with thin CA. Tomorrow I'm going to try to join the forward and aft fuselage sections together after I work out a few mounting details, hopefuly there will be enough progress to warrent another update! ~ Robin

OK - New material order arrived but the work schedule has prevented the start of any new work - until today. Had the day off and finally made some progress. I epoxied on the firewall and started the first of the two side trusses. I'm much happier with the slimmed down version! The first side is complete except for wrapping the joints with carbon fiber tow and epoxy (I think it will be plenty strong)! Now all I've got to do is make one more identical truss! Hopefully I'll get the second one done this weekend and start making some real progress!
~ Robin