Ordered the Fuselage kit today. I've been delaying for a while; both to wait and see if we were going to owe anything to the tax man, and because this is the point of no return where you really have to lock down landing gear configuration and canopy style. After finally getting my taildragger signoff in a C170 last year, I was pretty sure I wanted a taildragger, but I've been really waffling about whether to go tip-up or slider on the canopy.

I like the visibility of the tip up, plus it's 20 lbs lighter and I'm pretty sure it would be easier to build. But, even with all that, I ultimately decided to go with the slider. When I really thought it through, I could envision how much of a hassle a tip-up could be here in windy Kansas, trying to get the plane preflighted and loaded while making sure the canopy didn't end up in Nebraska. It will also be nice to taxi around with the top open in the summer, both here and at our place out west. In the Cessnas, I'm an arm out the window guy and it will be nice to do the same on this plane.

Once that decision was put to bed, I finished up the wing inspection holes on the left wing. The boys had put all the #6 nutplates in the spar flanges, but not the #8's in the skins, so I finished that up, as well as finishing all 6 panel covers (3 for each wing). Tomorrow, I'll likely do the other wing.

Also started thinking about how to deal with the wingtips. These have been stored for years, probably sitting on the edges, and they have warped pretty drastically. New tips are $250 a pop plus shipping, so I'm going to try to fix these.

I think the best way to coax them back into the correct shape will be with some strategically placed weight wile applying heat, so I'm going to tinker a while to see what that might look like. I'm really not impressed with how floppy these things evidently are, so if I can get them back into the correct profile, I'll likely glass in some stiffeners to make sure they stay that way. This may be a spectacular failure, but I'm going to try before I shell out the $ for new wingtips.

I'm on the fence about whether I need a Nav radio in this plane, but was thinking that if so, I'd likely go with an archer antenna in one of the wingtips so that will play into whatever design I come up with for stiffeners and such.