Monday, August 31, 2020

The engine is hung!

Fast and Furious is the best way to describe the pace of major updates in the build process.  Its only been a little over a week (ok, maybe two) since getting her up on her gear and now there has been another big milestone!  The engine is hung!

I've spent the past several work sessions trying to get the firewall as complete as possible because once the engine is hung access is severely restricted.  I managed to get everything that I could think of done but I guarantee you that I forgot something that will cause me endless cursing before this thing flies!  

Last Friday I took the day off and Amy and I drove to Oregon to pick up my engine from Jim at Premier Aircraft Engines.  Talk about great work!  This engine looks great and Jim and his team went over and above to make sure it was safe and reliable.  Highly recommended.  After the debacle I had with Avian in Bremerton it was a great relief to have such a great experience!

Anyway, on with the pictures!




A picture of the work crew responsible for all required help!  Harry as usual was there to assist in wresting this beast into position. 


Oh yea...I was there too.  :-)


Monday, August 17, 2020

On its feet and this thing is BIG!

Yea, I know it hasn't been a full month since my last post but I thought this was post worthy.  I'm pretty excited about it anyway.  The fuselage is up on its own gear!  The process was actually pretty easy with the help of Harry's lift table.  I slid it under the fuselage with a movers blanket on top of it and then lifted the fuse about 2" at a time.   After each lift I would put a small 2x4 block of wood on top of the fuse stand just in case the table failed.  Once I had it up about 11" the legs would slide in so I could final drill and mount them.



Here the fuselage is up high enough to get the gear leg in.  You can't see it in this picture but I did have to support the tail as the rest of the fuselage moved up.

Gear legs are installed, final drilled, and bolted to the fuselage.  The wheels are slid on for support but the rest of the wheel parts (brakes, brackets, etc) are not installed yet.

Finally the gear is all done, the nose gear is done, and I rolled the whole thing out into the driveway so I could clean up the garage.  The orange bucket is full of water to help hold the nose down.  You can also see a blue post that I attached to the tail to keep it from dropping as weight shifts around.  Its actually pretty well balanced at this point.
I also installed the heater hoses in the tunnel.  I had to add a special bracket to the left side of the tunnel wall to keep the hose from interfering with the rudder cable arms.

GPS antenna for the G3X.  This is the internal GPS which is WAAS but not certified so it can't be used for approaches legally.


Sunday, August 9, 2020

Another month and a bunch of little tasks done

 This month has been full of different types of tasks.  Some of them have been "domestic" as Amy calls it (such as staining the deck and power washing the pavers), and some have been RV-10 related.

For the RV-10 I have several tasks completed and a bunch that are most of the way done.  It seems every time I go to finish a task I have to order another part to complete the job.  So here is a list of things I have done or "almost" done.  :-)

  • Installed the Comm 2 antenna in the right side windshield channel.  I will probably do another post on this task because if it works its going to be pretty cool.  Basically I used a piece of Coax, stripped back 15.25", folded the shielding wire back over the outer sleeve, and then heat shrunk the whole thing together to form a half wave antenna that was then slid up the channel I created in the windshield frame.  Don Pansier from DeltaPop aviation gave me the instructions on how to do this.  I love his antenna's but he didn't have a flexible offering so he gave me this.
  • Installed the tunnel wire hangars and tidied up the tunnel wiring.  
  • Installed the transponder antenna coax.
  • Installed Comm1 antenna coax.
  • Assembled the seats, well mostly.  I plan on fabricating and installing some shoulder harness brackets to the seats.  That is another story for another day.
  • Wired up the overhead lights.
  • Installed the rear baggage area bulkhead vent flanges.  I used a combination of epoxy and pull rivets to attach them to the aft side of the baggage area bulkhead.
  • Pressure tested the fuel system that passes through the cabin.
  • Torqued the brake line fittings.
  • Wired up the control stick grip buttons.
  • Wired up the vent fans in the glare shield skin.
  • Installed the heater hose attach bracket.  This is not in the normal Van's location due to the rudder cable arms I have in the tunnel.  The hose actually goes down below the arms and then back up over the spar.  I used this bracket to hold the hose down below the cable arms.
  • Installed the ELT wiring.
  • Tidied up a bunch of wiring runs.

Finished up the Pitch and Yaw servo wiring.

Riveted in a doubler for the Comm 1 Antenna

Installed the wing root wiring connectors for both sides.

Installed RivetNuts on both front seats for mounting of a shoulder harness bracket.  

Seats covered and ready for installation.  I didn't use any glue to hold the fabric to the foam because I may want to install seat heaters in the future.