Chad was despairing. “Oh, woe is me! When will I get some more attention?!”

Poor Chad! He felt like he had been neglected.

But as you can see, he’s had a bit of attention paid to him. The leading edges of his wings have been rounded, and there has been a lot of sanding being done.

Even his cute little belly has been sanded.

Tickle, tickle… who has the cutest little Spad belly? Chad does!

Laying on his side you can see… his belly. Umm.. I’m not sure what we’re supposed to be looking at here.

Let’s just sit and gaze for a while, shall we….

Oh, maybe we are supposed to be looking at the sheeting. Now that the tail wheel has been installed Jay cut out the sheeting and installed it.

He also installed the tail servo along with epoxying the middle part of the horizontal stab so that it is permanently in place now.

Plus Jay worked on the sheeting around that part, too.

Isn’t it pretty??

This picture gives you a better idea of what I meant when I said that the middle part was glued in. I’m not sure if the plans called for it, but Jay has made the horizontal stab removable for easier transporting.

Also, I must mention that he has not looked at the actual plans for this plane in many months. He’s completely going based on knowledge of how things logically should be assembled and sanded.

Here’s the other side.

I believe that Jay has done a lot of sanding on this, too. Either that or he keeps some of the dust on hand so that after he’s been down there for a few hours he covers his sweatshirt in it and heads upstairs. This way I think that he’s been so busy down there making progress on this airplane.

You see, he wants to get the Ziroli Corsair kit in April. I think that he and I will discuss that at a later point…

Jay has also spent a lot of time capping the gaps. At least, that’s what I’ve been calling it. I can’t remember what Jay told me the technical term is for this process. Essentially it is putting another piece of balsa in place and sanding it into shape so that when the surface changes the air gets deflected correctly and doesn’t catch on a giant gaping crack. Or something like that.

See how beautifully the wind will be deflected when Chad is in full flight?

That is some good gap capping there….

Chad sure is getting big! That rug he’s sitting on is 8′ x 10′!

Just kidding!

Jay has  also attached the wing tips and sanded those into shape. To quote Jay, “It’s amazing how quickly 60 grit sand paper will chew away at balsa!”