Kerry'd Away

The 12 hour shifts are starting to catch up with us. Between working and sleeping, it doesn’t leave much time for anything else. However, a little progress has been made. Jay was busy this week in his spare time. Do you remember how the wing spars looked last weekend?

This week the delicate procedure of actually inserting it into the wing commenced. Now, keep in mind, once everything is done the jet and wings will be glassed so you won’t see any of the ‘ugly’ patches. Here’s the installed spar:

I think that it looks really good. It looks a lot better than what I could have done! This morning the left wing spar was installed. This is really tough because you need to make sure that everything lines up perfectly! I keep telling Jay that he’s damn good, but I don’t think he believes me.

The left wing spar last weekend:

A wing spar this weekend:

The bubbled-up stuff is glue that will be cleaned up once everything has fully set.

The other thing that was worked on this weekend was the tail thing. Now, Jay will laugh at my description and so I’m partially doing this for his reaction, but the other part is that I don’t want to start tossing terms out there thinking that I’m right and then finding out later I was completely wrong! lol. Also, I’m not sure how to spell most of the words. 😉

So, this is what the tail thing looked like last weekend:

The blue tape was holding the steering devices onto the tail thing. These were hinged today:

Don’t they look so much prettier?? I like blue, but the tape wouldn’t make a good hinge for the steering device.

The last thing that was worked on this week were the shoes. Okay, so that’s not the proper term for them. They are canoes or something like that (I’m a bit tired so not sure if I’m remembering correctly). Either way, they look like shoes to me. lol. They go on the wings:

Don’t they look like slippers?? I think so. :-p

What else was accomplished? LOTS. Here’s a shelf that was put together in order to get some kind of organization done in the man cave:

The other thing that was built was a new toolbench caddy thing:

Another week has gone by and there has been more work done on the Warthog! Woo-hoo! This week was spent exclusively on the wings. Are you ready to see some pictures? This is how we left it last week:

Remember, only the wings were worked on this week:

It might not look like there was a ton of work done, but I hope that I can show you just how much work. Here’s another picture of the wings from last week:

Here is a somewhat close-up view of this part of the wing after it was completely covered:

This picture is also showing the wing spar that Jay designed and built for this jet. You see, the instructions say that you’re supposed to construct the wing all in one piece. What?! How in the world are you supposed to store or transport this jet if the wing is all in one piece?? I was helping Jay mock the wing together and the darned thing was taller than me, and I’m 5’10”.  I had Jay put his arm next to the wing so that you can kind of get an idea as to how long just half of it is (he refused to get completely in the picture because he didn’t want my female friends beating down his door and trying to woo him away from me… lol):

They say that the length of your arm from your fingertips to the middle of your chest is about three feet long. So, that shows you how long just one wing is. This thing is going to be huge!

Anyway, I was talking about the spar. Here’s another picture of it close up:

In this picture it’s all together. If you scroll back up you can see that it’s in three different pieces. You have the long piece that fits into the section of wing that goes directly under the fuselage (not sure if I spelled that correctly), and then a piece in each wing that will slide into the main part and connect them to each other.

See how that will work? The long, thin part that is sticking out over the middle of the wing fits right into the bracket of the spar:

Isn’t that pretty?? Isn’t Jay so smart!

Here’s how we left it tonight:

I can’t wait to see what next week’s post will hold!

Work on the Warthog has continued all week. I want to remind you that this jet is not one that you pull out of the box, perhaps use a little glue, and then you’re off flying it. This project is basically a block of Styrofoam that has to be lined with wood, shaped, glued, epoxied, and what-have-you before it’s fiberglassed and taken to the airfield for the maiden voyage. I will post the Warthog pictures like I do my stitching; first a picture from last week and then an updated picture this week. That way you can really get a good sense of how much work was done.

When we last saw the Warthog it looked like this:

It was just beginning to come together. A few of the parts had been lined and glued. Now, here it is a week later:

We have the beginning of the wings, the fan housings are built up, and there’s more wood showing. This weekend there was a lot of sanding going on as well. This thing is massive. I’ll have to take a picture of Jay standing next to it so that you can get a better idea of the size.

We’ll start at the front and work our way back. Last week’s cockpit:

Nothing too impressive. You can see that the inside is lined where the batteries will sit. Here is the cockpit this week:

Isn’t that pretty?? Also, you can see that the nose has been taped on as well. It doesn’t look quite as much as its namesake, with the stubby nose.

Like I said, this week the back half had a lot of attention paid to it. Here’s a better picture of what it looks like now:

You can see that parts of the wings are slowly being added, not to mention that the holes where the servos will go have been lined. Here’s a better picture of the wings:

I wish that you could see how Jay does this. He takes a piece of styrofoam and cuts the size of wood that he will need. Then he glues it and sets it aside until it is dry. When the glue has dried he then sands all of the seams smoothly and does any shaping that needs to happen. This will all be covered in fiberglass when it’s all said and done.

The last couple of pictures involve the tail part of the plane. Here is how they looked last week:

And now this week:

Isn’t it impressive how much nicer the wood looks? I wish that you could see it in person because it’s beautiful. The work that is done to get these just perfect looking is astounding. Jay really is very talented.

Now, I want to show you a picture of some of the electronics:

I can’t tell you what all of these do, but I can tell you that there are several hundreds of dollars sitting in that pile. The thing is, I don’t think that’s all of what he will need to fly this thing. At the very least, the batteries are not included in this pile.

Many people might not understand why a person would want to do this. After all, isn’t the point of a remote controlled plane to fly it instead of building it? Maybe to some, but to others half of the enjoyment is flying an aircraft that they created themselves. I am actually quite amazed by the whole process and the oodles of talent that is needed in order for this to look awesome. And I know that it will. I hope that all of you continue to look forward to the progress of this project. I know that I can’t wait to see it next weekend!