Summer Travel and Wing Building

I  haven't posted in a while because we were visiting family in Colorado. I got a lot of work done before we left, but never had a chance to write it up. I discovered, while arriving home from work, on the Friday before we left that I had a leak in the main water line going into the house. I'll spare the details but after digging, being covered in mud, discovering it was two leaks, and a night without a shower...I finally got it fixed. So needless to say I didn't find time to update the blog prior to departure.

Here is the summary:

Mon 6/24 - 0.75hrs - Sanded skin lap joint, deburred edges of skin

Tues 6/25 - 1.25hrs - deburred edges of skin, cut pitot mount hole

Wed 6/26 - 1.25hrs - dimpled LH ribs, drilled and tapped pitot

Sat 6/29 - 1.0hr - dimpled RH ribs, test fit pitot to mount

Sun 7/7 - 2.5hrs - Finished dimpling skins

 

 

I cut the hole in the skin for the pitot tube using a variety of tools including a step drill and a dremel. Drilling the holes into the pitot tube was nerve racking. I was really worried about hitting the pitot and AoA tubes, but with a stop drill and luck there wasn't any damage. Tapping was easy and I used four short MS51957-41 Screws I ordered from Aircraft Spruce to attach it.

 

 

 The wires from the control box are long enough to poke out the bottom of the pitot mount. So the plan is to leave them hanging out when the skin is installed, connect to the wires to the pitot tube connectors and then slide the pitot into place. This will make future disconnects really easy.

 

Here is a better view of the tubing and wiring. The tubes will be held in place by the disconnects. Notice I made a tube guide for the blue line around the bellcrank. The power wires will go into the conduit. And the control wires are held by an adel clamp.

 

 

 

All the skins are dimpled and ready for install. The end of the wings is near. 

 We flew commercial to Colorado. The next flight to Colorado hopefully will happen in my own plane, but renting a slow airplane for this long trip just wasn't economical. Looking at the math I can fly us there cheaper and faster (no layovers) than the commercial guys. And when Ayla is older and we actually have to pay for her seat it would only be even more expensive making flying ourselves even that much better. We really love the Rockies and plan on doing a lot of westerly flying when the plane is finished.

 

 



We hiked around a reservoir that was at 9000' elevation....that's a normal cruising altitude for me! The hike was 15 miles and took 6 hours, but it was beautiful.