S-POU! 2.4 by Stevens AeroModel

[soarrich]

I had seen this in a English magazine a couple of months back and thought "That's cute.", but then I thought another plane you won't see on this side of the pond. I was then shocked to find it was made in USA, so I looked it up on the internet, wow sticker shock! $40 for a 1.4 oz. plane, that's a lot for a tiny little airplane, so I kind of forgot about it, but not quite. Last month I went to the WRAMS show and Stevens AeroModel was there, and there was the Flea with their other planes, they are little works of art! So I bought a Flea at the show special price of $35, then got a advanced order form for their Archaeopteryx flying wing. I figured I would just go to their website and place the order for it, but it's not on the website, so I had to send the order in by snail mail. While I was on their website I saw they have a Micro Builder Program where they send you a new kit every 3 months, cool I buy that. Now I look and they have a larger version of the Flea call the S-POU! 300 so I buy that! I better start building!

What do you get in the kit? You get 3 sheets of balsa, a small sheet of aircraft ply, some hardware, and two sheets of plans. I want to take some pictures of the build so I get my camera out and start building. I find I'm really getting ticked off! I'm basically a scratch-builder and really dislike ARF's due to the lack of input into them, now I'm building a kit and the parts are too perfect! I don't get to make anything fit or tweak the parts in any way. When I start gluing the part together I start to feel better because it's harder than it looks. the parts are so tiny, and the CA wicks through the wood I'm getting stuck to the plane every couple of minutes, life is good. This builds fast, time spent is about 50/50 on building and unsticking myself from the plane, there's a learning curve to this. The last time I built a kit that jigged together so well was when I built a Andrews "H" Ray, it had 3/8" thick routed sides, ply plates, and heavy Maple motor mounts that all interlocked. I had dry assembled it to see how it was done before I started using glue and I found myself with a fuse about 90% done in my hands. Hot Stuff, (CA to the kids), had just come out and I used it for the first time, the world had just changed, a days work in 15 minutes!

This builds so fast I forgot to take pictures in the beginning, so the rear wing and 90% of the main wing are done before I take a picture. I can't get over how well the parts fit, I thought I would at least get to sand the bevel in where the outer panels of the wing meet the center panel, nope, another perfect fit, I could get used to this.

The fuse is a little confusing at first, a small isometric perspective drawing might ease builders minds, but I got through it OK so far. I've got to stop and do "Honey Do's" now.