Hi all,
The Bristol M1.c is finished now, although I still have the figures and display base to do.
The shot below (minus propeller and spinner) is of the wing rigging, which turned out to be more difficult than I had hoped.
Having built monoplanes before, I didn't anticipate how tricky it would be to fit the wings.
The actual aircraft had a wing dihedral angle of between 2 and 3.5 degrees.
However the two locating lugs at the root of each wing are woefully inadequate.
The wings are moulded a single, solid pieces, so are quite heavy.
Test fitting both wings into their locating holes in the fuselage proved useless as the both wings sagged down badly.
I couldn't drill into the wing roots and through the fuselage to add metal rod 'spars for additional support (as I've done before on mono-planes).
They would have crossed through and been visible in the cockpit.
Therefore I decided to fit the flying and landing wires as the wings were fitted.
In that way the wires actually supported the wings onto the over cockpit support frame, which I'd made from brass tubing.
Mike