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!

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Fiberglass

As happens to many builders, the closer to finishing, the more urgent I find working on the plane, and the less time I spend taking photos, blogging and logging work and hours in the builder's log.  Not that I was all that compulsive about these things before, but I'm worse now.

Custom made (by me!) carbon fiber spinner
I finished the spinner cutouts and mounting the spinner.  I did rotate the prop to see that all was aligned, even though there is a caution about rotating too much and losing the lubricants from the cylinder wall.  I drilled the firewall and added the FAB bypass cable (above yellow cable tie)

Cable to filter air box bypass gate

Next, I started to work on the cowling to even out the areas where the top and bottom do not meet up perfectly.  After this was done, I cut out holes for the piano hinge wire to exit.  These are covered by a small oval of aluminum which fits exactly into the hole, and will seat against a layer of fiberglass.  Also, I am starting to build up the cowling behind the spinner to be even all around at a constant 3/16 inch.  Bottom done, top to be done

Piano hinge wire exiting from newly cut hole

Showing built up bottom cowl even behind spinner.  Top to be done next

A view of the inside fiberglass support for the covers where piano wire exits

The fit against the horizontal stabilizer by the empennage fairing was pretty poor.  I cut the flanges off, and did my own.  There is still a fair bit of sanding to go on the fairings, but they will look SO much better.

Flox and fiberglass on horizontal stab

Starboard side view

The center console looks just SO good.  Here is how the FAB bypass cable is accessed.  Since I don't want it to be confused with the pull for heat cable above and to the right of the fuel selector, I may paint this red

View of the throttle quadrant, fuel selector, flaps, cabin heat and FAB bypass controls

Passenger side view, showing the tensioner for the throttle quadrant

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