May 2, 2004. Today we built the upper wing. Tess carefully inspects each piece as it goes in -- she doesn't want any surprises during flight testing!
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| Tess with the last airfoil frame. | Sliding Lego blocks under the wing tips to set the dihedral* angle. | Measuring the dihedral to be sure it's right. |
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| Putting the last frame in place. | Although the wings are super-glued, we decide to add some epoxy for extra strength. | That looks pretty solid! |
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| Let's just set the wing up on the fuselage to see how it looks. | This is great! And I still fit! | A doll soars on the wings of her imagination... |
* Dihedral: an upward tilt of the wings, giving them a shallow "V" shape. This shape makes the aircraft more stable in flight. The original Nieuport II, being a fighter, had very little dihedral to make it less stable and more maneuverable. Tess is hoping her plane will be so stable that it almost flies itself.