After a long struggle, and taking some shortcuts the enormous and fragile tail booms are rigged and on the aircraft.
 |
| Booms in place, rigged and ready for the tail surfaces. |
 |
| Without full rigging or final "wood" paint. |
 |
| A test fit without paint or rigging. |
I used monofilament for the main rigging material on the booms because they need the structural integrity of "non stretch" rigging, and something that could be tightened after the booms were in place glued to the wings. Some of the other rigging was with EZ Line because I didn't want to drill more holes in the booms.
Given the large scale of this kit the best, although slower, method would have been to use anchor points made from twisted wire eyes to which the rigging could be attached, and adjusted with monofilament and tube segments to suggest turnbuckles.
At this point, the main parts left are the tail surfaces, landing gear, machine guns and mounts and more control line rigging. As much as I like this kit, and Wingnut Wings do make outstanding WWI aircraft kits, the best there is in my opinion, I am now looking forward to something with no rigging at all. I do have the WnW Albatros D.Va and the Roland D.V1a waiting, but, in comparison with this FE, it's minimal rigging for those two.
 |
| First assembly. No paint. |
 |
| Tamiya buff acrylic paint and initial mono rigging. |
