Building the (Old) FLYLINE Great Lakes 2T-1A Kit (11)

As with a lot of older kits, there isn’t a lot of specific detail on the drawings to show you how the lower wing and landing gear are supposed to be attached to the rest of the fuselage. (The same goes for the upper wing and cabane struts, too, but we’ll talk about that later.) The lower wing MUST be removable for access to the inside of the fuselage, even if you won’t have to take it off to transport the model, and that’s what I’ll start with.

Perhaps the most common method of mounting the wing in a low wing model (or the lower wing in a biplane) is to use a plywood former, or perhaps a former insert or doubler, at the wing leading edge, into which one or two short lengths of heavy dowel built in to the wing leading edge will fit. The FlyLine plans were ambiguous on this…they mention it but show little detail and don’t provide a part pattern. I cut this insert from some of the “extra” 1/8″ aircraft plywood provided in the kit and drilled it to accept two 3/16″ mounting pegs.

This is the former insert in place. The two vertical sticks (uprights) and the lower crossmember are 3/16" sq. spruce, not balsa like the rest of the fuselage truss, and I made a point of getting a really good parts fit and making a stout glue joint here.

With the leading edge former insert in place, I test-fitted the wing to the fuselage using the plan and a big plastic square to ensure 90 degree alignment, then marked the wing saddle former locations onto the wing sheeting and the mounting peg locations onto the leading edge through the holes in the former insert. Atia the cat believes the worktable belongs to her, but she lets me use it.

Here's a look at the same dry fit assembly from above.

Using more of the same "extra" 1/8" ply I cut out a lower wing trailing edge mounting plate and glued it in place.

I have inserted the mounting pegs into the leading edge of the center section and set the wing in position with the pegs in the corresponding holes. I used short lengths of aluminum tube rather than wood dowels for this job. You can see where I have drilled the trailing edge and plate to accept a nylon mounting screw inserted from the outside.

This is the underside of the nose, ahead of the wing, where I am creating new structure for what will be a more or less custom landing gear assembly. The rectangular block on the leading edge former will be the tiedown point for an auxiliary gear strut. The two triangular plywood inserts behind the firewall former are drilled to accept a 7/16" brass tube that will become part of the main landing gear assembly.