Matt Chamberlain's Radio Control Blog: Underway with my 52" Marstons Pterodactyl

After a month or so of completing other projects, I finally decided to get underway with building my 52" Marstons Pterodactyl last night.

As well as reading the instructions a couple of times, I took time to read the following sources of information on the Web relating to this kit, namely:

Marston Ptero Works

RC Groups Thread on 52" Marston Pterodactyl

Tony S 52" Marston Pterodactyl - build blog on ModelFlying.co.uk

I decided I would start with the wing, so the first steps was to cut the two carbon wing spars to the correct length in the build instructions/plan. The picture below also shows the balsa sheet of laser cut wing ribs which were easy to push out.

Each of the ribs are numbered, so having pushed them out of their housed balsa sheet I positioned them onto the plan with the numbers facing inwards.

The next stage was to thread the ribs onto the forward carbon spar, all of which went on very easily. At this stage, there has been no glue applied.

A closer view of the ribs positioned on the forward spar.

Next it was the turn for feeding the rear carbon spar through the ribs. The holes for the rear spar were a lot tighter and I had to be careful here to twist and push the carbon spar through without breaking any of the ribs. Again no glue at this stage.

The next step was to position the four leading edge peices. Again these were tight fits as you'd expect. I just need to check that my motors will fit now before these peices are secured.