October 14, 2006

I wangled my way to getting to the hangar again today, although I’m pretty busy doing home stuff too at the moment. We got a bunch of chores done this morning, so this evening I got to work on the plane a bit. Today’s task was to get the interior flight ready! I didn’t need to do too much.

I put the SCAT tube on the fresh air vents, and labeled the alternative air knob. The ducting slid easily over both the intake duct and the cabin vent. That’s a first!

Here’s the right side. You can also see the location of the interior light in the passenger footwell.

I fitted the ELT remote. I forgot to test it though! I did think about it, but it wasn’t the first five minutes of the hour, then I promptly forgot about it. In order to fit this, I had to first epoxy in the nuts behind here as they were impossible to get to. I used ‘instant’ epoxy, which really wasn’t that instant. Still it worked out well, because by the time I’d done all the other things today, I could get the screws into the nuts. They were nyloc nuts too. The extra hole in the panel was because I used the original Van’s panel as a pattern for drilling and cutting this custom one. The Van’s one has a hole here, but I have a different vent set up so the hole is unused. I think I’ll have to fill it with a screw to nowhere.

I sealed up the hole in the firewall for the alternative air.

Well, that’s it. The interior is now ‘flight ready’, apart from the glareshield trim. I’m hoping that Piero can come by tomorrow to get it started. Right now, it’s the big hold up because I can’t get the windshield on until the trim is in place. In the meantime, it’s time to move firewall forward again.

I didn’t snap a picture, but I spent some more time putting high temp spiral wrap on some of the FADEC harness at the back of the engine. This was a bit tricky as it’s tough to get my hands in there now. I think the spiral wrap will go a long way towards protecting the wiring from any chaffing back there.

Once I’d done messing with that, I figured it was time to get the cowling finished up. In order to have this thing flight ready, it needs the screws in the front of the inlets fitting, and all the camlocs along the top putting in. I still need to do the oil door too, so I should probably get that out of the way tomorrow. Tonight though, I chose to fit the cowling to see how it worked with the baffle seals, and also to see the fit against the newly riveted top skin. Well, it’s looking pretty good! The baffle seals do push the cowling up a bit, so I left the plane like this (with some weight on the cowling) for the night. Eventually, the baffle seals will bend over and conform to where they should go.

Look at this! It’s almost done! Tomorrow, I’m going to finish the cowling and then start on other fibreglass parts. If Piero comes, I’ll help him with the upholstery, so I’m not sure how much I’ll get done. I’m going to be calling for our inspection soon!