February 23, 2021
With four hours until the inspector arrived it was hustle time to knock off the last few items. First up was installing the lighting and Plexiglas in the right wing tip. After making a few passes on englarging the opening the landing and taxi lights slid right in and from there is was easy going. The wing root fairings were…
February 22, 2021
My work day started at 4:00am and I put in 16 hours getting my plane ready for tomorrows inspection. And yes, I am exhausted. But I should be ready to go after a few hours checking the final items off the list. Today I finally got around to the louvers on the bottom cowling. This was a time consuming process…
February 20, 2021
No not the Airworthiness, but rather certification of the transponder and static systems. This was a much more involved process than I expected. All told it took three and a half hours. A good chunk of that was fixing leaks. At every threaded fitting there was a leak. I had used teflon tape but the system still leaked. Could have…
February 19, 2021
Whew, the cowling is making me work for it. Started and finished the day with sanding. You know my feelings on sanding. In between I fabricated the oil door mounting for the two latches and the hinge. At the end of the day I riveted the cowling/hinge/stiffener together with flox to support curved areas below stiffener. A break in the…
February 18, 2021
So I thought I could bang this out in short order. HA! Started the day with more sanding… A bump out/blister was needed for proper clearance from the Vetterman exhaust, this was completed a number of weeks ago and was waiting for final sanding and for the foam mold to be cut out. That wasn’t too big of a job…
January 28, 2021
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…
January 24, 2021
The engine is a part of the project I underestimated. I had the engines on my Aztec overhauled so I thought I knew what I was getting into but damn there is a lot of work. Today was spent mostly fabricating and installing the ignition harness. Each cable had to be made from wire and terminals. Also I was able…
January 23, 2021
Ugh, one of those days that just wears your down. But I grinded through and got a decent amount completed. I installed the oil lines and got the fittings mounted into the oil cooler. It isn’t installed yet as I don’t want to risk damaging it. A time consuming project was running the cables for the heat controls and then…
January 19, 2021
Big progress on the cabin top today. I figured out a way to apply micro to the vertical surfaces which greatly reduced the waiting time. All told today I major sanded twice and applied micro three times. I think after tomorrow morning’s sanding session I should be ready to attached the cabin top to the airframe! Also up today was…
January 18, 2021
So I started the cabin top fairing this morning, which meant three hours of sanding. The raw fiberglass out of the Van’s mold is wavy and full of fabric patterns so it was go time. That was a fun morning. I got a layer of micro laid down on the flat top section and put a first coat to smooth…
January 17, 2021
Whew, those doors with the PlaneAround and Aerosport parts sure do require a lot of time and effort. Heck a lot of time figuring out what to do as well. Anyhow, the mechanics are complete for one door. The second door I’ll bang out tomorrow. Today I got the PlaneAround 3rd latch installed so that helps make tomorrow easier. Also…
January 15, 2021
Seems I will be living in the world of fiberglass and epoxy for awhile. The engine cowling hinges are now all drilled, this took two people – one to squeeze and one to drill. After all the filling of the sides and back there is poor alignment on the front corners. Got a layer of flox down to start filling…