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F14A Tomcat - PART THREE

The last error by Hasegawa on the wing flaps involves the location of the flap actuators and the hinges points. Each actuator rod should be centered over a hinge point. Only two of the six actuator points align with the hinges. The others are skewed left or right by up to a quarter of an inch. I chose to not try to fix this alignment issue because it would involve rebuilding the (at the time I learned this information) already constructed "eyelid" doors and re-scribing the piano hinges for the "eyelid" doors. Perhaps on a future build of the kit I will tackle fixing the actuator locations.

The Hasegawa wing flaps always looked somehow wrong to me. After discovering and fixing most all of these wing flap problems, I was much happier with the look of the dropped flaps. I considered raising the wing spoilers while I was working on the wing, but decided against it. I had my hands full with just fixing the incorrect flaps. Like the flap actuators, perhaps on a future build of the kit I will tackle raising the spoilers.

I left the wings loose (unglued) in the fuselages of my completed models. The fit is tight enough on the wings to hold them in place without glue. This way I can remove the wings for transporting the models.