Did a little more on my Simitar build last night. Well, progress-wise it was a little, but time-wise it was 3 hours! Every time I work on the build, I get it hammered further into my head "building planes takes a long damn time!!!!!". It's bizarre to think that this was once a very common way to get a plane into the air. It was either scratch build, or build from a kit that wasn't a lot better than scratch building, because the kits were die-cut back then. There were no ARFs at all, and even when ARFs started coming out, they were really, really bad and you were still better off building.

Anyway, got the leading and trailing edges of both wing halves sanded flush, and the 1/4 balsa glued to the leading edge and set aside to cure. This will then be sanded to shape the leading edge of the airfoil. I am not looking forward to that step! At all! I'd pay good money to avoid it! However, once that is done, a good portion of the hard part will be over with and it should be smooth sailing. I'm told that all the time-consuming stuff is being done first and that once the wing is done the build is way more than half over.

If I had my own shop, and the skills to do this build without massive supervision, I'd probably have 4 of these in the air by now. But I don't have a shop, and there's no way I could do this without Claude's help, so I've got to do it slowly, when he's available, and when I can set aside time. He's about a 20-30 minute drive, one-way, and of course he has other commitments, so I can't work on it every day. Plus I've got flying and other stuff to do too! Oh well, if I can get it flying before Winter I'll be happy.

While at Claude's working on the build, I got to see a thoroughly destroyed Mustang that a newer flier in the club had crashed. A lot of the "totaled" planes end up at his house, given he's the club President and an avid builder. This particular Mustang was slammed into the pilot line fence and the wing was sheared off and destroyed. To compound that damage, the pilot in his anger kicked the plane, causing more damage. Seeing this plane reinforced what I've already learned: "assuming you're not dead-stick, if a landing is going poorly, punch the throttle and setup again; don't keep fighting it in..." Heh.

I also spent 5 minutes setting up the 40" Edge I got in trade. Was easy to setup to the recommended throws and I'm looking forward to it's first flight as my plane. This should be a fun little plane to drag out to fly when I don't want to do a full pack-up for a longer day of flying. Just throw it in the trunk, bring a couple batteries and my TX, and I can fly it almost anywhere.