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Final steps

Covering of the wing with ORACOVER film followed as a routine job, but then came the moment of truth when a preliminary C.G. check revealed that there were approx. 1350 grams of nose weight needed, including battery and Rx/servos. Beforehand I had calculated the C.G. using two simple programs available in the web, one of them being http://adamone.rchomepage.com/cg2_calc.htm. It uses geometry data only and yields good results for a safe first flight.

Thus, 1.000 grams of lead were packed into a simple makeshift ply box and glued against the front former. This required a peephole cut into the forward cockpit former and some surgical acrobatics... A 4-cell NiCad 2400 mAh pack serves as a radio power supply and is positioned, together with some smaller pieces of lead for fine tuning, on a vertical piece of ply. This gadget is held in place by a screw and another one forward where the "base" of this vertical piece can slide under. Of course, I had been "clever" enough to prepare this earlier ahead of the sheeting ... ;-) 

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The servo and radio installation is self-explanatory from thereon. A vario from www.wstech.de is connected to the TEK nozzle and a double 2.4 GHz RX is fixed against the rear former.

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The kit contained also the " MULTIlock" by Multiplex which is a very nice snap-in device to keep the wings locked to the fuselage. I had the "pin" glued into the wing in an early stage and had the female part left to be glued into the fuselage as a last step. However I was afraid that the wedge which is used to unlock the wings, would produce ugly markings in the still relatively soft balsa sheeting. As I was about to proceed I found that the female part and its groove were flush with the inner plywood doubler. Therefore I bent two safety needles from 1.2 mm piano wire and it is now a perfect lock without glue ... :-)))

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... and there it lifted off for the maiden flight and came back from it after I had to force it down with air brakes and down elevator from a nice springtime thermal - and with a big smile in my face!!!

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Bye, bye, friends of the 1:4  1-23H and ...

OVER AND OUT.

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