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.

Wiring Harness part 2 & Panel comes together

The wiring harness is slowly coming together.  All of the wires that will be installed outside of the airplane are in, all connectors that do not have to be run through a bulkhead are installed, and its about ready to be installed.

Some lessons learned for the next time I have to do this.

• Use 22 awg wire for all shielded applications.  24 awg is a bit small and seems to make fragile connectors and anything larger than 20 awg is just too big for the HD pins.
• When installing shrink wrap labels make sure they are far enough up the wire that they wont need to be cut to install shield drains.  This is particularly important for wires with the "window" type shield drain like the CAN bus splices.

More wires laid down.  At this point I was thinking I was mostly done....and then the work started.

My flying friend Ben stopped by and took this picture of me working on the connectors.  I started from the bottom of the picture and was working my way up.  The GMA (Audio Panel) connectors were next on the list and by far the most time consuming.  Those connectors had many many wires and almost all of them were shielded wires that had to be grounded to the back-shell of each connector.

Finally all of the avionics connectors are installed and all that is left is the ground wire terminals and the VPX connectors.

I drilled and mounted the center console and that allowed me to finally locate the fuel valve extension handle.

Panel, lower center panel, and the center console installed.  Also in this picture you can see the avionics rack and all but the GNC255 radio tray installed.

Panel inserts are placed in the frame for test fitting.  I think this is going to work well!

Front view of panel with inserts.  Its a little easier to see the engraving in this picture.

Forward top skin access panels

This is another of those informational posts.  Tonight I finished installing one of two forward top skin access panels.  I've found during my short 5 years of maintaining my 9A that easy maintenance is the key to successful maintenance.  For example I used quarter turn fasteners all the way around on my cowling including the horizontal split line.  I'm very glad I did that simply because those quarter turn fasteners are much easier to remove than the hings pins.  They don't look quite as clean but I really do like the looks of them. 

Along those lines Van's recently released a kit to install access panels in the forward top skin so that you can gain access to the most forward bay of the instrument panel.  While I don't have much for electronics in those bays I do have two voltage regulators, the GEA 24 engine monitor, and a bunch of wires that pass through to the engine compartment.  All of those items will require some sort of maintenance at some point.  So, I decided to purchase the new kit from Van's and rather than install it in the center bays of top skin, I installed it in the side bay.  This is where the majority of the access will be required and its much easier to reach into this area from a side access even if I have to reach over to the middle bay.

Below are a few pictures of the install process...

Using the tabs provided I clecoed the backing ring to the top of the skin and drew out the two openings to make sure everything would fit nicely. 

Here is the skin with the cutout completed and the backing ring cleco'd in place.

Now I'm getting ready to match drill the screw holes up to the proper size.

After a couple of hours of filing, dimpling, and riveting the backing ring is finally installed.  If you look through the hole you can see where my backup voltage regulator is installed.  Its now much easier to get access to that location.

Same hole but looking forward to where my firewall penetration for the wiring bundle will be.

And finally I screwed the cover in place.  I still need to trim the lower edge of the cover down a bit before paint but overall the kit fits well and I've spent about 4 hours working on an access panel that will provide me many hours of maintenance simplicity.

More Doors

The past few weeks have been dedicated to working on the door fit and the instrument panel.  I used my CNC to do some test cuts of the inserts for the instrument panel and found that there is a small error in the conversion from the Solidworks export DXF to the import process in Cambam (the GCode tool I use).  Turns out that everything I cut is just a bit over-sized.  So I took on the task of learning the Solidworks CAM solution.  It was a bit of a steep learning curve but I finally managed to get it working.  However....on my first test cut the controller board for my CNC failed.  I think it was in the USB connector but regardless it has become intermittent which is a problem.  Bottom line is I ordered some new parts for the CNC and will be making some upgrades to it soon.

Regarding the doors, I've been working on getting the seals to fit properly.  Once I felt they were about right I worked on the spacing between the doors and the cabin top.  Still lots of work to do but here is what I have so far.

This is the pilot side of the panel.  This is the insert that I cut that allowed me to discover the size difference in the DXF conversion process.  I had to do some significant edge sanding to get this one to fit properly.  I may have to do more since the paint will take up some room.  I'm considering having this anodized instead of painting but need to find a good local shop.

Passenger side door gap after inserting the foam spacer (seal), applying micro liberally on both sides of the foam, and then sanding the micro and foam spacer down to create an even transition.  In this picture the foam has not yet been removed.

Side view of same door as picture above.

In this picture the door on the right side of the photo still has the 1/8" rubber seal in place, the left side has been removed.  To open the door at this stage I had to use a razor knife to cut through the seal all the way around the door.  Then I could get the door open but had to remove the seal from both the door and the cabin top.  Both proved to be harder than I would have liked.

In this picture you can see the seam between the cabin top and the fuselage.  I sanded and then filled the small gap with micro/epoxy filler.

The door gap came out pretty nice by using some 1/8" rubber gasket material.  If I were going to do it again I don't think I would use the same stuff since it was a real bugger to remove.  The sticky side was up against the door and the plain rubber side was against the cabin top.  Turns out that epoxy loves that plain rubber and stuck like crazy.  I had to actually sand the gasket material off of the cabin side.  

Cabin top is on

The big news as the title says is that the cabin top is riveted in place.  There are a few steps left in the installation manual but I find myself spending more and more time trying to decide what my next step should be.  For example, where do I install the VPX so that its easy to access yet out of the way of other avionics and electronics?  Or maybe I should install X now since this is open... the list is endless.  So, that's how I am tackling it...I'm putting together a list and just working my way down.  I still spend a lot of time "thinking" and trying different approaches to things but honestly this is a very fun part of the project.

On a less exciting topic I got the dreaded "your medical has been denied" letter from the FAA last week.  I'm pretty calm about it now after talking to AOPA PPS lawyers but it still frustrates me to no end that the FAA medical staff can't take a few extra minute to verify some data and save us all lots of time.  But nooooo, they have to do the knee jerk reaction.  Oddly enough every FAA person I have ever met has been kind and a good person but this really smells of somebody who just wants to justify their job or simply doesn't care.  I'm confident this will all be resolved but this is definitely the last time I get a Class 3 medical.  I'm going Basic Med from now on. 

I got the master solenoid installed and wired up to the front of the aircraft.  Because of the second set of seats a little extra weight is required in the tail to try to keep weight and balance in check.  The extra wire there are for the battery monitoring system.

I got to use the CNC again.  This time I was fabricating the vent flow controllers for the aft overhead vents.  

I decided that I wanted an antenna on top of the airplane this time.  Here I am installing a doubler to help spread the load of the antenna when it gets mounted on top.

These two nut plates are here so I can hang the overhead vent flow controller assembly that you saw me cutting in the CNC picture above.

The RV-10 is designed to use a huge battery as you can see from the size of the battery box.  The battery I am using is this blue EarthX battery which has better electrical characteristics but is much smaller and waaaay lighter.

Cabin top is riveted in place.  Next up is to get a little help to rivet that aft top skin.

Cabin Top and stick grips

Cabin top, stick grips, autopilot brackets, and more!  This past couple of weeks have been busy with a variety of tasks. 

Stick Grips

I decided to use a different stick grip type for the 10.  On the 9A I have Tosten grips which I like the feel of but they are made of molded plastic that tends to flex at the seam during hard pulls.  These grips are actually slid over the metal control rod which means there is no seam to split.  

The unmodified control stick does not have that small hole in the base of the upright tube.  It took a bit of creative drilling and deburring but I was able to create a hole that I can use to route the stick grip wiring through.  I've seen many installs where the wiring is run down the outside of the tube which is ok because most people put some sort of cover over the stick but I wanted a clean protected route.

Pilot side stick ready to install.

Auto Pilot brackets

Yaw bracket fitting.

Yaw and Pitch Autopilot servo brackets primed and installed.

Cabin Top

I used some smooth bore plastic hose to create a void and then used packing tape over it so I could lay fiberglass over it to form the cap.

The fiberglass cap is epoxied in place and the first batch of micro/epoxy filler applied.

After a couple of iterations of micro/epoxy treatment I used some high build primer to help fill some of the pin holes and voids.  

In this picture you can see the void that was created that I can use to route wiring into the overhead console.  This is available on both sides of the cabin.

A layer of epoxy primer as a final covering before paint.

Cabin top back on the fuselage.  The overhead console needs a little buffing but otherwise I'm happy with out it all came out.  Still have to do some interior painting which will be a Tan (similar to what Lexus uses).  That should create a nice transition between the black carbon fiber and the tan interior.

Under the overhead console I epoxied some standoffs in place and then mounted the LC-50 lighting controller.  Its hard to see in this picture but the connectors for the controller are easily visible and accessible but the rest of the device is hidden under the cover.

This is my rendition of the WAAS GPS antenna mount.  Its inside of the airplane but because the GPS signal is not attenuated by the fiberglass which makes this just as good as mounting it on the exterior.

Tunnel Cover

Following up on the changes to the rudder pedal modifications the tunnel cover had to be modified.  Here you can see the split, the slots for the arms, and the doubler to make up for the split. 

More cabin top and door work

Its been a while since I posted a build update but not a lot has been photo worthy, nor have I spent my normal amount of time in the garage.  The temps here have been pretty high lately and since I took down the temporary wall dividing my garage I can't cool it with the single floor AC unit I used last year.  So...progress has slowed.  Progress has not stopped though and there are a few pictures to show but really its been a mass effort of cut, sand, epoxy, rinse, repeat. 

Since my last post I have completed the following:

• Both doors fitted to the fuselage
• Interior and low profile exterior handles installed and functioning
• Center latch block installed (still need to install the brace that attaches to the fuselage)
• Installed nut plates in the door side of the hinges so that I don't need to have nuts and washers on the back side.  This will allow me to cover that area with fiberglass ensuring a seamless door seal.
• Door strut brackets fitted to the cabin top.
• LOTS AND LOTS of fiberglass work on the door frame to make the McMaster-Carr door seals attach properly.  
• Lots of time spent preping the cabin top for installation.  This includes a little more dimpling, some deburring, coutersinking, rivet backing strip fabrication, cabin vent holes cut and flanges drilled, and the list goes on.

Here is what I have for pictures...

This is one of the hinges that I installed nut plates on.  This will allow me to cover the hinge pocket so that the door seals have a nice smooth surface on the door to seal against.

Preparing the door strut and attach points.  In this picture you can see the two small aluminum inserts I turned on the lathe to act as spacers for the strut bracket.  

Working on the lathe to create the spacers in the picture above.  Washers would have worked here but this spacer was much more fun to create.

Here it is with everything loosely connected.  Next up it gets drilled and bolted to the fuselage and doors.

These are the attach points for the door struts.  I used a little bit of epoxy with flox to even out and make a nice seat bed for both brackets.

The cabin top console with the vent holes drilled, the lighting holes drilled, and the nut plates installed for the two removable covers.  The cabin top is not attached yet.

This is the area where you have to trim the console to fit the strut brackets.  You will also notice that there is quit a gap between the console and the cabin top.  This will require more fiberglass work.

The front portion of the console with the center support bar holes revealed.

This picture shows the profile that I created for the door seals.  There is still a bit more work to do on them but I am really happy with the way this all came together so far.

I had a spare piece of 1/2" tubing laying around so I epoxy'd some fasteners to the top of the cabin and tie wrapped the conduit to them.  This will give me a nice place to run the lighting and servo wires back to the aft end of the console.  This are will be inaccessible once the console is permanently attached.  You can also see in this picture where I am starting to clean up the cabin top around the rear windows.

Rear overhead vent holes drilled and the flanges cleco'd on.  I wont rivet these in place until the top skin is riveted on.  With these vents attached I wouldn't be able to buck the rivets above the vents.

Front side of vents.  This area will be covered by the overhead console which will allow cool air to flow through the console and out the vents.  Also note that I had to remove two of the previously installed nut plates.  I will re-evaluate this once the cabin is installed and the top baggage door is trimmed to fit.  Most likely I will install one more nut plate to the top of the center support brace.