Hi Fred, I have only just joined this forum and did so on the strength of seeing both your thread and the one on the Granau Baby. Both quite old now. So please forgive me for being so late.
I too have a Magister, but mine was bought as the complete kit and has the foam wings. You have done a fantastic job on yours and it looks the total biz! Mine was got after I saw a mate of mine in the SCSA with his. That was about 20 years ago. It needs a 'little' bit of TLC now, but on seeing yours I would love to see mine back in the air.
From the photos yours seems to have an all moving tail? That is what I have on mine and it certainly stops me getting bored! I also did mine with the rudder too and almost smacked it in when I tried too much stick on it! I found that when a lot of rudder was used it went into a sudden dive. On a left rudder command a hell of a lot of up was needed on the left control surface compared with the down on the right surface. Obviously the opposite on the right command!
One of the problems I had when landing was slowing the thing down. I finally fell on the idea that if I put both ailerons up to land it became a real pussy cat and so much easier to get down safely and a lot more slowly.
Here's a few photos of mine. Not as detailed as yours and I didn't fit the tip tanks on a couple of flying sited as they would almost certainly have been lost on landing. The tip tanks on yours are smaller and as you can see from the last photo they are the type used for normal flying tasks. The larger type, as on mine, were used for longer distance ferry flights. I learned that from the pilot who was at the 2004 Kenble Air Day. He was flying the last military flying Magister. He let us come over the barrier and have a close look around. He sat it on its tail to show us just where the empty G of G was! It juts sat there on the tail drag wheel!
Your work in progress is really good and thank you for taking the time to do
John.
