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What did you do with your RV this weekend? (11/27/21 - 11/28/21)

Put wings on it

After three years, almost done!
 

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Jack Stands

I always hated borrowing my airport neighbors slightly teetering and leaky wing jacks. I generally have to work in “an hour here, 2 hours there” type increments at the hangar. I wanted a secure way to jack the airplane and have it stay level for weeks at a time.
These boat jack stands are cheaper to buy/ship since they bolt together and easily hold up the RV7. Not sure I could build a hydraulic ram setup for the same price.
https://www.scaffoldmart.com/marinemart/boxed-boat-stands/motor-boat-stands/motorboat-stand-24-35-

I’m still experimenting with them. I was originally going to still use a bolt through the jacket stand plate to the wing tiedown, I don’t think it’s necessary. The nice silicon pad on top seems to work well centered on the wingspar. So far I can jack the airplane via the screw handles of the jackstand, a small cheater pipe would make it effortless.
 

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Worked on re-Americanizing the -8. Prior owner spent $3k removing N-numbers and adding Canadian Registration. I don't have that money right now to reverse the process. So I found the closest 3M 2080 vinyl color to cover the registration and bought two yards. I made a template out of paper to figure out what I needed to do it in one piece around the compound curve of the stab. Then I took what I knew to be scraps and applied it for examination of the color match. It was not close enough for my taste, so I used electrical tape to see if I could hide the mis-match by blocking it out.

UVZgDJol.jpg


That worked. I went to the local vinyl wrap place to get some Gloss Black for the offset stripes. All they had was Avery products. Impatient, I am, so I bought a yard. A noticeable difference in between the 3M 2080 and the Avery, if I could have waited, I would have. But in the end, happy with the outcome, I used leftover 3M Fine Line tape from the -6a Invasion Stripes to make the butt joints:

F0uvfuKl.jpg


N-numbers from Aerographics.com inbound to finish the project.
 
3 LDGs

We had some unforecast gaps in the low clouds while I was escorting the little lady shopping, so I quickly dropped her off, activated the remote engine heater on my phone, and hustled to the airport before the rain and snow re-started. Got in three landings. First flight in 20 days of bad weather.

HB-YMM 20211127 3 LDGs.png
 
Flew to Gadsden, AL yesterday to meet with Jonathan McCormick at Evoke.
After a little tour we went out to lunch at one of his favorite local BBQ joints. Grub was remarkably good.
 

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Harry Potter Seats

I am working on covering the Vans seat foam.
This is Harry Potter stuff.
Hocus pocus. Magic Happens Puff! Its done

All i got was the foam, a set of templates and Van's instructions that said it was easy.
Even a few more paragraph would have been helpful.

Still dont know how to push the fabric into the contours of the foam.
Do I glue, use Darts thru the foam???
Anybody have helpful hints?
Bueller?
Anybody?
 

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Like it

I always hated borrowing my airport neighbors slightly teetering and leaky wing jacks. I generally have to work in “an hour here, 2 hours there” type increments at the hangar. I wanted a secure way to jack the airplane and have it stay level for weeks at a time.
These boat jack stands are cheaper to buy/ship since they bolt together and easily hold up the RV7. Not sure I could build a hydraulic ram setup for the same price.
https://www.scaffoldmart.com/marinemart/boxed-boat-stands/motor-boat-stands/motorboat-stand-24-35-

I’m still experimenting with them. I was originally going to still use a bolt through the jacket stand plate to the wing tiedown, I don’t think it’s necessary. The nice silicon pad on top seems to work well centered on the wingspar. So far I can jack the airplane via the screw handles of the jackstand, a small cheater pipe would make it effortless.

I like the boat jack idea. Very clever.
 
Quick round-trip (5hr) up to Conway SC and back to Tampa to take my son back to school after coming home last weekend for Thanksgiving.
 
My GNS430W was working fine, but I was looking for a technology upgrade. This weekend I pulled the 430W and slid in the IFD440. As advertised, the "installation" took about 20 minutes, including the software configuration (once I solved the "coupon" problem to get WiFi and Bluetooth activated). I test flew it this afternoon and it performed well. The interface is as slick as I was anticipating. Only issue is a problem with my ADSB IN (turns out that that traffic that popped up and was matching my every move 200 feet below me was me). I'm guessing I mis-entered something in the configuration files somewhere.

While I had the screwdriver out, I replaced my ELT battery, which hits its 7 year expiration next month.
 

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Flight of four, New England Style

Nice breakfast flight with good friends! Flight of Four RVs for a quick fuel stop at 6B6 (Minuteman Airport) and then on to 63B (Limington, ME) for an awesome breakfast! Great close to Thanksgiving Weekend, New England style! -ya dude, Steve, Al, and Mike!
 

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Took a lake patrol flight this morning. Here's a shot with a lake that's about 3/4 frozen over, with nice reflections from the morning sun. We live on this lake, so it's fun to see the forming ice patterns from altitude.
 

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Short flight to Sedona, AZ. Beautiful area, wifey and I went on a nice hike in the hills. Rugged country in this neck of the woods.:)
 
NorCal Scenery

Enjoyed a few flights up and down the Sierra Foothills west of Lake Tahoe. Took advantage of beautiful weather in California this weekend.
 

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Circling approaches and slips at various speeds

The other day, was shooting an LPV approach, VMC, and tower asked me to circle to another runway. Hadn't done a circling approach in ages, certainly not in the -9A.

So this weekend, when traffic was light, I did two ILS approaches, circle to the crossing runway. Discovered that it's no easier to hold altitude to circling tolerances now than it was when I got my instrument ticket, and that a pattern at 500' AGL is a bit different from what I'm used to.

Also did slips at different airspeeds, but the vertical speed data, even smoothed, isn't all that good. Need to do linear regression altitude and see if that's better. Curious that winds at 3,000 were forecast at 3 knots, surface winds variable at 4 (calm wind forecast was why I launched), but winds at 1,000 feet were 21 knots. I'd previously seen 90° wind shifts from downwind to base to final in coastal South Carolina, but still, this was unexpected.
 
Thanksgiving brought my son home from Bellingham, WA for a nice visit. The weather was pretty nice so we took a short flight, 30 min, down to Kitty Hawk to First Flight (KFFA). We spent an hour walking around the monument and museum and then he took this shot of my RV.
 

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Four of us RVers practiced formation flying this late-November Sunday morning. It was a beautiful day: clear skies, calm winds, smooth air. A little cool, perhaps, but not bad. After about 45 minutes of form practice, we hopped over to Millville, New Jersey for a delicious lunch at Verna's Flight Line Restaurant. The day's flying ended with a low pass with smoke over home base which is always fun.
 

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