…but not very many entries. Sorry about that but I think my readership amounts to two people and mostly I am keeping this up to document, for the FAA, that I built this plane. So here’s what’s been happening.
My records show on 11/26 I worked for 3.4 hours, on the 27th for 2.5 hours, on the 28th for 1.2 hours, and 4.9 hours on the 29th. Oddly, I didn’t write down what I was doing. I suppose I thought I’d remember better than I do. During that time I was working on the rudder pedals, brake system and fuel system. I spent a LOT of time turning perfectly good 5052 tubing into scrap as I tried to bend the parts needed for the high pressure AFP fuel pump.
I don’t have any records showing that I worked on the plane in December. That is probably correct. I was working hard on preparing for a trip to Mexico with my wife. We left on December 12 and returned on the 31st. Between getting a bit ahead at work and getting ready for the trip, I don’t recall working on the plane but I have other records to check and I may update this time period, if I find I did some work.
My goal was to have the aft fuselage finished before going to Mexico. That didn’t happen. I wanted to be working on the canopy when I got back, so now I’m a few weeks behind…but so what? I am making progress, albeit slowly.
On Sunday evening January 8, my good friend Steve Steinbeck arrived from Cary, NC to give me a week of assistance on the plane. I think I wore Steve out a couple of days. Here’s what we accomplished.
1/9/12 – 10.7 hours. I installed the roll axis servo for the GRT auto pilot while Steve worked on bending and rebinding fuel lines. He has a much better touch for this than I do and he certainly improved on my work.
1/10/12 – 11 hours. We disassembled the plane back to it’s basic parts; wings, fuselage, rudder, vertical stabilizer, horizontal stabilizer, and elevator. Before disassembling the empennage we did a test fit with the elevator trim cable and discovered that there was interference between the fuel pump and the cable. The end result is I ordered a new rudder cable from Van’s – roughly $160 shipped. That was an unexpected expense. Finally, we set up a new work bench so we could work on the wings. Basically, I cleared the pool table of plane parts, supported a piece of 3/4″ MDF board across the table and put an anti-skid surface over the MDF.
1/11/12 – 10.5 hours. We started by riveting the flap brackets on for the right wing and then riveted the flap gap seal on and prepared the aileron gap seal by drilling it in place and debarring it.
1/12/12 – 7.8 hours. We riveted the aileron gap seal on the right wing and then I removed the autopilot servo so I could “loc-tite” two screws into place that hold the D-connector to the servo. I also worked on a design for the conduit to carry the wing wiring and reviewed the installation manual for the ELT which I’d ordered on Monday. I went with a simple 122.5 only ELT by AmeriKing, which will need to be updated with an expensive multi channel model before 2020. The simple fact is ELTs rarely work so why put more money into one that you need to? I’ll rely on an APRS or similar, but not required, device to actually find me if I need to be found.
1/13/12 – 13.6 hours. We drilled debarred and installed the flap mounting brackets in the left wing but ran out of time to rivet them on. Next I completed the ELT mount but did not install it in the plane. I installed the outside air temperature sensor (a replacement of the original, which I never installed) and mounted the Gretz heated pitot tube. This wasn’t too complicated, once you figured the directions out but it did involve mounting a backing plate to the wing and drilling a lot of holes in the wing for rivets, screws and cutting a big hole for the tube itself. Steve spent about 3 to 4 of the 13.6 hours making 19 hangers to my specifications for hanging the wiring conduit in the wings. The hangers came out really nice. The day before he’d made hangers out of scrap material that likely would have worked. The redesign was lighter, held the conduit away from the lightening holes better, and over-all gave a much more professional look.
1/14/12 – 12.5 hours. We riveted the flap attach brackets to the left wing, drilled dimpled, and riveted the flap and aileron gap seals. Along the way, I discovered some missing dimples in the wing ribs and the rear spar, so I put those dimples on. We installed the mounting tabs for the conduit, hung the conduits, and ran string though the conduit to pull wires through. To get the string through quickly, I tied a cotton ball to a string, stuck the ball in one end of the conduit and had Steve put a shop vac on the other end. Thhhhhhuuuuuck. The process took about 1.1 seconds.
1/15/12 – 5 hours. Let’s just say it was a rough night at the emergency room…and drugs do evil things to people and I don’t believe the people even have a clue about how bad off they really are. I’ll keep the young man in my prayers but he doesn’t see a problem.
We installed the ELT in the plane, ran the new elevator cable and it looks like the extra 10 inches will be enough (not sure until final assembly), ran the wiring for the tail lights, and clecoed on aft fuselage skin.
1-16-12 – 14 hours. We riveted the two aft fuselage skins on. I’m guessing well over 500 rivets and there are only a dozen or so to complete the job. We just ran out of juice. It is really starting to look like an RV – not just an airplane but an RV. Really cool.
1-17-12 – No build time but I put a lot of tools away, cleaned up after the building spree, unpacked some canopy parts and started to plan the next steps.