Work Day #14 report –
Since our last work day, the following items arrived at RV-Central:
a set of really cool ‘period’ seat cushions from Oregon Aero, a
beautiful custom propeller from Catto, a shiny new prop extension
from Saber, a new set of Champion spark plugs from Tina’s Pilot
Shop, and a vacuum pump driven gear from Air Salvage of Dallas.
Generous vendor support has been the foundation of this project and
they deserve your continuing support. Friday was a visit to Grady at
Glo Custom for an update on the canopy, cowl, and wheel pants... and
they’re right on schedule. The ‘crew’ gathered Saturday morning with
Jay’s ‘punch list’ in hand, and by noon were ready to install the
new Catto propeller.
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I remember going through this same thought process. The directions aren't
real clear about this, as you noted. I don't think it's too critical when
you mount the vents. I think you can mount them pretty much any time you
like. I waited until after I had the rudder/brake pedal assembly in place
and the vent lines, etc. installed. That way they aren't in the way.
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●
(David Domeier)
It's
been 2 weeks since the empennage kit arrived and after some 53 hours
of work it is beginning to look like an airplane may be emerging from
all the parts and rivets with the help of a very good plan. This was the
state of progress as of 2 days ago.
2
steps forward, 1 backward...
Things were progressing nicely yesterday, managed to get both elevator skins
and all the stiffeners dimpled, cleaned up, primed and back riveted. I felt
like I was closing in on completing the empennage kit. Right skin below
ready for spar, ribs and counter weight install. Left skin is similarly
complete.
more
Movin' on
Spent today on the left elevator. It will be riveted before noon tomorrow
and then it is on to build the trim tab.
For those new to this process, if there is any wisdom to pass on here it is
stick with the plan. Do not jump ahead. Sometimes instructions are confusing
and if they are, do not press on until the confusion is resolved.
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I have accumulated just over 26hrs in phase one and all seems to work
very well. Couple of things I have observed that I am more curious
about than concerned. Engine set up is AeroSport 260HP, AFP injection,
Light speed ignition on the top and magnetos on the bottom. Exactly the same
installation I had on my RV-8 and no trouble for 450 hrs.
more
Take a look at the you tube video I made tonight. You will see the wing
tips from my 9A on the bench with the wing-tip landing lights (not featured)
and the ZTron NAV/Strobes installed.
The video is 1 minute 13 seconds long and the NAV/Strobes fully activate at
about 49 seconds.
You will also see my homemade power supply made from an old computer power
supply.. I got the directions from this site...
more
Wed,
Feb 1, 2012. 1231z Some recent posts warrant a quick note about following
the posting rules. One of the quickest ways to get on my scat list
is to create a thread complaining about the moderators and/or moderation
policies I have created for my online house here.
Read and follow the posting rules - they aren't rocket surgery.
No mod-baiting on VAF - I enforce this with lead pipe cruelty.
Being a moderator is a thankless job, and cleaning up other people's
messes is no fun. We get it....15,000 pilots don't agree on
everything. Wanna vent about how the world is run all wrong?
Go to the comments section of any article on politico.com and have at
it. Just don't do it here.
Want to give me some feedback via email sometime? I welcome your
thoughts. Send it by email, not a thread in the forums.
There are a couple three forum accounts that I'm about ready to drop the
perma banhammer down on if they don't play nice and friendly from here
on out. VAF will be a nice, civil place 24/7. For the
handful of folks that feel compelled to push the rules (and my buttons),
I would recommend you exercise extremepostingcaution
from here on out. The safety is off and my finger is hovering over
the big red button. Make my day.
Follow the posting rules and we got no worries. Now that the bad
cop stuff is out of the way, please enjoy this
video of a
chimpanzee riding on a Seqway to cleanse your mental palette.
Back to the greatest hobby on earth...and happy hump day!
Was at about 3500' flying thru the mountains ( joke )
of Iowa this morning. What a great day. You could see
the horizon. Some haze, but really nice. A tease for
those still building.
I put mine in after running the fuel vent lines. I
attached mine with proseal and nothing else. They are
not going anywhere and feel really solidly attached.
Quick question for you guys. You know how the
windshield fairing overlaps the canopy? What about on
the sides where the skirt comes up to the metal. My
skirt butts right up to the windshield fairing here, but
i didn't make it overlap. Mistake?
...it's an externally mounted square Brackett filter.
I built the airplane in the '80s when everyone was
scooping unfiltered air ... which I thought was crazy,
so I came up with this. Fairly innovative in it's day
... pretty clunky now! Works great, though (probably
lose ~5kts on the top end!)
I am very happy to report the first flight of RV-9A,
number 91317 N622BE. Minnesota Wing tech guru, mentor,
and all around good guy, Tom Berge did the honors and
reported that it flew Great with no heavy wing and all
temps in the green!
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Saturday Jan. 28th, 2012 shown bright, clear and calm
in the afternoon, making it a perfect day for flying.
Finally weather and peoples schedules came together to
make the first flight on Don London’s RV-8A at
Scappoose, OR. Dan Forney (RV-12 builder) flew with me
in my -9A from Troutdale and Ray Peabody flew over in
his -9A from Mulino. Don & his wife Dixie met us at KSPB
at 1:30.
This is Don’s 3rd RV build, starting with one of the
early RV-4’s; RV-6A and this, his RV-8A. Unfortunately
for Don, he lost his FAA medical during the build
period. When a friend suggested I do the flight testing,
I worked out the details with Don, which brought us to
today.
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Did a preliminary inspection today and we need some
help cleaning up a few items. If you're in the
neighborhood and can stop buy and help take care of some
of these that would be great!
1) Loose Jam nut on mix cable (at carb).
2) Oil plug drain plug, no safety.
3) Exh pipe #3 chafing on intake clamp.
4) Jam nut loose on throttle cable (cockpit)
5) R/H aileron control rod jamnut loose (at aileron)
6) R/H aileron control rod at bellcrank has excess
threads showing, does not extend past witness hole ().
7) L/H aileron control rod jamnut loose (at aileron)
8) Elevator and rudder hinge pins have incorrect size
cotter keys and not installed correctly.
9) Seat mount bolts loose (temporarily installed).
10) Seat belts missing.
11) Hole in fabric top of fuselage (old comm antenna?)
Jay was busy knocking out some additional items while I
was there, but he could use some help to clean things
up.
This week we hung the engine on my RV 8 and more
importantly, I got to meet my newborn grandson. He
arrived this morning at 06:20. Looks like he could be a
pilot to me!
Ran across this video from about 7 yrs. ago of my old
125 hp, O-290G powered RV-3. Such a sweet plane.
Performed well on that engine, and was light enough to
comfortably make fairly slow, power-off approaches. It
was very calm that day so this one was a hair under 65
mph, but I'd normally fly a little under 70, which
produced a little more float. I miss that thing.
On 1/28/12, I reached two major milestones: I started
the engine and taxied.
I purchased this engine used over 5 years ago. That was
the last time I saw it run.
The first thing we did was pre-oil the engine by pulling
out half the plugs and running the starter until oil
pressure was indicated. The hope was to also see oil by
the rockers at this point but that didn't happen.
We then decided to start the engine with the rocker
covers off the ensure that we had oil getting up there.
It took a while but we finally saw some oil.
After putting the covers back on, I just had to take it
out for a little spin.
It went very well. You can see it just popped right off.
Not a single fuel or oil leak was found. We did find
that the P-Lead to one of the mags was grounding to the
shield. Only a single mag was working during the initial
start and that is probably why it didn't run all that
smooth. We then removed the P-lead and the engine ran
much better. We reinstalled the shorted lead temporarily
to safe the engine until I get a replacement or repair
it.
My rv 4 is getting close to being
done!!! just got her home from paint!! Also just
finished my tail wheel training so time to fly this old
girl, with a friend that knows them for a bit though!
The photo shows one example (there are many more) of
what I can only describe as fish-eye contamination while
trying to paint my instrument panel. This is Eastwood
epoxy primer, but I have seen it with Akzo also. I have
tried different paint, different guns, different
compressors different metal. The only thing that is
common is the location (my garage), and the season(temp
= mid 40s outside high 50s inside). I etched the metal
and alodined it. Later scrubbed the bejesus out of it
with Scotchbrite after stripping the paint for about the
3rd time. I'm sure any alodine conversion went out with
the scrubbing. Then washed it with Dawn dish detergent
and rinsed with enough water to flood Texas.
If this were a woodworking project, I would assume
silicone contamination and coat with shellac before
varnishing. So I used some rattle can of self-etching
primer, and, surprise, no fish-eye. Great. Then I
sprayed the epoxy primer over the rattle can primer and
took this picture.
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Thrift ●
Garmin GTN 650 For Sale (new advertiser on VAF - waiting on the artwork)
Totally Off Topic
Mon,
Jan 30, 2012. 1259z Good morning and hope you had a great weekend! I caught
the crud of some type and spent the weekend sitting on the couch
coughing. Lots of RV flying this weekend reported on the web, so
consider the next hour of your workday spoken for. dr
I did not do much in the way of Pilots and Paws flights in 2011 but
started the new year with a PNP flight from my home base in Perry, Ga to
Lake City, Fl. David Maib and Bob Timko met me in Lake City in David's RV10
to get the dogs the rest of the way to Clearwater, Fl. Donnie and Reba were
well behaved and even left me a memento of their appreciation in the plane
Good
thing I had an old blanket covering the cabin floor.This wasn't the first
time David and I got together for a dog run and probably won't be the last.
It was a good day to own an RV! (some pictures courtesy of Tony P.
RV8A)
A beginning of a collection of 'how to' video clips. Neat thing about Stein's clips are that they were shot in 1080p HD
and play full screen on my 25" monitor big enough that the hand tools are
nearly actual size. This is what we're shooting for. More to come. dr
Extra credit if you can figure out what is 'wrong' with
this picture...or should I say right?
Stein pointed this out...
...OK, I'll admit this is a little bit overkill, but I like to be as
precise as I can. I was fitting the fuel tank drain to my tank skin this
afternoon, and wanted to hole in the drain valve to match as closely as
possible to the hole in the skin...
So I tried to follow Van’s instructions on fitting the fuel tanks and ran
into some issues with alignment on the Z brackets. I guess I need to figure
out how to drill an “exact” hole
Now
I am trying a different method.
I manufactured a small plate with the same hole locations as the outboard
aft corner of the fuel tank skin by back drilling the fuel tank skin. I
bolted the Z brackets to the spar, clecoed the plate to the baffle and
screwed the plate to the spar. You can see this in the picture. Things seem
to align pretty well.
I will now use the baffle to back drill the 1/8” holes into the brackets. I
hope this works better than relying on my measuring and drilling skills
.
...The DecalPro system has been
discussed here in the past, with mixed reviews, but I'd decided that it was
worth a try and purchased the setup some few months ago. The ability to
produce white text labels for the dark instrument panel was the goal. Today
I finally sat down to give it a test run, and can report excellent results.
First I did one of the supplied test images in a nice red metallic foil, and
it came out perfectly. I then printed out the text for the annunciator
lights for the Gretz heated pitot in white, and ran it through the process
with no problems. Two for two, right off the bat!...
Motivation
Bernie Daenzer's
wingman
in Switzerland (RV-7A) ...not in trouble.
Ok, the weather up in Ohio has aligned itself to be diametrically opposed
to flying on the weekends. To stave off boredom, I made this :94
second video out of some discarded footage from a formation training flight
from months back. Not overly exciting, but fun to make and I'm
learning more about editing these things.
...I’m the happy owner of a just
built RV-10 in Brazil, which has a complete VFR Garmin G3X suite (overkill ?
maybe, but I really like it). Both the airplane and the avionics are
fantastic. I already have close to 10hrs of flight and cannot take the RV
grin away from my face. My airplane was built by Flyer Industrias
Aeronauticas, which did a fantastic job.
I wanted to share this first video (which was not the first flight) of my
RV-10. The video was shot this week in Rio de Janeiro using a GoPro camera,
and features me doing touch and go’s in my local Airport (called Clube Ceu).
The airport has a 500 meter grass runway and the pattern is quite specific,
as we have several overfly limitations in the area, therefore you will see
for example that I go from the wind leg to final in a non-standard way, so
please keep that in mind as you evaluate my flying technique...
...I just did some repair work on an old early 80s RV-4 engine mount, the
right tube that comes up from the top of the gear leg socket to the bottom
of the engine was broken thru and had all the paint polished off, it had
absolutely no deformation, not flexing or bent, the same tube on the other
side was cracked also, about 2" above the weld, well out of the heat
affected zone, right where a zip tie had worn thru the paint and you could
see it had abraded the tube right where the crack had formed, the surface of
the tube looked like it had been work hardened promoting the crack.
My old -4 has a bunch of zip ties on the engine mount too, I will be
inspecting and eliminating these before further flight!
Totally Off Topic
Why I love the internet (and especially YouTube). Call
the three clips below 'things to do why recovering from some bug you
caught that is keeping you from going flying'.
1) Virtual Zeppelin
http://youtu.be/Uhbzi3O8zh0 .....can you imagine being 15 again, learning
guitar, and having access to this?!? These guys are in a 'band' and record their tracks in
separate countries.
2) I remember trying as a 15yr old to learn to play this with sheet
music. http://youtu.be/qU9HiwmcLWQ
will show you how now. (song is 'The Rain Song' off 1972's Houses of
the Holy)
3) Finally, watch the masters at work from 1994 with the
London Metropolitan Orchestra. Headphones and full screen work
best. A fist pump in the air is required at the 4min 45sec point.
My project at work is a month away from Go-Live, meaning long days and
long nights at work. A status call was cancelled at 4:30 and I decided that
I had had enough...off to the hangar! If traffic is light, I just might make
it in time to catch the sunset. I just had the camera on the phone,
but....traffic was light!!
I am building my ailerons and I had just finished cleco'ing a large portion
of my right aileron together. I decided this looks so easy I'll do left and
right together, it'll save some time when I get to the left wing. Looking
around the shop I couldn't find a horizontal surface suitable for this brief
storage task. My eye finally caught the luggage rack on my wifes 4-Runner.
Perfect! I'll just put it there *temporarily* while I assemble the left
aileron. This won't take more than 20-minutes.
You probably already see where this going.
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I seem to have a clutter monster that follows me around leaving clutter
in its wake.
With the RV-3B kit on order, I've been thinking that it would sure be nice
to work in a clean shop. But I know that there will be shavings to be
cleaned up and plenty of tools that are all needed to be at hand.
Help! Suggestions wanted.
Some
Replies:
My high school shop teacher taught us we had to clean up the
shop in the last 5 minutes of the class. Clean up the lathe,
clean up the drill press, clean up the bench, because there was
another class starting right after ours
Have a dedicated place for all of your tools and if its not a
drill, rivet gun, measure device or squeezer always put it back
in its place at the end of the day. Also, shop vac and wipe down
before the lights go out
http://home.hiwaay.net/~sbuc/journal/smart.html
Building in a typical 2-car garage space, I have a wall-mounted
shop vac (Sears) so it doesn't take up scarce floor space. I got
a remote-controlled on/off switch; it plugs into the wall
outlet, then the vac plugs into that.
During a work session I turn ON the vac's switch so the on/off
remote will control it. Then doing some messy task (drilling,
sanding, cutting, whatever), I can easily vacuum up the mess by
leaving the vac hose near that work area and turn it on and off
with the remote.
By making it easier to use the vac, I use it more, so there's
less mess.
Clutter: I don't put many tools away in the middle of a task
that spans several days. But at the end of a big task, I'll take
half an hour and put all the tools away, leaving my single work
table mostly clear.
Sometimes you'll start multiple, simultaneous tasks, each with
its own collection of small parts. I got several cheap plastic
sorting trays from Harbor Freight and find them invaluable not
for sorting, but for keeping each tasks bits and pieces in one
place, at the task site (work table, wings, fuse..).
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Work Day #13 report – The propeller was
due to arrive Friday morning, but the freight company
now says Wednesday. Saturday’s schedule was devoted to
hanging the wings, but at 9am Jay and I realized that we
were the only ones there – and it’s a job that really
needs four people. “Do you hear that?, I asked Jay. “I
think we have company”. The timing was perfect because
we had just completed cleaning and inspecting all the
wing attachment hardware and had moved the wings into
position. When Jay opened the door to greet the new
arrival, he saw Bruce “Boomer” Pauley parking “Miss
Marie” into a nearby slot. But who is that with Bruce?…
a new face to RV-Central that neither of us recognized.
After introductions we learned the new face was none
other than Bob Keith (VAF SubwayBob) and that his trip
to RV-Central today was his first ride ever in an “RV”.
Bob is a pilot, family man, future RV-7 builder, and an
asset to the RV community. Great!… We now have the four
volunteers we need to stab the wings into position. In
the span of about an hour, the RV-1 once again had its
wings, and once again, it stands proud and in full
glory. Because the RV-1 arrived at RV-Central with its
wings removed, very few of the volunteers who’ve been
working for months now on the ‘restoration’ have ever
seen the RV-1 with its wings attached. The new seat
cushion donated by Oregon Aero arrived yesterday, so now
is a great time stop by and fit yourself into the tiny
cockpit! Airplane noises are optional.
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I never had a 696, but upgraded my 496 to the 796. So far, I like it a
lot. The screen brightness is just as good as the 696. The touchscreen
is very intuitive to use and faster than the buttons on the 496. I don't
find myself using the sectional charts in the 796 yet. So far I like the
Garmin map display, it is richer in color than the washed out look of the
sectional. But it is only a touch to switch between them. The only thing i
don't like on the 796 (and I probably haven't figured out how to change
this) is when you have navigated to the destination airport, it doesn't end
navigating like the 496 did. You have to go into the flight plan and menu to
end navigaton.
Today I went out with a dream and came back with
papers. However those papers are my receipt for the
RV-10 Empenage kit!!!!!
After many years of dreaming and "preparing" today my
wife and I took a tour of VANS factory and also did a
demo flight on their RV-10. Although I had a few hours
in a 7A I have never flown in a 10. I was pleasantly
surprised with the handling characteristics of this
bigger airplane.
I am really looking forward to start inventorying and
actually building. Which is what I had plan for the next
couple of days. BUT the kit did not fit in the mini van
that I had brought to carry it home. Lucky for us we
live about 10 minutes away, so is just a matter of
finding a car big enough and the time off of work to get
it home.
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This video (not us) shows one laid back dog.
If you've never seen one of these robot vacuum cleaners,
here's the official video. If your spouse is pissed because you
spend all your time at the airport, well friend, use this to clean the
floors while you're both out of the house. They even make one that
mops.
"Well yeah, I want to spend $70K of the family money on a plane, but I'll do
the floors from now on. Deal?"
I am in the market for an RV and have taken a look at
a couple of higher time airplanes, close to 2000 hours.
Is there any discussion that anybody knows about on the
issue of useful service life on an experimental or RV? I
tried to talk to a guy a Vans about this but he was
avoiding the answer (I understand liability) so does
anybody know if there is a design limit or service
limit? I am trying to avoid the answer of : "If you take
care of it, it will last forever".
(Some replies)
There are many RV's out there with 3500-4500 hrs still
performing as they did day one. Look for the quality in
the build and buy one.
-----
Nobody knows the answer to that because they haven't
been around long enough. There are many, many single
engine certified airplanes flying around with over
10,000 hours. RV's are built to the same standards (at a
minimum) in terms of meterial strength, giving something
back in stability for the sake of performance, but with
superior materials. If the airplane has lived in a salty
environement, take a good look at corrosion. If it's
been primed inside, don't worry about it. The engine and
everything else is time-limited and can be overhauled or
replaced. Check service bulletins and also any AD's on
certified components and let your conscience be your
guide.
-----
I did my float rating on a 172 that had just shy of 40
000hrs. I'm sure it's over by now. 99% of that time is
on floats or skiis. A life of landing on waves and
snowmobile tracks is a lot harder on the airframe than
paved runways.
-----
First of all I don't believe a 2000 hour RV is "high
time"- I would say that is well proven.
Some cracking may be found in some weak spots such as
landing gear and empennage. Also some airframe details
may need attention over time such as the canopy and
cowl. I believe there are many models that are built
with better corrosion proofing than my 1961 182.
But you already know the answer to your question- You
can't avoid that answer because it has a lot of truth to
it! <g>
-----
Service life of a Cherokee 140 wing (one that has not
seen "severe duty") is around 60,000 hours, if it hasn't
corroded to powder by then. Heck, even a Traumahawk gets
10K hours. I'd like to think that a well-built RV ought
to last at least as long as a T-hawk <g>
Today, I was cutting the excess off the flange on
HS-702. When I started the cut with the snips, I ended
up fracturing the flange 1/8" perpendicular to the
intended cut line. The blue line perpendicular to the
flange cut is the small fracture.
more
In The Shop.... ●
VS Built in 10.5 hrs ....David Domeier
I made this overhead rack last night to store the
tailcone (aft fuselage) and stabilator, while I build
the rest of the plane. It gets everything up and out of
the way, and by going ahead and riveting on the top /
aft-fuse skin, it also saves 150+ clecos from sitting up
there doing nothing but holding down the skin
.
I bet it still asks you if you want chili cheese fries with
that...
Tue,
Jan 24, 2012. 1238z Good morning! Here today I'm going try something new
just to see how it works out. When I come across a classified
listing like the one that Stein did a few days back, one with multiple
items listed in one post, one that he will edit and update as items
sell, I'm going to spotlight that here on the front page for a couple of
weeks. He edits the items as they sell, moving them down to the
bottom of the list with 'sold' next to them - probably does this on a
word processor there at his location and just copy/pastes the new text
as items
move. Maybe you even list the name of the person that
bought it under that item - and the runner up if the deal goes south.
I'd suggest keeping the 'master document' on your computer and just
copy/pasting the text to this thread, maybe updating the original post
once a day. Like the sample post here in the image at right.
I'm a fan of one post with 10 items in it vs. 10 separate posts with one
item each - keeps the 'New Posts' function from getting clogged up with
classifieds. I want to encourage this 'multi-item' classified
concept, so if it's promoted a little bit up here maybe it will take off
a little more. If you create a listing like this, and I miss it,
email me the URL.
Let's see if it helps! Stein's listing is down in the 'Thrift'
section of today's edition (and tomorrow's).
Have a great Tuesday. dr
So here I am reading everything I can about RVs. Five seconds
after signing up on this site, and watching RVs on You tube I'm
hooked. So what now? I see a post by Boomer (Bruce Pauley) and
notice he live right next to me outside of Dallas. I email him and
ask if I could get a ride. Bruce calls me "Hi Bob, can you go now? I
mean now, whatcha think?" "Well Bruce it's midnight, how about I
call you tomorrow?" (Now I'm joining a cult I figure...) What the
heck, I like flowers and long hair, just not on me. Forward to the
flight. Bruce is hangared 45 minutes from where we live but there is
an airport in our town with limited hangars. Bruce "Boomer" drives
to his plane and flys back to our town to take me for a ride!
So now I joining a cult with a bunch of nice people.
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So, does anyone have a good trick to getting the gear racks to
line up with the interior door handle and gear when you are
assembling them IN THE DOOR POCKET? As the plans state, the assembly
doesnt fit in as one piece, so you have to assemble it once the
racks are placed inside the for and aft holes. When I putting the
assembly together initially, it was easy to get it all to go
together, but the racks and gear to be such close tolerance, that
it's hard to get it to line up properly so I can insert the door
handle and gear when the racks have been placed inside the door
holes.
The panel is about 1" taller than stock, this allowed the radio
stack with the GPSMAP296. The AFS-AP location is not ideal and
caused me to remove a small amount of the canopy stiffener. The
space between the radio stack and the D100 is intended for a hand
held Comm (or Nav/Comm), the two screws just to the right of the
430W are for mounting the hand held.
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Good morning! Cleaned the sensor on my
camera Friday night and tested it out Saturday just before
sunset. Some of the shots below. A nice .5hr
flight before dinner with friends. dr
In The Shop.... ●
ELT Mount ...Burke Wick Anchorage, Alaska.
I used 2 pieces of 1/2 X 1/2 angle cut to match the
length of the rear cargo area upper shelf. I match
drilled three 8-32 screw holes in the angles using the
holes in the edge of the cargo deck as a drill guide. I
then cut some 1/8" by 2" wide stock to span between the
two angle pieces when placed on the upper and lower
longeron. The next step was to drill through the lower
angle and attach the two pieces of 2" wide aluminum at
proper spacing to attach the ELT mounting plate. I
installed K1000-8 nutplates on the angle to allow me to
install the 8-32 X 1/2 inch cap screws that I used to
fasten the angles and 2" stock together. I then fastened
the lower mount angle and the two pieces of 2" stock to
the lower longeron using the same 8-32 screws used to
install the cargo floor. I then laid the upper angle on
the top longeron and clamped it to the 2 inch wide
stock. With the upper angle clamped to the stock I
removed the entire assembly from the plane. On the bench
I then drilled the 2 inch stock and the upper angle,
installed nut plates on the upper angle and re-assembled
the mount completely. Next step is to re-install the
assembly in the plane again using the 8-32 screws to
hold the lower angle in place on the longeron and cargo
floor. With this in place you can use the upper angle
which is fairly rigid as a drill guide for drilling
through the upper longeron with a 90 degree angle drill.
Fasten the top angle in place with 8-32 hardware.
The only real down side I see to this is that in order
to access the rear mounted battery it will also be
necessary to remove the ELT and mount. Other than that
it's a pretty clean installation.
You must be careful in drilling the upper Longeron the
keep the holes centered in order not to compromise the
Longeron.
I'm building my RV6 pretty much by myself and am well
into the gazillion times the cowl will have to be fitted
and removed during the build. Came up with this
contraption. Yes it's crude but surprisingly effective
and easy to use when set up properly....and it's cheap!
A length of PVC pipe, some twine and and hooks formed
out of short lengths of wire. Duct tape over the gear
legs and an old Vans tee shirt threaded over the
prop/spinner to minimize scratches complete the
ensemble.
Twisting the PVC pipe with one hand while guiding it
with the other, I can hold the cowl in any position with
the 'locking device'. Once the cowl has been lifted into
position and the device 'locked' it is now securely
suspended and can easily be maneuvered to line up the
hinges. Removing the cowl is simply a reversal of the
fitting process.
more
I'm currently in the process of doing a complete
rebuild on a 25 year old 4, engine airframe and also
converting it to a fastback. Over the years I've used
and seen many ways to attach the baffle material to the
engine baffles, an rivets, soft rivets, screws and nuts,
pop rivets and more. I don't care for most of these
options but have had success with softened AN rivets
with a aluminum strip inside. The photos attached show
how I've done this 4. some of you may like it some may
not, just posting for your info, also I looked a bit for
past info on this and didn't find much if I'm just
rehashing past stuff here just ignore.
Ed brings up a good point Dave. Since you did not
build the fuel tanks, you might find this image inside
an -8 tank helpful. Try inserting an inspection mirror
down the filler flange to verify positive clearance
between the end of the vent tube and the outboard rib.
You should see something like this. If possible, try to
maneuver the mirror so you can inspect the open end of
the vent tube to make certain no proseal is obstructing
it. I don't know doing that is possible, but maybe.
BTW, while you are looking inside that fuel tank, also
verify if the shop heads of the rivets you can see are
encapsulated or not and let us know what you find.
I started building my RV-6 on Jan 2nd, 1996. Last year I
bought my first 90° air drill (B-day present), and I wondered after
using it a bit why I waited so dang long to buy it. It just
made certain things so much easier. So, in that spirit I gave
myself a little present this year in the form of what I would call a
"luxury workbench". You might already know this, but if not we
live in a fairly small two decade old house with a fairly small
two-car garage. Working on almost anything in the past
required backing one of the cars out. I've been doing this in
two different houses since 1996.
Back to that new workbench, it folds down flat against the wall
in about 2 1/2 seconds. Installed yesterday.....
Last week we were happily cruising across East Texas
in the Valkyrie, watching the autopilot take us to RV
Central to work on the RV-1. Out of the corner of my
eye, I was surprised to see the 430W annunciate that the
GPS signal had become unreliable - then it went into Ded
Reckoning mode. I have seen this during a series of
aerobatic maneuvers, but never straight an d level! I of
course, immediately switched to GPS #2 (and could have
gone to #3, or #4...or heaven forbid, looked at the
countryside spread out below, and the city ahead...),
and figured I'd troubleshoot it on the ground.
more
Google 'people holding vinyl records'......you'll get nothing
done in
the next hour.
Thu,
Jan 19, 2012. 1232z
The site was pushed out later today than usual - this due to
the fact that our daughter can now...... wait for it .......drive
herself to school. I set the alarm for 0545 instead of 0515 today,
where it's been set for years. The extra half hour sleep was nice.
So, what did she do with her newfound vehicular freedom after school?
She drove herself to work, then drove herself back home at 1930.
Picture of her at the bottom of today's edition. Man that went by
fast!
Another great 3-day weekend at RV-Central. AOPA PILOT
Technical Editor, Mike Collins, visited the project and
interviewed all the volunteers present - he also put his
camera and pad down for a while and got his hands dirty
working in the RV-1.
Boomer's report on projects completed and/or started:
(1) Gear leg fairings- minor work still needed, (2)
Instrument panel- in and hooked up, (3) New exhaust
pipes and hangers- done, (4) Crankcase vent tube- done,
(5) Carb inlet box- done, (6) Wiring and battery box-
complete, (7) Firewall mostly sealed- just a few holes
to go, (8) Bottom ramp- sealed, (9) Carb air inlet hose-
complete (10) Wheel Pants- off to paint, (11) Canopy-
off to paint, (12) Canopy hinge- adjusted, (13) Baffles-
almost complete... will complete job after the cowl is
fit to front.
Update >> on happenings after the weekend gathering -
Danny King and Walt Aronow have been busy... Danny
installed the new spark plugs donated by Tina's Pilot
Shop and installed and tested the ignition harness. Walt
completed the installation of the instrument panel and
all aircraft wiring. Prop should be delivered Friday
which will get this weekend's work off to a running
start. We're getting close!
I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed my last thread,
about converting a -9a to -7a. Suffice to say, it's a
lot more than I thought. And according to some of the
numbers, the performance difference is not nearly as big
as I thought. So I put in my -9a tail order last Friday.
Lo and behold, last night I puttered down to my FedEx
depot and picked up the tail kit, arriving a day early
no less! I think the desk clerk was a little concerned
whether the boxes would fit. Let it be known that the
tail kit boxes *do*, in fact, fit in the back of a Mazda
3s hatchback quite nicely.
And now I have a converted second bedroom / workshop
filled with parts, parts, parts, cardboard, and more
packing tape than I know what to do with. I started
inventory last night when I got it home, and I'll skip
doing work on it tonight (bad ju ju, Friday the 13th and
all). I'll post up workshop pics in the gallery once I
have everything half-squared away.
So... N112SB "officially" began construction (at least
the first entry in the build log) on 1/12/12. Not bad,
eh? Let the games begin!
__________________
Scott Balmos
Cincinnati, OH
RV-9a
Vans shipped the empennage kit pronto, I've at it
since it arrived last Friday. Inventory was perfect. I
really like the method of rivets in little plastic
see-through bags clearly marked instead of the original
lunch bag method.
Love the way this thing goes together and most impressed
with the .032 HS skins, this airplane is no wimp. The
plan is easy to follow and the parts fit. Still think
about the RV-3 but I probably wound not have enough life
time remaining to complete it. This was a good decision
<g>.
I purchased my plane in March 2011. There were no
tank leaks at the time of purchase. Towards the end of
June fuel started showing up at the lower inboard joint
of the left tank. In short time it was dripping about a
drop a second.
more
Safety ● One Reason Modern
EFIS Systems Rock
You can keep an eye on the TAS and IAS limits.
p63 at
G3X Pilot's Guide in my situation.... dr
There have been a couple of cases mentioned in
VAF where people have reported encountering the very
onset of flutter. One pilot described it as a
"buzz." It's not common among RVs.
Before retiring, I was an aerospace stress analyst.
Not long ago I got to examine some wing parts, not
from an RV, which had fluttered.
What I learned from that is that if you think there
might have been flutter, to check (among other
things) the rod-end bearings. The ones I looked at
had stretched slightly. Just something that might
otherwise go unnoticed and lead to looseness, which
in turn could lead to flutter at a lower speed next
time.
Just bought a Rohm keyless chuck. Note that there is
an interference issue with this chuck and Sioux drills.
If you do not place a washer on the drill drive before
screwing on the chuck, the chuck will get stuck on. A
single AN washer .060 thickness works fine, although
Cleveland sells a specialty washer.
REMOVAL
To remove keyed chuck: insert allen key and tighten
chuck. Lay drill on workbench with head supported but
key free to swing over edge of bench. Whack with hammer,
counterclockwise. This will free the chuck. Unscrew.
To remove stuck Rohm chuck: Make small offering to the
tool gods and ask for forgiveness. Wrap protective tape
around Rohm forward knurled knob. Clamp on a pair of
vice grips. Set up as with keyed chuck above: head of
drill supported on edge of table, vice grips free to
spin. Insert a silicone spray wand in the upper and
lower slots on the head of the drill just aft of the
Rohm rear knurled knob. Whack vice grips with hammer.
You will probably have to whack quit a few times to
loosen the chuck.
Once you get the Rohm chuck set up properly, it works
GREAT. This is a fantastic time saver, I'm surprised I
haven't seen it on the lists of must-have tools.
Eric
Thanks to Brown Tool for instructions on how to remove
both the keyed chuck and stuck Rohm chuck.
(more from Michael Brown) I would
also add for those considering adding a ROHM Keyless
Chuck to any drill, be sure to use a perfectly flat
MACHINED washer and not a stamped washer like you
might get from Lowes or HD. If the 'spacer' (washer)
has any warp in it whatsoever, your drill chuck will
wobble. When we install ROHM Chucks on Sioux Drills
in our shop, we actually use a machined spacer from
Sioux that is precision machined and perfectly flat.
To Alex: The ROHM chuck is a piece of art. They are
made in Germany and the workmanship is superb. There
is a huge difference between the keyless chucks you
might see on a cordless drill from the hardware
store versus the ROHM Keyless Chuck. The ROHM will
close perfectly to 'zero'. I will let others give
you their review of in the field use, but we selll
about a thousand ROHM Chucks each year and I can
count on one hand the number we have had returned.
Michael Brown
Brown Aviation Tool Supply Co
Totally Off Topic
This is our daughter driving me home from the DMV driving test
yesterday (passed).
She asked me to sit in the back. I suddenly feel very old.
dr
The rear of my canopy does not seal completely and
air comes rushing towards the back of my neck. Great in
the summer but bad in the winter. I don't want to seal
the canopy any better because I prefer the fresh air
from a safety standpoint. I figured out a way to block
the direct draft of cold air...it also doubles as
security!
The whole document is a great read. Sidebar on
pg 3 of the doc duplicated below. Some discussion
yesterday got me re-reading this. You do know
there are both IAS AND
TAS limits on your plane, right? You can, in
certain situations, exceed the TAS limit without knowing
it. dr
I have an enlarged hole on my flap brackets so I
ordered some AN470-5-9 rivets from Spruce. They look
like the rivets I need, but one thing is worrying me. I
test squeezed one in some scrap (I cut this one down to
a 6 length) and it felt like squeezing butter. Unlike
the smaller rivets which I have to give a pretty firm
squeeze to. Is this normal with this size rivet? I
expected the larger size to take even more oomph on the
squeeze. The rivet head has a "01DC" marking on it. The
spruce item was "AN470A-5-9 SOLID ALUM RIVET AN470A-5-9"
Saturday I decided to do some maintenance around the
shop. I wanted to get my big top skin attached to my
right wing, but my wife (and main riveter) had gone to
St. Louis for a hockey tournament with my son. My
daughter is getting better with a rivet gun, but I'm not
quite comfortable letting her rivet a skin yet. So I
decided to put my left wing skeleton on my wing stand
and make sure there wasn't anything that was going to
need modification for the left wing. As it turned out my
homemade bracket that holds the outboard rib to the wing
stand needed trimming since it was going to interfere
with the skins, so I broke out my die grinder and a 3"
cutoff wheel.
I've never had an incident with a die grinder but, the
die grinder / cutoff wheel combo scares the fire out of
me. Not as much as the drill press / fly cutter, but in
the ballpark. For what I was doing, though, it was the
right tool for the job. To prepare for the task I needed
to assemble my safety gear. I went inside and put on
another long sleeve shirt. I reached for my safety
glasses but decided on the face shield instead I also
put on my dust mask and hearing protection. At the last
second I decided that my gloves couldn't hurt either.
Now I was set and ready for action. I was grinding away
for about 30-seconds and it happened in an instant.
BLAM!
The cutoff wheel exploded sending shards all along the
plane of travel of the wheel. Miraculously (or maybe it
was physics) none of the pieces hit me. Small pieces did
hit the leading edge of the right wing, my table and the
ceiling of the garage. I disconnected the air and took
stock of my appendages to make sure they were all there
and look for shrapnel wounds. All clear. I picked up all
the pieces of the failed wheel I could find and noticed
that a large chunk was missing. I couldn't find it
anywhere. I assumed that it was traveling so fast that
it tore a hole in the space time continuum and would
erupt from a worm hole a million years in the future.
continue
8' from the point of failure to the point of impact
We always like to show off our toys, so thanks for
the more picture request. The idea for the flat wing
tips came from an1991 article, September issue, in
Sports Aerobatics (Ralph Riddell) about a RV-4 modified
for serious acro, and the flat wing tips increased the
roll rate. I added the fences for the same reason to
achieve a little more aileron effect. I'm not a good
test pilot, so my estimate is the flat wing tips
increased the top speed about 3 knots, increased my
stall speed 4 to 5 knots. However the fences lowered the
stall speed about 3 knots and also slowed the rapid spin
rotation after 1/2 turn. It also seems to land better
without much float. The inverted flight is slightly
better with a little less nose up for level flight. For
an acro sighting device, I have auto window tint strips
on my canopy. The advantages of the tint strips are it's
cheap, and I can see them with slight peripheral vision,
and I can move them if they are not right.
Well, we are just a month past first flight, and two
of these weeks we were out of town. We’ve had a couple
of “No Fly” days due to weather, but we now have 33
hours on the airframe, and I can share a few test
results.
We’ve expanded the speed envelope from a flaps-down
stall of 50 knots IAS to the redline of 183. We did a
few limited TAS excursions (a couple of knots) above
that in a smooth-air descent, but will stick with the
design redline – I have no desire to test the flutter
limits beyond Van’s engineering. Stalls are normal for
an RV – power off, it breaks sharply, but honestly, and
recovers instantly when you release back pressure.
Holding it in an incipient stall with power on gives a
fair amount of tail “rattle” (it’s a metal airplane),
but I found nothing loose or damaged afterwards – it’s
just a little noisy.
continue
I'm swapping props from a wood sensenich to a
composite 3-blade Catto. The sensenich was pitched
between cruise and climb but ended up more of a climb
prop. I asked Craig to pitch the new prop more toward
the cruise.
Sitting here at my desk (between flights) I realised
during phase-I I only condcuted a test day conditions
level flight performance sweep and didn't really
normalize the data - I did it the easy way - record
airspeed vs engine power and plot it. This is great for
a quick look but doesn't provide an accurate enough
baseline for comparisons with future data after any
modifications are made, such as a prop change.
more
A bottom skin from my RV-7 wing gives the photo some
scale. Mesh on top is "chicken wire" with about a 1/2"
grid size. There is baffling in the box to settle out
most of the overspray before it is drawn through a 20"
square filter on the bottom by a fan strapped
horizontally to the bottom of the table.
This seemed to take care of almost all of the actual
overspray. What you can't see in the photo is an
industrial exhaust fan through the wall above the table
which takes care of ventilation and fumes.
I have used this setup for the last 5 years and found I
could prime without getting paint overspray all over the
shop. I had to resort to other means for some of the
larger fuselage skins and really long parts but this
took care of virtually everything else. It has been
really nice being able to prime and paint pretty much at
will without issues from weather, etc.
this is 2 sets of 3 Cree lamps in series. I am using
a 2.5 ohm 10 watt resistor in series with each 3 lamp
set. You are correct that the amps drop with volts. I
have a plane power alternator and odyssey battery. My
Dynon reports the voltage as 14.7. at 14.7 volts, the
current is .98 amps. The aircraft voltage does not drop
much with low power on landing, and I am very pleased
with this set up. There is zero rfi. The dropping
resistors are absorbing about 2.7 watts of power. WAAAY
less heat than the 75 watt mr16 heat lamps er, landing
lights.
__________________
Larry Buller
Well it took a lot longer than expected and antenna
work is something I don't wish to repeat anytime soon
but, aircraft transiting the Eastern Shore of VA should
have much better coverage (not to mention land based
operators).
more
Advertiser's Corner...sent
in by the advertisers of this site.
●
From the Factory...
Mon,
Jan 16, 2012. 1219z
Good morning! No flying for me Sat or Sun (helping with the estate
sale of my late aunt on Saturday, and sitting right seat with our
daughter practicing parallel parking on Sunday). But, did get in a
little .3hr flight on Friday around lunch - iPhone pic of track at
right. Low and slow and no mission, just enjoying the view at
18"MP and 8.4gph.
Lots of stuff in today's edition, so I apologize in advance for the
office work you're not going to get done. ;^) dr
Today, Friday the 13th, N169MJ took to the air for
the first time! Stan Kremp flew his RV-7A as chase with
my wife along as photographer. No big issues: slight
canopy skirt "buz" above 120 KIAS and AP fuel injectioin
seems to be a little on the rich side at idle. What a
hoot!
__________________
Jim Averett RV-8 TS36 - Silver Wings
Fredericksburg, TX
Already starting to practice for the 2012 IAC
contests. Had a professional photographer at our Gulf
Coast Aerobatic Club get together yesterday at Brewton,
AL.
When I first started my
build, I ran across an article by two guys who built an
RV-6 in 56 days. One of their tricks was to lay
everything out on a 4' x 8' chicken wire screen.
Everything got primed very early on in the project so
they didn't have to stop and do it as they assembled
things (I believe they touched up parts after trimming,
drilling etc)
Here are some pics of what I did to adopt their method.
Sorry for the lousy photos but these are very old
digital photos (circa 1998)
Caution: even though I used their method for priming, it
still took me 14+ years to build my RV-6..... LOL
__________________
Gary Palinkas
I'm pleased to report that my new RV-3B lifted off
for the first time today. We had a rare sunny and calm
winter day in Oregon that was perfect for the ocassion.
My RV-4 buddy Brent Anderson flew chase, and my wife
joined the party from his back seat.
The airplane flew great, climbing at 2500 fpm with full
fuel. The right wing is very slightly heavy and the prop
a bit under-pitched, but these are minor squawks. I'm a
newbie tailwheel pilot, but the ground handling and
landing were a piece of cake.
This is my third RV build, but it still took 2200 hours
and nearly four years to get here. Key equipment
includes an AeroSport IO-320 (160hp), Catto two blade
prop, and AFS 5500 EFIS. My S/N is 11426. I credit
Randy Lervold for inspiration and my wife for builder's
assistance.
more
●
Factory 2012 Calendar SB ...sent to me by the gang at Van's.
...I did end up putting both my pumps in the center floor where
Vans recommends installing the boost pump. I had to stretch the
boost pump housing a bit, but both pumps are in there with check
valves so they can't back flow. Each tank flows through it's own
filter and check valve before entering the pump, the output of the
pumps are Tee'd together and go to the fuel valve, which is
on/off/ferry with a port underneath to connect a ferry tank for long
over-water legs.
VAF Family ●
"Day job in front, night job in back."
Seven or eight years ago, when I was buying equipment
for my RV-8 project, I was intrigued by the (then) new
E-mag electronic ignition. Intended as a nearly “drop
in” replacement for regular magnetos, I sure liked the
clean design that did not require a separate “brain
box”, crankshaft sensor, or extensive wiring. It seemed
to me to be a great design concept – but I’ll be honest,
I was a little nervous about anything that absolutely
MUST work (to keep the airplane in the air) being that
new. I decided to equip the airplane with tried and true
Slick mags, and keep an eye on the E-mags. I watched as
numerous people went with one, then two of the units, as
well as the even newer P-Mag – an E-mag that had its own
internal alternator so that once it was going, it was
independent of ships power to keep the engine running.
This really upped the interest, since it was pretty much
as electrically independent as a traditional mag (except
for starting – and take-offs are almost always
optional).
After some early teething problems with temperatures and
mechanical components, it appeared that folks who I have
a lot of respect for were piling up hours on their P-Mag
installations. Reports of difficulties became few and
far between, and reports of improved customer service on
the part of Emagair went up. I saw both of these as
positive signs, so when it came time to have an engine
built for our new RV-3, we pulled the trigger and went
dual P-Mags to get the maximum benefit of EI all the
time.
more
Advertiser's Corner...sent
in by the advertisers of this site.
●
Gemini Shipping
I Googled 'most numerous
experimental aircraft' and it returned the
following as its first hit (partial screen capture
below). Here's hoping they don't forget us.
● Airport Ride FS.
Offering my '75 Vespa 150 Super VBC up for sale to help
offset purchase of a small used Ford Ranger truck (our
daughter takes her driving test in two weeks).
$3K. It's a good price (source)
and I'd like it to go to a VAF'r for airport use.
Comes with spare tires, rear rack and windscreen.
Buyer needs to come get it (located in N.TX). It's
coral, not pink ;^).
If you are installing RV-8 Grove landing gear legs
(which have internally drilled brake lines) and are
pondering your options for connecting the fitting at the
bottom of the leg to the brake caliper you may consider
this simple solution:
I was going to bend hard aluminum lines to connect these
two points as the plans suggest but decided (as many
others have) to use flexible lines instead.
For reference I checked to see how VA-102 (a braided
fuel pressure sensing hose included in the firewall
forward kit) would work and to my surprise the length
was perfect.
So, I decided I’ll go with that instead of having custom
lines fabricated or buying the special tools needed to
make my own.
I Ordered Van's VA-102 hoses ($15.50) and a 45° AN823-4D
fitting at the caliper with a 90° AN822-4D at the bottom
of each gear leg to make the hose curve comfortably and
applied LocTite 567 to the threads (not the flares).
In The Shop.... ●
Little Garage Tweaking...making room for
folding workbench.
Some 2'x2' snap together fatigue floor mat from Northern Tool
bought during lunch yesterday, a light from Lowes moved from another
part of the garage and a folding work bench in the works.
Building a little spot up front that'll keep me from having to back
a car out. A place to build RV-3B ailerons, flaps, etc.
That mat makes a huge difference on how cold my feet feel.
(RE: the right rudder pressure needed - this from B.Axsom) I have
the short tail 6 rudder and on takeoff and climb it required a LOT
of right rudder. The answer for me was to install a rudder tab. The
first was a commercially available (was through VAN's I think)
plastic wedge pop riveted to the left side of the rudder. That
worked reasonably well but as I modified the airplane for speed
things changed and I needed a ground adjustable tab. Toward the
lower part of the rudder I cut off a section of skin inserted a
trailing edge internal alumimum wedge (not a trim tab) and covered
the openings with thicker skins with two stiffeners on each skin. I
made a trim tab out of 0.032 2024-T3 aluminum and mounted it with
five #8 flathead screws into two tapped holes and three platenuts in
a zig-zag pattern. That worked great on first flight. It still uses
right rudder (but not so much) on takeoff but the ball is centered
in level flight. In the initial rigging I took a lot of care to get
everything properly aligned with the reference plane of the canopy
deck. In natural position the left wing trailind edge required
lifting, what seemed like a lot to me, to get it properly aligned -
so from my experience you should not trust the automatic alignment.
5 weeks total time with about a week home around Christmas. Just
about turned Kahuna's hair gray and I can't thank him enough. I
could not have done it without his guidance, tools, knowledge,
friendship, parts department and wonderful cooking.. Smokey was also
always there to lend and ear or a part and Stripes busted a few
knuckles too. CB was a great help in setting up the GRT stuff. He
knows those buttons. And my wonderful wife, Slinky, put up with all
of it.. Thank YOU ALL
Still have to calibrate the fuel stuff and get a manifold pressure
problem worked out but all the electronics work perfectly. Punched
on the autopilot and it just worked. Climbed, descended, turned,
NAV'ed, headed,, I'm gonna love this thing. ATC said they could hear
and see me, don't know if that's good or not, but there it is..
__________________
Jerry "Widget" Morris
RV 8, N8JL
OK..so I finally was able to get my prop/spinner attached and my
cowling on to see how I did on the set up. When fitting my cowl I
did not have the prop so I used vans method of the prop spacers with
spinner bulkhead... I intentionally left the engine a little high
figuring I may get some engine sag over time and possibly it may
drop a tad when the 80lb prop was installed. Well, the 80lb prop
didn't make it sag any...at least not immediately...so I am left
with the spinner about 3/16 higher than I would want it.
Was not to happy to see this.
Thoughts on this?.. Is this just a cosmetic issue? guess I won't win
any awards this time... Any ways to fix this at this point?
Initially, I thought I could add some epoxy/glass on top of the cowl
and smooth it out. But then that adds more weight to an already
heavy engine/prop. Or, do I just leave it as is and reevaluate
later....still looking for the engine to sag a little?
I took at 2x12 and wedged it between the floor and the ceiling
(make sure you hit a ceiling joist runner, or you'll punch through
the sheetrock) then screwed 1x2 runners horizontally to that, and
used a brad nailer to put a few dozen finish nails in the 1x2's.
Hang your parts on the finish nails and spray away.
Here is a link to some pictures of my seats. I added extra
padding and support On the front seat, so that I would have better
support for my legs. I have been pleased with the results...
Advertiser's Corner...sent
in by the advertisers of this site.
●
SteinAir Stuff ...will probably change by the time I post this
(will go fast)
I 'm working on my -7 Drawing 25 , Riveting the
F721A-R forward canopy deck to the F-721B-R ( Longeron
).
I cant for the heck of me get any of my bucking bars in,
even my little tungsten. Can I use a cherry max pull
rivet in the three locations I marked in red. If can
does anyone know a cherry max equivalent #?
I have been given the job of rewiring a
Pitts I have a share in and could do with some help in
identifying the type and output of the alternator and
what the gold box is? Initially I though it was a
regulator but the wire don't look big enough, maybe some
type of noise suppressor.
So
I am almost done with the trim tab on the left elevator.
All of the hinges are drilled and the trim tab edges are
aligned nicely with the rest of the elevator. Only
problem is that when I attach the threaded pushrod to
the control horn, it is slightly off center with the
exit hole on the bottom of the elevator. I followed the
plans to mark the outboard hinge hole 3/8 of an inch
from the edge of the hinge.
The only other thing I have noticed after looking at
other folks pics of their trim tab hinge alignment is
that my eyelet order is reversed. I don't think this
matters much, as long as the trim tab is in proper
alignment with the elevator, but perhaps I am wrong.
I think the alignment, or in this case the mis-alignment
of the pushrod, has much more to do with where I drilled
that first hole in the trim tab hinge. That, combined
with the final placement of the hinge on the elevator
side ultimately dictates where the pushrod will end up.
Can some one tell me what stupid thing I did here that
might have caused this?
I have no problem ordering a new hinge or digging out a
sufficient amount of the elevator skin to ensure proper
clearance of the pushrod. My main concern is how far
over this forces me to move the trim servo mounting
brackets on the cover plate to mantain a straight line
to the control horn.
I have an O-360-A1F6D in my RV-4, and it has the
Bendix dual magneto. I believe that one side has an
impulse coupling, but I can't find out how to determine
which side it is?
I assume that the left mag is on the left side of the
mag housing, when viewed from the rear. If that is the
case, which side has the impulse coupling?
The question comes from me getting ready to replace my
panel and wiring. I have an ACS A-510-2 ignition switch.
The installation instructions I downloaded from Aircraft
Spruce say to place a jumper between the two lugs at
position 1 if the left mag has an impulse coupling.
Position 1 in the photo below is the two terminals close
together at the 1:00 position. As can be seen, a jumper
is not there.
more
Might give a thought to reducing the height of the panel (if it's
a slider) as the larger panels are difficult to wiggle underneath
which you'll find yourself doing a lot later on. (Not as big a deal
with a tip up).
You could move the gx pilot over to where the ft50 is and move that
to the right side, might have to move trim switch also depending on
how much you could cut down. I cut down a new panel from Vans when I
upgraded mine after so many tight fits under friends RV panels I was
helping out on.
RV people make it less of a hassle. As you may already know, our daughter takes
her driving test in about a week and a half. Worded another way, in
about a week and a half our '06 Honda Accord is going to be gone all of the
time (and covered in Coldplay and Foo Fighters stickers). So about a
week ago I went to cars.com and looked through used Ford pickups - something to haul RV-3B airplane parts from the airport (stored)
to the house workbench (assembled) and back. I was about 4 min. into the search when I
remembered the name Dan Horton. You know him as ‘DanH’ in the forums. By day he buys and sells vehicles in
Montgomery, Alabama - his website is
www.perryhillauto.com.
I sent him a short e-mail, the gist of
was, “Gotta solid, used truck that doesn't cost too much? It doesn't have to be pretty. Less complicated the better.”
Then I went back to the business of trying to run VAF,
completely forgetting about the truck. Four hours later Dan e-mailed
me back. He had bought some fleet lease Ford Ranger XL trucks
that had ~45,000 miles on them. 2010 models with manual everything.
Want to adjust the mirrors? Stick your hand out the window and
move them. And you have to turn the crank to get the window to go
down. Plain vanilla, no
frills small truck. He offered one to me for a great price, and a quick
check of Kelley blue book and some other sources online showed I was
getting a good deal. A very good deal.
“I'll take whichever one doesn't smell like an
ashtray.”
So, how to get this truck from Montgomery, Alabama
to Ft. Worth, Texas? The shipping would run somewhere between $500 and
$700, and here is where RVation steps in. Dan had one of his drivers
(Stan) drive the truck 700 miles from Montgomery over to Fort Worth this past
Friday (for less than it would have cost to have it shipped). Dan
hopped in his RV-8 and flew to Hicks (T67). They spent all day Saturday
and a chunk of Sunday working on the RV-1. Monk drove me and Tate
over to Hicks Saturday morning, I handed Dan a check, he handed me the
title, we all worked on the RV-1, and later in the afternoon Tate and I
drove the truck home. The truck Tate will probably learn
to drive in.
I had a VansAirForce.net sticker on the back window before
sundown. The Honda Accord, and its high safety rating, is now officially Audrey's.
I think I spent a total of 6
minutes dealing with getting this used truck. It
was delivered to the airport I was already going to on
Saturday. Completely painless thanks, once again,
to the greatest hobby on Earth.
Dan, stay healthy. You
will be picking out my trucks over the next two or three decades.
Didn't get in any flying this weekend, but I got a
used truck, got to watch my son drill a hole into the
new belly pan of the RV-1, and hung some drapes for the
spousal unit. Hope you had a great weekend, too.
Had a high thick cloud layer this morning and didn't
think the light would be any good to shoot photo's.
Headed out anyway hoping it would get better. Got down
to the Grand Valley and had a lot of smog and it wasn't
looking good. But as I started to follow the Colorado
river west from about Mack,CO. the layer started to let
a little more light thru. Was hard to get great shot's
but then I'm also trying to see how many days I can get
in this year before things change. Looking at tonights
weather this might be it. If not see you again tomorrow.
So I hope you've wasted some of your time rather than
actually building. Hobbs at 10.5 for this year.
continue
The turn out at the monthly (first Saturday of every
month) Artesia, NM fly-in was light today. The hit was
Marnie and Russ Dent's (russd) RV-9A that came over from
Las Cruces, NM.
continue
Event News ●
Mid-winter plug for Larry's get together
Totally Off Topic
Fri,
Jan 6, 2012. 1224z
Friday! Wishing you and yours a happy, safe and
RV-filled weekend.
Three quick bullet points...
Nov and Dec donation prize winners picked. The
winner of the Garmin aera 560 is
Mark Albery (more).
Congrats Mark! Give me a ring...
RV-1 work party this Saturday in N.TX at T67. DanH
flying in from Alabama to work. Come say hey...
Offering my '75 Vespa 150 Super VBC up for sale to help
offset purchase of a small used Ford Ranger truck (our
daughter takes her driving test in two weeks).
$3K. It's a good price (source)
and I'd like it to go to a VAF'r for airport use.
Comes with spare tires, rear rack and windscreen.
Buyer needs to come get it (located in N.TX). It's
coral, not pink ;^).
some pics...
contact info
With two girls under the age of 2 it has been difficult to keep up with
lots of things in my life, including trip reports. This is a little late but
still thought I would share a trip we did over Thanksgiving.
We rented a house at Skyranch Grassy Meadows airport in Hurricane UT over
Thanksgiving week. It was a great week of flying. I think I put 16 hours of
flying on the plane taking day trips to Valle airport, Sedona, tours over
the Grand Canyon and sunset flights on most nights.
continue
Well I had a good route planned for today but life
got in the way so only had an hour or so to fly and
didn't get to do what I wanted so stayed local. Hope to
do it tomorrow so will keep it a suprise. Another great
day here saw 54* on the ground for a high and 8,000 ft
it was 44*, 11,000 was showing 39*. Clear forever and
almost glass smooth.
Hobbs is at 7.8 hrs this year and now and the question
is will I run out of time before the next oil change,
about 8.5 hrs. or will I run out of money for fuel or
will this great weather change first? Oh! The drama of
flying! And someone's probably still trying to decide to
order that empennage kit <g>
I recently upgraded the panel on our 5 year old RV7a
with 920 hours on it and wanted to share a picture of
the "new" panel. I upgraded the GRT WS EFIS to the GRT
HX EFIS and the UMA altimeter with a Winter Instruments
altimeter
This trip started out with the idea of
trying to make the So-Cal/Arizona Groups’ New Year’s Day
Fly-in to Lake Havasu, AZ at KHII. We’ve been trying to
make this event for a couple of years, but somehow
weather or other commitments have always gotten in the
way. Part of the problem with doing a trip across the
mighty Rockies in the winter is weather,
you just never know what you’re going to get.
I had some left over vacation time to use and, with both
Christmas & New Year’s Eve being on a weekend, a couple
extra holidays to take off as well. So the plan was
hatched and e-mails were sent scouring the country far
and wide for others who might want to join up in Las
Vegas for a couple days.
Scott and Tanya Card liked the idea,
and so did Gary and Carolyn Zilik. The Cards would meet
us in Boulder City at KBVU, and Gary and Carolyn would
fly from Front Range with us. While there were other
friends we would’ve liked to have join in the fun,
schedules just didn’t permit. We were happy to learn
last-minute that Rosie and Tuppergal Rosales would be
able to join us for an evening of fun in Vegas after
all! They would meet up with the Cards in Texas and fly
to Nevada together.
With the plan set in motion, we began making the
necessary arrangements. I managed to get a hotel in
Henderson for the weekend using some Marriot points.
While not on the strip, the room was free, and you just
can’t beat free. We knew we wanted to see a show while
there, but with tickets for Vegas entertainment being
pricey and non-refundable, we would have to wait until
we were certain we’d be able to make it.
A few days before departure, I started watching the
extended forecasts, and it looked like a BIG high
pressure system might be moving in to make for some nice
flying weather. As it turned out, that’s exactly what
happened. Some pretty stiff winds and turbulence were
forecast for Colorado, but once we got south of the
Colorado border, the Airmets went away and New Mexico
and Nevada looked GOOD.
With the weather on our side, and after several e-mails
debating which night/show, everyone agreed on Cirque du
Soleil “Love” for Friday night. Thanks to some due
diligence on Tanya’s part, she managed to book us eight
good seats together. She also made dinner reservations
at Fin, a Chinese restaurant located in the Mirage
hotel. On her suggestion, we planned to do some mild
hikes in the Red Rocks Canyon on the west side of town
on Saturday. Then, on Sunday morning, we would head down
the Colorado River to Lake Havasu for the New Year’s Day
fly-in spectacular at KHII.
Weather holds as you can see. Temp. in Leadville was
a balmy 39* and still had time to warm some more when I
left. Had a layer of high thin clouds form but still
smooth if you stayed below 12,000 ft. Wanted to fly
direct from Leadville to Aspen but would of been a bumpy
ride over the tops of all the 13-14,000 footer's. Still
a great day was had by all! (Me).
Wed,
Jan 4, 2012. 1203z The first calendar entry of 2012 makes an appearance
today, so it's back in the daily rotation on the front page (bottom of
today's edition). Easy way to spread RV event news - if it's in
the calendar, it's on the front page here starting 45 days before the
event. And it self-deletes itself afterwards (I like that part).
Have a nice hump day. dr
Since my airplane has been flying I have kept a
running total of how many gallons of fuel I have burned.
This allows me to see the average fuel consumption over
the life of the airplane. I think it is interesting, but
it probably says more about me and my changing attitudes
over time than it does about the airplane. I have an
RV-6 with O-360, carburetor and fixed pitch Sensenich
prop and I have burned nothing but 100 octane low lead
avgas. The chart covers about 11 1/2 years and 1100
hours of actual in flight time; no ground time.
Read more > >
Colorado......best spring I've ever seen in Dec/Jan
days up in the mid 40's and a few 50's. 4.8 on the hobbs
already this year. Hope it stays like this till
Valentine's day then really turns to spring.
2011 Oshkosh was a great year for formation pictures.
We had some really nice ones on the way to Oshkosh and
during Oshkosh Jim Beyer took up Tim Olson's wife in his
Bonanza to get this 3-ship that made the 2011 calendar.
Sunday dawned absolutely beautiful in Georgia and
South Carolina.
John Sanford and family, own a big plantation near
Beaufort, South Carolina, with their own grass strip.
Every New Year's day, they have a huge gathering for a
noon-time old fashioned pulled pork barbecue and all
sorts of old and restored airplanes and of course,
several of our RV's, fly in.
Gregg Connell (airshows), owns this beautiful -10 that
he let Gary Ward, Bonanza owner, fly left seat. Gary was
very impressed
Once in a great while, an artist gets hold of a
Lancair panel, cuts it all up and re-glasses it together
again, contours it to fit the -6's cowl shape and this
is the result...
I don't want to steal Louise's thread, but here's a
quick report on my first real Acro session in the
airplane:
Fantastic, Wonderful, Delightful, Amazing, Fast, Quick,
Precise....what did I miss?
This was an envelope expansion test, the first time out
of the box for any significant acro. Before the Acro, I
did some power-off, full-stalls to check the signatures
and repeatability of IAS at the break. Four clean, four
dirty - each configuration stalled the same each time
(55 knots clean, 50 dirty). It fell off in whichever
direction my toe was resting on the pedal - no
preference for going one way or the other.
For acro, I kept things simple - started with Commercial
maneuvers (chandelles, lazy eights), did some wing-overs
to see how coordinated and precise they could be flown,
then went on to basic rolls (aileron and barrel), loops,
Immelman's, Half-rolls on an up-line pulled down to a 45
(sort of an inverted parabolic maneuver). Everything was
light and precise - no tendency for overshoot - it goes
exactly where you tell it. Half-deflection roll rates
are about 2.5 seconds for 360 degrees ("one-potato,
two-potato, three...."). I'll have to check the G3X data
files to be sure. Loops from level flight put about 3
G's on the meter, with about 65% power on the EFIS.
Overflow
● Proof People Goofed Off At Work During 2011
Forum
stats from 1/1/11 thru 12/31/11 (not the front page of
VAF). Interest in the hobby is alive and
well you'll be happy to know. 3.3 million visits.
22.5 million pageviews. Peaks Mondays, valleys
weekends.
Yesterday we had a babysitter for both girls for a few hours and had many
options. Emily is now 4 months and Anna is 21 months.
Do we go see a movie (haven't done that in a couple of years), hit some of
the sales at the mall? RaNae said, lets fly on such a great day.
So the two of us headed out and flew up by Afton, Alpine and Jackson Hole on
January 1st. It was a perfect day to be flying and it has been almost 2
years since RaNae has sat in front with me since she is usually in the back
with the girls.
Read
More > >
Oh my gosh! Is it possible for there to be an RV out there that shatters
my expectations for performance and enchantment? I mean, I regularly fly two
delightful RVs…..my -6 (Mikey) and Paul’s -8 (Valkyrie) and I’m admittedly
spoiled by their charms. I love flying them. Mikey is wonderfully light and
precise on the controls. The centerline, fighter-pilot feel in the pilot’s
seat along with the 360 degree visibility (except the annoying roll bar) of
the -8 makes it a fun machine, too. But, the -3 surpassed them both…..no
contest!
Read
More > >
"I have to wonder why the -3B
isn’t the most popular model."
I might be over-thinking this...so if I am, please
let me know. What concerns me is that the screws holding
on the doors on the -10 are simply #10 flush screws into
fiberglass. I've heard anecdotal evidence of screws and
fiberglass not working well (wallowing out over time) in
other locations (cowling, wheel pants, fairings,
etc)...but haven't about the -10 door. So is this a big
deal or not?
Just thought I'd quickly introduce myself rather than spending my whole time
lurking the forum.
I guess my profile explains me a bit but I live in Auckland, New Zealand.
And I'm a homebuilt aeroplane addict.
My first offence was to complete a plans built Falco (www.falco.co.nz) and
since then moved house and settled in to a place with a good size workshop
to re-offend. I'm really missing the building and have now got to the stage
where I've finally decided on my next build. I really want to try this tin
bashing bit and the Ten really appeals to me, even though Vicki and I don't
have any kids, a bigger plane just seems like the thing to do.
I haven't bought any kits yet for one reason.
This year I am going to pack my Falco into a shipping container, mail it to
California and fly it to OSH! A big expensive job but when you're nuts, your
nuts.
I intend to visit Aurora on the way back from OSH and put a couple of kits
in the container for the return trip.
For now I'm just saving money and collecting the odd tool since I never
needed a rivet gun on the Falco and about 10 clecos was heaps!
For the rest of my time I'm married to Vicki, who likes flying but prefers
chasing horses around, I sit in the left front seat of an A320 for Air New
Zealand and dabble in writing apps for iPad and iPhone. That all pretty much
fills my time in and keeps me broke until the next build starts.
For now I'm just planning my trip and keeping entertained on this and some
other fantastic personal RV10 websites.
I feel like a fraud here until I actually get started but at least you know
who is lurking.
Happy new year to all.
...in the Pacific North Wet. Mostly clear, calm skies
so Carl (RV-8) had the great idea of going to Tacoma
Narrows for lunch since neither of us had been there
before. I took the scenic route, of course.
After plugging in the wings to drill the rear spars,
and then packing them away, I did my first engine start
to check that I had no plumbing leaks for fuel, oil etc.
I pulled the plugs to eject any preservative oil and
also to ensure that I had oil pressure and to lubricate
the engine, I then stuffed up priming the engine for
start and flooded it as you will see in the youtube
video.
Overflow ● Yesterday's VAF
edition as one picture....thought it looked funny like this.
Link below to read it...
Mon,
Jan 2, 2012. 1205z Hello 2012! Got some upside down time during a short .3
hr flight yesterday to get the year off to a good start. A loop,
some rolls, a wing over and some TnG's at an empty airport. Gold.
From 2,000' over Justin I could see the Wolf Ridge wind farm west of
Gainesville. Unusually good viz for this area. Those
turbines are 262' tall, and I could make them out 39 n.m. away.
Reflecting on the flight during the drive home, thinking
I'm a
sierra hotel pilot who could surely give Mav and Goose a run for their money, I
got a text
from the wife asking me to stop at the store and pick up toilet paper. Back
to reality...Mav and Goose win.
Few miles on the bike and evening Mass and the weekend was in the books. Good times, and hope same with you.
dr
This hard-cover coffee-table book showcases photographs taken
from the cockpit of John Scurlock’s home-built airplane, a Van’s
Aircraft RV-6. In 2002, John
embarked on a nine-year quest to fly to and photograph every corner
of the North Cascade Range in winter. The images he captured provide
a breathtaking vision of one of America’s most magnificent mountain
ranges in its most beautiful, dramatic, and savage season.
[ed. I was floored with the beauty of this book.
It's on the table in front of our couch, in the living room, as I
type this. Everyone has taken turns fighting over enjoying it. dr]
●
New Years inspiration flight ...Greg Arehart
Even though some of you were stuck in bad weather, it was perfect
flying weather in the Sierras today. Julia and I went out airport
spotting and just enjoying the day. Hopefully some photos to inspire
those of you who were diligently working on completing your build!
We departed RTS just before 10 am local, headed for Truckee, passing
over Stampede Reservoir, one of Reno's water sources (and given the
lack of snow this year, we may need it all!).
Today was one of those rare days in out hood. Big Boys were on
relaxed schedule, helicopters polite and birds were still sleeping.
Yesterday Red was no more.
Woke up to a little wind and snow showers, then off
to work. Got home, took down the outside Christmas lights and darn
if there isn't a little sunshine and calmness. so I head out to the
airport to grab some air before sunset.
Well, with a large break for the holidays between first flight
and today, we have managed to squeeze the first ten hours of flight
time onto our new RV-3’s airframe. The first six hours were pretty
much dedicated to engine break-in, with lots of high-powered laps up
and down the gulf coast, and very conservative operations. This
mostly straight and level time was used to debug a few avionics
issues (we had an intermittent Air Data board in the EFIS, which
Garmin replaced via overnight express, there was a bad Comm 1
antenna connection, etc….) and get a feel for the airplane – which
continues to be delightful. We had to adjust the governor cable to
get maximum RPM’s, and are tinkering with a flaky left fuel gauge –
but nothing else sticks out.( Getting use to all that traffic
information took a little while as well!)The oil level only went
down about a sixth of a quart in those first six hours, so I figure
that the break-in was quick, and cleared the airplane for
unrestricted engine operations.
continue
Last week I took my wife on our first real cross country to Las
Vegas. It was the longest flight in my RV-7A to date for myself and
my wife. From Tucson to Las Vegas is a little over a two hour
flight. This may not seem like long flight for those experienced
flyers but it was a milestone for me in a few ways. I only have
about 75 hours in my RV-7A and only been flying it for a year.
First you need to understand that my wife is fearful of flying. When
we went to Las Vegas 16 years ago on a commercial flight she had
tears in her eyes the whole way. Not tears of joy, tears of fear. So
once the RV was finished there was some doubt that she would fly
with me at all. We have flown three flight before and all were under
45 minutes. The first two flights went well and she enjoyed them the
best she could. Any turbulence bothered her a lot. The third flight
(breakfast flight with other RVers) didn’t go as well due to very
minor turbulence and landing at small airport in a tiny valley. If
fact she said that if our first flight was like the third flight she
wouldn’t have gone up again.
Continue...
Please help!
I've had a real problem getting my daughter interested in our RV-10
project. I feel it's extremely important that she be actively
involved so that she will feel a sense of ownership and pride when
it's completed. However, it seems that no matter what I do, she just
doesn't seem interested.
You're gonna have to click on the link to see the picture.
continue
Yesterday was my first pilots and paws trip from Baton Rouge into
Memphis. Very good way to use the plane although using the -10 for
an 11 pound terrier may have been a little overkill it still is nice
to be able to do such things. Aren't planes great.
__________________
Eric Kallio
RV-10
N518RV... Flying
(from Rich Meske) Please help us welcome another vendor and
celebrate his great products. He is offering these fiberglass
fillers to enhance the look of your bird. You might get a few knots
of speed increase after the installation as well! To see these
products and more, visit us at:
www.aircraftextras.com
Gyroplanes, rotorcraft, weight-shift among included
groups with new guidelines
December 30, 2011 - The FAA has responded to a request
made last year by EAA at the annual EAA/FAA Recreational
Aviation Summit by issuing new guidelines for
homebuilders of helicopter, gyroplane, weight-shift
control and powered parachute aircraft. The prototype
Amateur-Built Fabrication and Assembly Checklists for
these aircraft types will ease the uncertainty for
builders who are constructing projects not listed on the
FAA's approved kit list. The previous checklist, found
in FAA Order 8130.35, was specific to fix-wing aircraft
only. The new prototype checklists will be incorporated
into the next revision of the FAA Order.
continue
).
Good
thing I had an old blanket covering the cabin floor.This wasn't the first
time David and I got together for a dog run and probably won't be the last.
Now
I am trying a different method.
.
Was not to happy to see this. 
I've had a real problem getting my daughter interested in our RV-10
project. I feel it's extremely important that she be actively
involved so that she will feel a sense of ownership and pride when
it's completed. However, it seems that no matter what I do, she just
doesn't seem interested.
