From the Maplewoods workshop: Steve's RV7 project: July 2011

The Mission:

I am building an airplane. I really can't tell you how weird it sounds to me to hear those words in my head as I type. I am keeping this blog as an adjunct to my written log, which is required to comply with FAA requirements for Experimental Aircraft construction. My son Doug is my partner in this project. There are two goals: to build the best, safest, and yes, COOLEST, airplane we can, and to allow Doug to acquire some truly awesome experiences, not to mention building skills. Thanks for viewing.

How to use this blog

The most current post is displayed on this opening page. To access the older posts, click on the "Blog Archive" on the right hand side. The drop down menu is arranged by the month and lists the posts, by title and by date posted, in reverse chronological order.

I will arrange the hypertext links to other websites I find interesting better some day, but they are at the bottom.

If you navigate to my first post, there is a link to my luthiery pages. I miss working with wood. Aluminum is nice, but it's boring. Give me a highly figured maple any day!

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Back in the hangar

Back in the hangar after a long absence. I had the idea that I would have MORE time to work on this project in the summer, but the opposite has been the case. Between vacations by my partners, and an increase in my practice and in ER trauma volume, I have not been out to the hangar for meaningful work in a while.

Doug and I did make it out today though. The camera we brought unfortunately had a full memory card, so only two photos. There will be more photos soon of our center console project. We are doing some things that I think will look killer good. More to come..

We finished the rudder and brake assembly, with custom brake pedals that Doug sand blasted, then clear coated. The brake lines, like our fuel lines, are from Bonaco.

View of brake/rudder pedal assembly, also showing the Andair extension (which will intersect a fuel selector mounted on center console)

Another view of brake pedals with Bonaco lines