Last week Friday I closed the 2nd wing, with help from EP. We’ve built up a nice routine and division of labour, so that closing it now takes us less than two hours. On Saturday I took the wing out of the vacuum bag. After sanding off the rough edges the scales showed a weight of 518.5 grammes. That’s a weight difference of 1.1gr compared to the first wing we built earlier last week (519.4gr.) – the closest I’ve ever come with building wings and well within the margins. Wing flex and torsional stiffness of both wings seems excellent.

All the main bits and pieces of the Monerai are now ready in their “crude” form. Now comes the long process of putting it all together. Just to see where I am weight-wise I weighed all the bits – it adds up to around 2.4kg. My mate Richi, whose monerai is ready for its maiden flight, has a take-off weight of 3.6kg. I hope I can keep mine in that same range, but under 4kg.

Today I worked on the tail end, skid and canopy frame. I also installed all the wing plugs in the fuselage. Next step is to sand the abachi on the wings, before fitting them to the fuselage and then glassing them.