About a month and a half ago, I received the first parts of my new ARF: the Christen Eagle from Hangar 9. I immediately started fixing the cockpit, as you can see in my previous post, but waited with any further assembly tasks until all parts were in. Two weeks ago I received the Power 90 motor which was on backorder and on the 6th of May I finally started building. I also do have a deadline… I want to fly this plane at our annual fly-in at the club which will be held on May 31 this year.

I will not post any detailed construction descriptions or pictures, as that would only replicate the manual (building an ARF isn’t a unique process so to say), but it’s nice to share some building steps here.

Per manual I started with the main landing gear. You need to bolt a few parts together, but the most work goes to the fairings (which need to be cut in shape) and the wheel pants. After some drilling, epoxying plywood doublers and a lot of small adjustments and alignment fine-tuning, the Eagle stood on its’ own feet:

To prepare for installing the tail section, the lower wings were temporarily installed:

As you can see, I am finished with restoring the cockpit as well. The front dash is in and the pilot is secured with some screws as well, next to the epoxy I used earlier:

Then, you need to hinge the elevators and install the stabilizer. It was hard to get the alignment correct, because the main legs weren’t exactly symmetrical. The body is leaning to the left slightly and it’s almost impossible to bend those sturdy legs. I’m satisfied with the result though, and after cutting away the covering in the center section, the stabilizer was glued on with epoxy as well:

Same goes for the fin and rudder. Hinge, align, remove covering and glue in place, using a square and hoping for the best :)

Lastly, I’ve installed the tail wheel. A very straight forward job:

I think it cost me four to five evenings to get to this point. I didn’t came across any major issues, besides the fact that the fairings for the main gear are brittle (they easily crack, could be an issue when landing roughly) and that they are a little hard to get to the right shape exactly, being flexible and all. I used Uhu Por for these fairings by the way, instead of the silicon glue suggested. Works fine.