HISTORY

steps and then black everything else out. Without this

precaution you will either „get lost in the translation“

or waste time finding what you actually need. It did not

seem so, and we believed it will be an „easy build“, but

the cocpits were completed in rather long 3.5 hours,

fully completed, including the washes. That is surprisingly lengthy process for a sport airplane. On the other

hand gluing cockpit into the fuselage was a breeze. At

this stage we did not follow the instructions rigorously

but glued one side-panel with the floor into one half of

the fuselage, second side-panel into the other half of the

fuselage, buttoned up the fuselage and cemented it with

the ultra thin glue. All fitted together as it was supposed to. And so I could have gone on and on about other

sub-assemblies but Vladimir would most likely have

stopped me without „wearing white gloves“. In short: the

kit builds well, there are a few tiny glitches here and there though. Another „painful situation“ occurs while masking some of the more challenging markings.

The camouflages were assigned as follows:

Bohumir Bilek: Z-226T, OK-MUA, pilot Ladislav Bezak,

the first offical World Champion in aerobatics. In 1971 he

emigrated to Germany with his whole family flying this

aircraft.

Jan Hanzlicek: Z-226MS, OK-LMG, Rakovnik airport,

2020

Vladimir Suma: Z-226T, HA-TRM, Tokol airport, Hungary,

2021

Martin Cerny: Z-226B, OK-MPJ, Kladno airport in 70s.

Summary of the build experiences:

1. The instructions miss the color call out for the fire

extinguisher located on the front bulkhead (part E13)

2. In order to position the little box correctly (part H11)

you need to drill holes along the floor edge

3. Positioning of the centroplane (part H38) has to by

symmetrical otherwise one half of the wing will fit perfectly on the bottom but the other half of the wing will

feature a visible gap

4. After gluing the parts E48 (a structure behind the

seat) these partially extend above the edge of the mating surface in the cut out for a rear instrument panel

coaming. The guides in the side panels need to adjusted

or pins on E48 parts thinned.

5. Gluing of the horizontal tail surfaces: you need to sand

down flat the mating surfaces on the parts E29+E33 and

E31+E35, they are bulging.

6. In the „D“ scheme do not use the front part H24 as per

instructions but use H22 instead. The cut out for the front

exhaust is missing on the mask.

7. The wingtips: drill out the hand-holds for the aircraft

ground handling-they are missing from the instructions.

8. The starboard landing gear leg does not fit into the

wing cut out, light sanding around the perimeter will fix

this.

9. Wheels + parts: there is a very tight fit, if the parts are

primed or painted in a thicker layer they cannot be easily

assembled. It’s sufficient to push the discs into the tyres.

Do it on a softer surface. They will hold without glue.

10. The tail wheel consists of two parts. After gluing them

together the assembly looks a bit strange but that is

accurate in fact. The wheel features a center groove and

side guides to help the aircraft maintain its track on the

soft surfaces.

11. Elevator control links: to add several spares to the

sprue would come handy, they fly off the tweezers easily

and are difficult to find

INFO Eduard - December 2021

eduard

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