Tailcone is Forever Attached

Wow! I can't believe it's been over a week since my last post....what happened?

It's been raining every afternoon here with these monotonous afternoon pop up thunderstorms. Which in turn cancels my efforts to go flying. Until Saturday morning! I FINALLY was able to squeeze in a 1.3hr flight, just long enough to shoot 3 instrument approaches and land before the lighting started striking again.

I spent the rest of the weekend working on the plane. I mainly worked on the tailcone attach section although I dabbled in attaching the steps as well.
In summary:
1. I ordered my Com Antennas, Stainless Steel Heater Boxes, and some hardware and materials I'll need for the step section (more on that when I do the work).
2. Deburred, countersunk, and riveted (what I could reach solo) tailcone and fuselage frames and skins.
3. While deburring I discovered a misdrill I made. I have no idea how it happened. I'll discuss my fix later with pictures.
4. Smoothed out the welds on the steps for a better appearance.
5. Attached the delrin block for the step.
6. I got a buddy to help and finished riveting the tailcone to the fuselage. So now the tailcone and fuselage will forever be one and that section is complete.
7. Got a small start on the upper fuselage section.

Time Log
Wed 7th - 1.5hrs - Made skin shims, drilled out tailcone holes, drilled new holes in bottom
Sat 10th - 3.5hrs - Deburred, dimpled, other misc work
Sun 11th - 5.5hrs - Started riveting what I could reach, started installing step
Mon 12th - 2.5hrs - Got some help finishing up the riveting. Also got a small start on the upper fuselage section.
































This is the hole I misdrilled in the fuselage lower skin. I have no idea how it happened, but the little
snow man figure needs to go away.

 

 

I made a drilling template so I could center the new hole over the snow man. The new hole was drilled out large enough for a #5 rivet. I still had proper edge distance so moving up to a #5 rivet is really not a concern other than appearance and since this is on the bottom of the airplane that didn't concern me either.

The new larger hole (located to the right of the first rib on the left).

 

 

The new #5 rivet installed on the bottom of the aircraft. ...problem solved.

 

 

Baby's first time in the airplane!

New Shop Layout and Tailcone Attach

I had what was described as an ADD Saturday. I pilot friend of mine had free tickets to the Memphis Speedway, I've never been to anything like that before so we decided to fly to Memphis for a few hours to watch the races. The costs would be split 3 ways since we would be bringing a passenger with us as well. So, a cheap flight and free tickets, sounds like a great plan.

Saturday morning brought some large storms over the Memphis area cancelling our plans. So plan B; we'll fly East instead to Chattanooga for the day and do some zip-lining, sounds like a great plan.

The storms are moving East and looks like by the time we tried to head back we would probably be stuck in Chattanooga. So Plan C; we'll fly around town and just shoot some approaches and get lunch.

Weather briefer states the storms will be in our area within 30 minutes, ok no flying today. So plan C; with nothing to do for the day the guys decided to help me rearrange my shop moving the wings to the loft and shifting the large work table to the side so I could position the airplane in the center.

So after a day of bouncing from one idea to another it turned out to be a very productive afternoon. All the finished parts: wings, ailerons, flaps, vertical stabilizer, rudder, elevators, horizontal stabilizer are all stored in the loft. All the piece parts have been moved down and on the shelves for easy access. And the entire shop rearranged to make room for what was about to become something that resembles an airplane.

The next day I called a good friend of mine to stop by for a few hours and help me finish riveting the aft skin of the tailcone. Being the lightweight of the two of us I laid down some blankets and crawled into the tailcone. I good day to be a smaller guy, but still very tight and uncomfortable. We finished the skin and started lining up the two parts, tailcone and fuselage, for what I hope will become a very long relationship between the two. It was pretty easy and went a lot faster than I thought it would. I then swept up the shop, sat down, and just stared at it for a while....awesome.

Total time over the weekend - 6hrs

(including moving airplane parts, riveting the tailcone, and clecoing the tailcone to the fuselage,

not counting sweeping the shop and moving tools)

 

 

 

The shop's new layout.

Preview Post of Weekend Progress

More info to come...but I'm too excited not to post something now!

Static System and Another Vacation

Another vacation makes for a break in building the plane and it's updates. Yep, we took another vacation, this time boating with the in-laws. This is a yearly trip for us and I can't wait to be able to fly to the lake instead of driving the 10+ hours. I currently rent an airplane when I need to fly, but renting an airplane is only feasible if it's for a short trip. A week long boating venture would cost me a great deal as I would pay for the airplane to sit on the ground all week (major negative to renting). So, we load up the car every year and begin our trek. This year we had the baby for the first time which slowed us down a little, but the trip was long before she came along, so what's the difference.

After returning from vacation and completing my duties around the house I was able to get back to the plane. With the wings being finished it's time to prep the tailcone for attachment to the fuselage. The first step was installing the static system. As I stated in an earlier post I am using the SafeAir1 pitot/satic kit. I installed the static system before installing the aft skin on the tailcone for accessibility to the area. The static system install was easy and I finished everything in a few short nights. Next is riveting the aft upper skin and then the big shuffle day when the wings move to the loft and the whole shop is rearranged in preparation for the tailcone install.

Mon 29th -0.75hrs- Started static system install
Tues 30th -1.25hrs - Prosealed static ports in place, made adel clamp tabs for stringer
Wed 31st - 1.5hrs- Riveted tabs to stringer, installed clamps and hose

Static tubing runs from each static port to a tee and then down the upper LH stringer.

 

 



I made little tabs to attach the adel clamps to. This avoided drilling large #10 screw holes in the stringer. They are attached using two 470AD3 rivets.

The static ports are installed with Proseal. Riveting the ports in place can create a puckered look in the skin caused by having so many rivets in a close proximity. The proseal is still drying and I plan on giving them a good test pull to be sure they are secure.....otherwise I'll try plan B - rivet in place anyway.

Prosealing the ports in place does make a really nice finished look.

Back of Static port. The adel clamp picks up an existing tooling hole in the frame.

I made a small angle to attach the tee port to. It attaches in place using an existing hole as well.

"I'm ready to go swimming!"

Completed Structure Overview (732.5hrs)

Now that the wings are complete it's time for an update to the big picture. The next step is hard to depict. I'll be working on the static lines in the tailcone and then attaching the tailcone to the fuselage, so I highlighted the area where it attaches as in work.

 732.5 hrs Total Building Time
   440.5 hrs is a mixture of tail and fuselage, both still have work to be done on them
   292.0 hrs of the total belong to the Wings (includes times listed below)
       75.25 hrs to the Fuel Tanks
       25.5 hrs to the Ailerons
       26.25 hrs to the Flaps
  

 Blue is completed and red is in work.

 

Finished the Wings!

The wings are finished! Wow it feels good to type that. Things were busy this weekend. My birthday was Friday, July 12, and what better way to spend your 30th birthday than skipping work and building your airplane? Or more importantly finishing the wings to your airplane. Jess took the day off as well and helped all day Friday. It was her first time using a rivet gun and she got the hang of it pretty quickly. The lower skins are a lot of work. You're on your knees crawling around on the floor sticking your arm into the wing and stretching to reach the rivet while holding the bucking bar and straining your shoulder muscles to push against the rivet while it's being bucked (that sentence is as long as the work is uncomfortable). Then repeat another 1.3 million times for all the other rivets.....it's exhausting. Despite the nicks, bruises, and soreness it feels great to have the wings completed!

Wed July 10th - 1.0hr - Installed aileron actuation torque tubes
Fri July 12th - 6.0hrs - Jess helped all day. We completed the upper row of rivets and most of the rivets on the ribs down to the J-channel on both wings
Sat July 13th - 4.5hrs -  Just kept riveting.
Sun July 14th - 7.75hrs - Finished riveting skins. Deburred, dimpled, installed inspection panels.
Mon July 15th - 1.5hrs - Finished odds and ends. Safety wired auto pilot roll servo. Installed bell cranks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Pitot Mast is installed. I'm going to wait until later to install the pitot tube. There's less chance of damage to the pitot if it's tucked away on a shelf instead of hanging out waiting to get snagged in the shop.

 

 

 

 

 

I dinged the J-Channel with the bucking bar while riveting. (Sucks, but the show must go on.) The dent on the outside is hardly noticeable and it's on the lower skin so that's even better. I inspected as best I could for any cracking but did not find any. I don't think a repair is required and I could've just moved on, but for ease of mind I decided to make a little doubler channel. It took maybe 5 minutes and now my mind is eased.

The autopilot roll servo is installed and safety wired. This is my second attempt at my first safety wire job. Turned out pretty nice I think. Also the bell cranks are installed and torqued. I had to "polish" the inside of the bell crank tubes so they would freely rotate on the bushings.  I used a small roll of sandpaper wrapped on a drill bit and spun on a drill. Worked really well and very quickly.

                     

 

 

                   

RH Wing complete.

                   

LH Wing complete.

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.