Sunday, December 18, 2016

Trim Tabs and cold weather

This week was trim tab time.  I figured I could knock them out in a few hours....right...  Anyway they are getting close to being ready to "glue" up and then rivet.  I skipped a few steps on the elevators because the next step for them is to glue (proseal) some foam spacers in place and I wanted to do the prosealing all at one time.

I did get to do a little flying the weekend.  Jeff and I went out Friday afternoon and just looped the Puget Sound.  Then on Saturday we met up with Martin and went to Jefferson County airport for a little breakfast.

Elevators ready for the trailing edge sequence.

Jeff against Mt Si as we pass over my house.

Another shot of Jeff near Mt Si.

Sunset Friday evening.  It was so cold my oil temperature wasn't getting hot enough to boil the moisture out so I did an aggressive climb up to about 7500' to warm up the oil.  While I was up there I caught this picture but it really doesn't do the colors justice.

Jeff and I do our run-up checks.  The sun was just starting to break out over Mt Rainier.  Temperature was about 21 degrees when we took off.

We ran into a little light snow at Jeffco.  This is Martins RV-4 parked next to me and the snow is drifting around.  Not much wind so it was cool to see the snow blow around the prop and plane as we landed.

Sunday, December 11, 2016

More Elevator time

Yep, this week I spent most of my free time on the 10.  The elevators seem to be taking forever but slowly they are coming together.  I find that when I reach a point where I stress about a particular step I tend to delay it more than I should.  Such is the case here.  I have been thinking about how to best rivet the trailing edge where Van's wants a special bucking bar.  Well I figured it out and think I found a better solution.  I like to use my tungsten bucking bar whenever I can as it seems to make much better shop heads.  I used a little gorilla tape and my old metal bolt gauge to come up with an interesting solution that worked very well.

Here is the solution...Notice the bend in the metal plate..that's there to help angle the tungsten bar properly while allowing me to put some leverage on it and not ding the lower skin.  One other note of interest, I did elevate the aft spar just about a quarter of an inch so that the angle was better and the flex on the top skin was less.
And the top rivets are the ones I used the special bucking bar on.  I think they came out better than the ones on the bottom that I had to do free hand.
And here they sit at the end of the day on Sunday.  Still not done but very close.  Just a little more riveting and I can start on the trim tabs.

OH, we got a little snow this week so I had to take a pic.

Last year the starter in the 9A broke just before I was to take one of my IFR lessons.  I replaced this starter with a new one and put this one on the shelf thinking I might find another one and between the two make one working starter.  I found out that Sky-Tec will rebuild any starter for less than half the price of a new one.  I took this picture as I was boxing it up to send back.  This will make a nice starter for the 10.  

The cold weather also prompted me to get my Switchbox hooked up again.  I took this picture so I would remember my account info.  This neat little device allows me to start the pre-heat heater on my airplane from anywhere with a text message.  Pretty cool!

Monday, December 5, 2016

Intro to Induction

This week I spent pretty much the entire week working on the Induction system for the 9.  As I've mentioned before I seem to have a problem with my engine running too rich at takeoff.  I sent the fuel servo back to Airflow Performance and there is nothing wrong.  I did buy one of their new induction systems because the next most obvious cause would be turbulent air flow at the inlet to the fuel servo.  Since the new induction parts didn't fit with my cowling I have been modifying them to work.  As you can see in the pictures below I came up with what I hope is a good solution.

I did get a chance to fly it this weekend and I found both good and bad.  The good is that the airplane is actually a couple of knots faster!  The bad, but controllable, is that on takeoff with the induction wide open I actually indicate up to 18 gph now.  Not the direction I was hoping to go with that number.  I say its controllable because I can adjust mixture manually to keep the fuel flow down where I want it.  Not sure what to do next.  Originally I thought it might be an indication issue but given the amount of power that I can add by pulling the mixture out to about 13.5 gph I don't know that it would be just indication.  



So the first thing I did was to cut the majority of the alternate air inlet off.  Then I JB welded some screen to the new inlet.  I then fabricated a cover piece of the same screen material and sandwiched a piece of filter material between the two screens.  This will allow air to flow in but no chunks.

The top screen is screwed to both sides and the edges are bent to capture the filter material.  This picture has the inlet upside down such that the alternate inlet will pull from the bottom of the cowling.
 
Here it is after Harry and I installed the new inlet.

This is the other side of the inlet showing the alternate air flapper valve controller.
Test flight with Harry and Jeff.  In this flight we buzzed Martins house, Jeff's mom and boss, and Harry's neighbors.  Then we went to Bremerton for some lunch.

And this is the next shot in the sequence.  Pretty cool photo even though we were not in tight formation.
Martin took this picture as we were making our second pass over his house.  Notice the jet behind the clouds on the right?

Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Thanksgiving weekend

Turkey Day!  Yep, lets start this out right...


Dishin' up some dinner. 
Jeff and I flew to Hoquiam and this is us passing over Tacoma Narrows airport.



You have to love the pacific northwest some times....

The little town of hoquiam.  Airport is on that little strip of land in the far left side of the picture.

Base to final.

Looking back at Jeff as we headed home.


Somewhere down there is Martin's hangar at KTIW.  I was hoping to get a picture of him taxiing but it doesn't look like hes out yet.

Yes, I even spent some time working on the 9A. In this picture I am working on reorienting the exhaust pipes to give them a little more clearance to the firewall.

A little better picture of the final position.  Not tightened down yet and still a little adjusting to do on the left side.

Sunday, November 20, 2016

The 9A is running again

Not much 10 work to report this week since I think I spent most of the time working on getting the 9A back in running condition...that and I was traveling for the first 3 days of the week.  However, I did get my fuel servo back from AirFlow Performance this week and unfortunately he told me that it was running on the lean side of the calibration curve.  Well that leaves only the air inlet as a potential source of over rich fuel.  The theory that was presented is that my intake is causing some turbulent air flow at the inlet of my fuel servo which is causing it to indicate a much richer mixture is needed.  So I am going to be doing a few things to my inlet to see if I can eliminate that issue but first I am going to fly it with a few simple mods to see if it really is an issue with the air inlet.  Hence this weeks pictures.

I also took the time while the 9A was down to do a bunch of little things to the airplane.  I had a flat tire on the pilot side so while I had that wheel off to replace the tube I decided it was time to replace the brake pads on both sides.  I also spent a lot of time sealing up some of the small holes I found in my baffles that were hard to see with all the inlet ducting installed.  As an oddity I also took a file to the cooling fins between the valve guides...its one area where the casting process can leave a lot of "slag" and that also can affect cooling.


First up I decided to take a picture of the air inlet to my oil cooler.  I am going to have to do some work on this some day as well as I think I can make the airflow much smoother into the cooler with should help with cooling.

Next up you can barely see it here but on the left side of the picture you can see my new inlet ducting with the alternate air filer installed.  Look at the next picture and it might make more sense.

Here is a better view of the new inlet ducting.  This is the first configuration I tried and when I attempted to install the lower cowling I found that there is no way to make the alternate air duct fit inside on this side.  However, Jeff or Harry suggested I might be able to make it work if I removed my alternator and installed one on the vacuum pad on the aft end of the engine.

In this picture you can see the narrow channel that the air ducting has to fit in.

So here it is with the alternator removed and the new inlet ducting installed.  Works perfectly!!  However, now I have to buy a new alternator.  I guess that's ok because I need one for the 10 anyway.  One thing to note on this view is the huge gap between the new inlet duct and the cowling inlet bung.  I am going to have to fabricate a reducer that is about 3" long to bridge that gap.

Monday, November 7, 2016

Project weekend

I took this friday off and Amy is gone doing one of the "girl" things for the weekend so I got a chance to work on a few different projects.  A little work on the Rv-10 elevators, and a little work on the 9A.

My new priming "booth"...well at least the priming table.  I decided to start using the downstairs area to do priming since it smells so strong.  I have lots of room down there but not much light so I purchased 3 new 48" LED lights, a few air fittings, and some new air hose and spent the day Friday putting this together.  I was hoping to do one batch of priming before I quit but by the time I had all of this done I was beat...


Rudder horn riveted on.

Spar doublers and nutplates for the elevator attach bolts riveted on

Counterbalance arms riveted together
Priming session #1 with the new setup complete.  worked nicely!

What the heck is that?  You've seen it before, this is my induction filter housing assembly.  As I mentioned last week I sent my fuel servo off to AirFlowPerformance to get tested, well I got a call from Don and it turns out my servo is flowing on the lean side of the curve.  Exactly opposite of what I expected to hear.  After a brief discussion we came to the conclusion that there must be some air inlet issues if the fuel is correct.  Next step is to see about reworking the inlet and this is the picture I sent to Don showing the current configuration.
As I was riveting the ribs on the elevator skins I had an unusual "blowout".  The rivet must have tipped over and split the dimpled hole.  Oh well, I ordered a new rib from Vans...no biggie.

All but that final rib ready for the next step.


Sunday, October 30, 2016

One last flight...for a while

This weekend I got to fly with Travis on Saturday.  We actually headed toward Friday Harbor but the weather wasn't so good so we flew on around Seattle and landed at Bremerton to have some dinner.  I guess I should say Travis flew us around.  He did his first take-off, flew the entire trip, and then did his first landing!!

We got back to Puyallup just before legal dark so I fueled up the airplane, did 3 takeoffs and landings at night, and then Travis jumped back in so we could do some night flying.  It was a gorgeous night for flying!

Today I took one more flight with Harry and Jeff up to Arlington for breakfast.  I say one more flight because when I got back to Puyallup I took the fuel servo, flow divider, and prop off of the airplane.  The fuel servo and flow divider are getting shipped to AirFlow Performance for overhaul and inspection.  The prop came home with me so I can do some cleanup and painting of the back side.  I also brought home the plenum so I could finish the painting that I didn't do last spring.

I did get some work done on the 10 as well.  No pictures because it was just deburring, scuffing, cleaning and priming.  I should be able to start assembling the elevators this week.

Took this picture after Travis and I put the airplane away for the night on Saturday.
Nice fog in the valley.

Neat silhouette of Jeff against the rising sun.





Turning final for Arlington.  If you look close you will see Jeff just crossing the threshold.





Took this picture for reference but this is where the flow divider is suppose to sit.