Wrap Up Work 7
11/16/2006 4.5 hours
Clayton came by to help out this evening, which kind of helped push me along some as I was facing some serious motivation problems after looking at the empennage fairing. I'm not happy with the way it turned out as the fairing didn't really bond as well as I'd like to the stuff I'd laid up previously. I'm not really sure where to go with it at the moment, I think I'll ask Keith what he thinks tomorrow. He's an expert with fibreglass.
We spent our time doing other things that needed to be done ready for the inspection on Tuesday. This included cleaning up some. The hangar is a mess, and it would be prudent to show a clean, organised workspace.
I know we should have done this a long time ago, because now I had to face the discomfort of climbing all the way to the back of the fuselage to connect the seatbelt cables to their respective anchors. It's a bit of a squeeze back there, even for a skinny bloke like me!
Clayton, being the artful photographer that he is, took a shot of my AN4 nut and bolt collection.
Once the seat belt anchor cables were in place, we could put the back panels in. I just positioned them for now. As long as they're at the correct statoin for the CG, it should be OK for weighing. I put some screws around in a few places, but I should probably put some in all the holes for weighing, or just put them all in a box in the plane.
Here's a pic showing the seat floors in place. You can also see that the flap motor covers are on.
Other stuff that was done.... Hmmm.. We assembled the adjuster flaps to the seat backs. We drained the fuel out of the tanks (bar 10 gallons, as I didn't have enough fuel cans). We started making the bushings for the seatbelt attachments on the seat floor. Clayton put the access covers on the wings, and sanded the empennage tips.
Most of the interior is together now. I need to put the seat belts in, then put the seats in. I vacuumed it out too.
I took the day off work tomorrow because I don't think the weekend will be enough. I need to get the empennage fairing figured out, and do some of the other things that are being put off until 'tomorrow'. It's supposed to be a better day tomorrow too weatherwise, so I may run the plane again to make sure all is well.
11/17/2006 10 hours
A long day at the hangar today! I started the day getting all the seatbelts installed. This meant making six little bushings out of aluminium tubing for the seatbelt bolts. I'm not so sure that aluminium is such a good idea here, as it will just mash under the loads that go through a seatbelt. I might change them to steel in the future.
Once the seatbelts were installed, I worked on the seats themselves. I had Piero fit stud fasteners in the seat back attachment flap that runs over the top of the seat back sheet metal, as the velcro was practically useless. The stud fasteners are positively attached, and they won't come off.
Now that is done, you can get a cool shot of the (almost) complete interior. I still need a centre armrest, and when I'm flying I'll fit the stick booties.
I had to trim the rear upper panel a little to fit around the turtle deck skin braces. I also had to put the hole in it for the canopy rear track bracing rod. You might be able to see that in this picture it's not installed. I need to order up a nice 'acorn' nut to cap the end of it to finish it off neatly. Another order to McMaster Carr!
Once all that was done, I couldn't resist taking the plane outside and making sure she was running nicely. I had the engine heaters plugged in all night, so it was already a little warm. I installed the cowling for this run too. I want to try to get the baffle seals to take a set. It ran like a charm. We're getting very close now.
Time to move onto the weight and balance stuff.... I was planning on weighing the plane this Sunday, but I figured we could get it done today given the point we're at. I made the inspection covers for the bottom of the wings that needed doing. For some reason (51% rule?), you only get 4 of the six cover made for you in the QB kit. The other two you make yourself! No wonder we couldn't find them anywhere. We didn't even think we had to look in the raw materials box! Here they are installed ready for weighing.
Mike came over to do a mock inspection, but he also ended up helping me and Keth do a weigh in. Everything is on the plane now. The spinner, the cowling, the access panels, etc. etc. The only thing that isn't really done is the empennage fairing, but it's not too big of an issue. I can put that in place for the weigh in. We also placed the wheel pants and gearleg fairings in about the right locations.
We pulled the plane up so the front wheels were on the scales, and then lifted the tail wheel up so the aircraft was in a level flight attitude. Then we took the weights. Front right was 524lbs, front left was 534lbs and the tailwheel was 63lbs, for an all up weight of 1121lbs. What a fatty!
I was so caught up in the action, I forgot to take any pictures! Doh!
After all that, we removed the cowling, and Mike had a poke around to see if he could spot anything that needed my attention. He found a couple of things where I needed to protect the wiring a little, but generally it looked pretty good. While we were messing with the cowling, we set the depth for all the camlocks too. I wrote down the things he found, and I'll address them tomorrow. More things for 'tomorrow'!
Speaking of which... Priorities will be Mike's list, empennage fairing lay ups, and the cowling hinge pin retainers. What a cool day. Mike couldn't believe that there was actually a plane in our hangar. He and Cameron would always make fun of how long it's taken to build this 'Quickbuild', but the day is almost here!
11/18/2006 6 hours
I think I'm in pretty good shape for the inspection. I still have to do the hinge retainers on the cowling, but that shouldn't be too bad.
I started by wrapping the rest of the left gear leg with fibreglass. This will be complete then too, once I peel off the peel ply layer. I tried to get a hold of Bob at Fairings Etc. to place an order for the gear leg intersection fairings, but got an answer machine. Maybe on Monday I'll try again, or call his cell.
Back to the crappy empennage fairing. I've decided to just make the best of this I can just for flight, and then when Fairing Bob's arrives, I'll replace it. I removed the old glass I laid up, and laid down some new glass. Then I used a flox mix (this time) and stuck the fairing down to it. This seems like it's going to work much better. Then I laid some glass to cover the big holes I'd cut in it previously. I also reinforced the front hook parts with carbon for extra stiffness. It only took a couple of small bits for that. Hopefully this will all work out a lot better than the previous attempt!
Here's the other side. I laid up glass over the slits that I'd made too.
Once I'd done messing with all that, I put these new clips on the ignition harness. They are the correct ones made by Champion. I've been looking all over for these things for a while, and was expecting to get them when I ordered our ignition harness, but they never materialised. I stumbled across the place to buy them on Dan Checkoway's site. Sacremento Sky Ranch!
This was one of the items on Mike's list. The oil line might rub on the crankcase breather line. I couldn't do the other wiring ones because my spiral wrap that I had was too small in diameter. I need to get a quick order in to McMaster-Carr. If I order it on Monday, it'll be at my door by Tuesday, they're pretty quick.
I learned this trick with a piece of platic tubing and a tie wrap from Keith a few hangars down. He's been very helpful lately, and it's been much appreciated. Thanks Keith!
As this aircraft is 'Experimental', I stuck some weatherstripping around the roll over bar. I'm not sure how well it'll work, but it sure looks like it seals nicely. Again, I got this from McMaster-Carr. Those guys are great!
I sat and figured out my fuse block layout, and wrote it down for the POH, and wiring manual. I have some scrappy notes from earlier when I was actually wiring, but I wanted to double check I'd not changed anything along the way. Sure enough, I had. Glad I checked! We need a spare fuse for every one in the plane, so I need to order some more 2A and 5A fuses. The rest we have a ton of. I also need to make a couple of labels for two of the wires! Oops!
I removed some more blue plastic from the right aileron. I still need to get underneath and remove the rest of it. Clayton had started this task the other day, but I had to remove the aileron to get at the plastic near the wing.
I walked around the plane what seemed like a thousand times today checking everything was how it should be. So far it's looking quite good. I think tomorrow I'll wrap up the empennage fairing, get the hinge retainers started and start cleaning up some more at the hangar. I need to spend more time at home making sure all our ducks are in a row for our paperwork. Most of it is done and submitted, so we only owe the inspector our weight and balnce, and maybe the program letter needs an update. Other than that, I think we're good. I need to get all the construction logs sorted and some pages printed to show we (I) built the plane, and we should be good to go. I might even take the computer to the hangar to show it all in real time.
I'm estimating that the first flight of 'Little Fatty' will be sometime over the thanksgiving weekend. Hopefully the weather will be cooperative. Still not sure yet which day.
I was at the hangar a little longer than anticipated really today, but I made good ground. I wanted to make the cowling hinge pin retaining cover thingies today, so I got on with rolling some 1/8" thick flat bar stock. This cowling hinge thingy method is Mike's way, so credit has to go to him. He did this on his RV-4 first, and it looks pretty nice.
I made a cardboard template of the curvature of the cowling to match. It's a constantly tightening radius. I seem to be better at metalworking than fibreglass working...
Once the bar stock was rolled, it was just a matter of cutting the covers out. Lovely.
I put some loops in the end of the hinge pins to make them easier to get in and out....
With the 'special tool' number MK12425930920-2
Then I made the holes in the cowling for the covers. You can already see how they'll look.
Then put PVA release agent on them, wax them too for good measure and flox the heck out of them. Well, you don't have to go too mad with the flox. It's just to make a flange for the cover to sit on. More to come on this tomorrow!
OK, back to the empennage fairing ugh thing. I peeled it off the plane, and surprisingly it didn't turn out too bad. It's certainly will be good enough for flight anyhow. I just need to trim it up some to make it look a little neater, and then we can call it good.
Here it is all trimed and sanded. I guess it doesn't fit too bad. A bit of filler here and there and it might even be acceptable for 'production'.
Well that's it. Apart from the wiring that needs sleeving in the engine compartment, and the final cowling hinge pin chapter, this thing is ready to fly! I ordered some sleeving from McMaster-Carr, overnight shipping, so on Tuesday morning I can take care of Mike's squarks. Tomorrow I'll finish the cowling stuff.
Time to start cleaning up. This is the first time I've seen this futon thing in 4 years! It's always been stacked with aeroplane stuff! Even the work table is clean!
Here she is, waiting patiently for the inspection.
I did some more paperwork at home this evening. All the log books are in order and the weight and balance document is done.
11/20/2006 4 hours
Sorry about a lack of updates! This past couple of days has been crazy mad! Here we are finally, a bit brief though, I'll elaborate later!
I went to the hangar to finish up the cowling stuff, but it needed a little more flox. I filed the holes to shape, added flox and peel ply and left it for another night.
I also made the strips to screw the inserts to.
11/21/2006 7 hours
Today is inspection day! I got up early and got everything together for the hangar. All the paperwork, the computer with the build log on it and something to eat...
I managed to peel off the peel ply on the flox from yesterday and that was about it. I calibrated the right fuel tank, and removed all the panels. The inspector Art Nadobny was meeting me at the gate at 11:45.
Everything went really well. Art was a very nice guy, and he looked over the plane and gave it his stamp of approval. He also gave me a larger test area than I had originally asked for because of the high performance nature of the aircraft.
I had to make an engine run time entry in the log book, and then Art stuck his sticker in there and went through the operating limitations with me. After that, he handed me the pink piece of paper all this work was for!
In anticipation of tomorrow's planned first flight (yeah baby), I went to the hangar with our cousin Jack to get the plane ready for flight. It all needed to be put back together. We replaced all the access covers, armed the ELT, re-installed all the interior panels and put the seats back in. There were what seemed like a GAZILLION screws.
We fitted the wing root fairings, and called it good to go. We left the top cowling off so that we could preflight the plane thoroughly tomorrow. That's it. Time to walk away from it.
Mike gave me the tip to make sure the aeroplane is completely ready the day before flight. That way, you're not getting stressed out to finish up something quickly in time to get in the air. It does make sense to have your act together for the big day. The less stress the better.