[Danny Baker]

Mr. Eric: This sounds like you have one of the older Carden Kits. The old Carden 35%er had one screw hold down the full tank cover hatch (forward turtle deck), and it sounds like the builder attached the pilot and windshield area to the forward hatch area and left just the one screw to hold all that down. This will most likely not work due to the size and wieght of the larger hatch. You'll have to add hatch hold down tabs on the side of the hatch that stick down into the sides of the fuse (like all Cardens have) to hold your hatch in place. See pics here. You can see one of the hatch hold down tabs in the close up (lower right), and see the rear hold down tabs in the pic where I'm about ready to paint my Carden hatch.

The builder should have build a means of holding the wings onto the plane while it was being framed up. Please say at least there's incidence pins there so they mount "on incidence". There's really no way to describe how to come up with a way to mount the wings here without writing a book, and most likely you'll not be able to follow the step by step text here. I suggest you go to the field and look at other big bird aerobatic ships and get some ideas that will work with how your plane is framed up.

The way to tell if your plane is a 300 or a 330 is simple. You don't have a 300. No such thing as a 35% 300 from Carden. If it's the older version from the 90's. You might have a 300s. Which is a single seat, low wing version. If the rear sides of the plane are built up and not sheeted, and the wings recess into the fuse, you have an older version Carden kit of a 300s. Wings fit flush with the fuse sides, it's a newer Carden kit of a 330.

Your cowl is correct, it's split, but the two halves overlap. See pic of my Carden Yak cowl. All Carden cowls do this. And the pic shows how to mount the two halves together.

Hope this helps,
Dan Baker
Team Carden