Author Archives : Chris French

Hotel Whiskey ER Fuel Tanks – Do not buy them


I have held off on this post until things reached a conclusion. My fuel tanks were about two months late but finally arrived back in October. The weld and metal forming quality was not good. I talked to a couple of other builders who recently bought tanks and one of they got replacement tanks. I have learned that the original…

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I’m building an aluminum airplane, right?


I feel good about today, only because of what I got accomplished. It started with two and a half hours prep’ing windows and sanding the windshield. Still more sanding on the fiberglass tomorrow but I couldn’t take any more. I moved on to the poorly built Hotel Whiskey ER fuel tanks. Troy at Hotel Whiskey warranties them for life and…

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Windows, so much effort on the windows


Yep, still taping/sanding windows. I got the rear windows finished on the inside and I got some prep work done on the windshield on the inside. Put down another layer of fiberglass around the windshield on the outside. Of course this meant more sanding first. Have I mentioned how much I enjoy sanding? The replacement ER Fuel tanks arrived today.…

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Right wing fairing complete!


Wow baby, that was a bigger pain than one would think. Lots of nutplates – check. Metal forming – check, minimal room for riveting – fucking check. Only had to drill out two nutplates that interfered with the rivets to the fuselage, that would have been nice to note in the manual. Yep, I’m a little salty. Still remaining is…

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Brakes oh my


So yesterday I spent over an hour trying to figure out why the brakes were dragging. Today I was committed to solving this drama. I took the brakes apart again. This time I found that the bolt holding the brake assembly to the axle had an interference issue. Why was this not in the manuals??? Still the rear pad was…

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Wire Used In My Build


I ended up with some excess wire left over but not an obscene amount. The table below shows all of the wire I purchased for my build and was used to complete 100% of the wiring in my plane

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Panel done???


Oh I’m sure something will pop up but this morning I finished the wiring behind the panel and was happy to see the autopilot servos were detected, firmware automatically updated, and the looked good. I may have accidentally run the aux fuel tank pumps for a second, so I know those work too. I still need to wire the wing…

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More wiring…And flaps!


Ugh, I am tired of wiring but there is still work to be done. Hopefully tomorrow I can finish up the avionics/electrical. Notice no pictures, yeah it pretty much looks the same as before I started. Yes I am salty. But as a break from wiring, the flaps are now on and connected to the flap tube. That means time…

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I love when things fall into place


Whew, this was a big day. A number of smaller items checked off and a couple big ones too. First up was installing the new servo motor in the rear vent. Back when I wired it up, no workie. So AeroSport sent a new servo and that did the trick. Took some time to get the mechanical and electronic settings…

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The windows are ready for install!


Guess who started the day with sanding? And who finished the day with sanding? This guy. But the sun visor blocks are installed and the flox/micro turned out well. From there it was on to the cowling which needed nutplates installed and since we were on nutplates, why not install them on the spinner bulkheads. I still have all the…

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From front to back the whole plane was touched today


The ignition cables are now better organized with spacers between to ensure no cross firing. Got the screws installed in the tail fairing, which turned into more work than I expected. Well there were two nutplates involved… Before the window installed I needed to get the sunvisors mounted. With the doors on I could find the best location and then…

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The fan blade is attached


Whew, big day with lots of progress. Kicked it off with cutting holes for the defrost fans in the glaresheild. Friday is hopefully the day to install windows and it needed to be done before then. Then it was on to fabricating the door lock brackets. Not too difficult but one has an odd bend to match the door that…

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