Pictures Added!

The pics for today's class were taken by OSA student, Ms. Aarhus. My long-term goal for this blog in particular, and OSA/Flight Club in general is to have all students take photos, work on the plane, and write their own submissions to the blog for publishing on the World Wide Web. For today, the goals were to finish the fuselage and get the first "bend" of the dihedral set. You can see that both sides of the fuselage are done and waiting to be connected at a later date. We've learned that leaving the parts on the cork-board is the smartest way to keep the completed pieces, well, complete. We leave 1-2 pins in place to secure them, and move on to the next stage. The stringers are being cut here (left); this allows the "bend" to stay put, once it has been put into place by the balsa "jack". Next, glue is added to the notches in the ribs, after the stringers were dry-fitted first. I was really impressed with how the students had the patience to dry-fit parts prior to breaking out the glue... I had to learn the hard way, myself! I did the first 2 of 4 stringer for this side of the wing, and the students did the rest... here's where some cooperation and an extra set of hands helped!

With the pre-set balsa "jack" in place, we leave the stringers to dry. At this stage, the students also cut the stringers for the opposite side of the wing... again, a smart step to take, as it allows the stringer measurement to be made for each symmetrical side, with the wing still "flat" on the table... apparently me staring at it intently helps it dry?

So, while 2-3 students are able to work on the plane at one time, with another student taking photos or working on the blog, what is the rest of the class doing. Today appeared to be an "English day", with students....

Reading...

And Reading....

Writing....

This looks like Science...?

And some vocabulary stuff!

Next week, more dihedral!