All shiny again!

Dropped by HobbyTown USA while I was over in Mobile this morning and picked up some white Econo-cote and a new sealing iron sock. Now this, this is what a LHS should look like... In the same space as my LHS has, these guys had planes, helis, and parts, parts, parts! Now, they too only sold Eflite a/c, no Trex that I saw, but wow, I have no doubt that if I needed it they would have it (Arnie, they have that Carbon Z Yak -54 you want!). More than that, their customer service was outstanding. I walked about listening in, and their advice was knowledgeable and sound, given in a friendly way. All in all, very nice experience, and any time I am over in Mobile, I will be stopping by!

And with that white Econo-cote, and some red Ultra-cote I had on hand (I do like applying the Ultracote better, but once applied they seem the same), I completed the repairs on my Alpha Sport 450 I had started yesterday after I dropped her on her head during a botched landing.

This is what she looked like after the crash. The firewall was stove in (all 4 sides were pushed into the fuse), the side wall was cracked and internal supports fractured. While involved this was a rather simple repair once I planned it out. I replaced the supports with wood from Greg's crash, epoxied them and the firewall sandwich repair Greg advised, rebuilt the fuse behind the wheel mount with more wood from Greg's crash, and all that was left was to let everything cure and cote it today. I also re-coted the cote that stripped off behind the main gear when I repaired the mount a couple of days ago, so now her cote is all fixed.

While it looks a little orangey, it is the same red. I coted across the top between the firewall and the window. You can see one of the plywood sandwich pieces on the right behind the engine. 

You can see a hint of the extra wood that makes up the bottom of the fuse just behind the front gear, but the cote work looks great.

Here is the sidewall that cracked nearly off. You can see a small indentation, but other than that the repair came out quite clean.

Very excited to fly her tomorrow! Will be taking the Cubby and the (gulp) Stearman out to play too! Hope things go well! I soooo miss the Cornell, she was such an awesome flyer. I bought her a new tail wheel, a bit bigger than the one she had, so when she comes back from Greg's Magic Repair Shop, I will have a little gift for her!