Big news of the week....my transition training is complete! It took about 6 hours of flight and at least 40 stop and go landings but I got my endorsement. It became clear that I need lots of practice to gain the finesse of those "greased" landings but I got it up and down safely and I feel comfortable in doing my phase one (first 40 hours of flight) solo. I really enjoyed the time flying with Mike Seager. He is a wonderful instructor, infinitely patient and always calm.
So, between the EAA chapter meeting on Tuesday evening and three days in Oregon for the transition training I only had a few days to work on the airplane. What you see below is what you get for the week!
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| This may be the most flown RV ever built, and it still flies like an amazing RV! If I remember correctly Mike said this airplane has about 6000 hours on it...6 of them mine. |
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| This is Mike Seager the RV transition trainer that I trained with. In the background you can see the RV7 that he uses to train tail-dragger pilots. |
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| Ok, time to get back to the plenum and baffling. Here you can see where I had to cut the back side of the plenum, spread it apart and move it back about a half inch and then rotate it about 30 degrees to get it to fit the baffles. You can also see that I had to cut the entire plenum in half and remove about a half inch from the middle to make the sides fit without pushing the baffles out. |
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| Here it is after I trimmed everything and then started fitting it all back together. Now I have a bunch of fiberglass work to do. The good news in all this is that everything seems to be coming together finally. I have spent WAY too much time on this plenum. |
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| Here is the plenum as it sits Sunday evening. Its mostly back together and the fiberglass has set up. Now I need to apply some micro and sand it all down. |
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| I took this picture with the lower cowling on so that I can see what work is required to make the induction system fit in the cowl. As you can see from this picture there is very little room available. |
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| And the final task of the day, while I waited for the epoxy to set up, was to fabricate this little guy. This fits between the bottom of the cowl and lower edge of the firewall. It will help support the bottom of the cowl where the exhaust pipes exit. |
