Finished Baggage Area

Another trip....another small break from building. We flew down to Destin over Labor Day weekend for my Brother-in-law's wedding. The flight was quick (quick in Cessna 172 terms...faster than driving let's say that) and easy. A little over 2hrs and the baby slept the whole way there and back.

 

Back to building.

 

I finished the baggage area over the last weekend. I have a side panel that's not permanently installed since I'm waiting on more insulation. I also didn't install the seat belt guides yet since I'm not sure what I'm doing there yet. Jess wants retractable seat belts....can't blame her I do too. I have a plan of how I'm going to do this, but until I have the parts in hand the guides will stay off the airplane. I also finished the foot well pans.

 

Dates and Times

September

Wed 4th - 1.0hrs - Pop rivet floor pans.

Thurs 5th - 1.5hrs - Rivet floor pans.

Fri 6th - 0.5hrs - Changed conduit run on RH side of aircraft to extend to seat frame.

Sat 7th - 4.75hrs - Baggage area work. Pop rivets etc.

Sun 8th -4.0hrs - Finished baggage area and panels. Started baggage door.

Tues 10th - 0.5hrs - Drilled and countersunk hinge

 

Finished the side frames. I primed them with "rattle can" epoxy primer.

I changed the conduit to run all the way to the aft seat frame. This area will be closed off with a riveted in side panel.



All the panels installed.

Started the baggage door.

I always feel like someone is watching me...

Baggage Area Work

Time for another update.

Date and Hours Worked
20 -1.25hrs- Cut insulation
21 -1.25hrs- Clecoed baggage skins, drilled seat hinges
22 -1.5hrs- Drilled, deburred, dimpled foot well floor panels, cut insulation
24 -2.0hrs- Started Floor Pan installation (more on this later)
25 -6.25hrs -Drilled baggage area floors, access panel cutouts, insulation, conduit, match drilled side panels, made stiffening angles for floor panels



One advantage of where I work is having access to some nice avionics tools and the people that know how to use them. Which is why the installation of the BNC connectors for my VHF Comm antennas look really nice.

Most of the baggage area panels clecoed in place and ready for match drilling.

I located the LH and RH access panels (using the stall warning access panel and doubler along with an extra I ordered) as far outboard as I could. The limiting factor is the side panels.

I cut out the access holes. It's pretty easy, just follow the stall warning access panel installation instructions.

I got the conduit installed. I made some little clips to attach the zip ties to and just pop riveted them in place.

 

I've got two tubes on the right and one on the left. I enlarged the holes in the aft bulkhead to fit the conduit through and then supported it with the clips in the baggage area.

 

 

The RH outboard conduit attaches to the same clip in back but snakes through the rib lightening hole and will come up through the floor panel. All of the wire will hide behind the side panel and can pass along the side of the airplane through the existing holes in the frames. 

 

I drill a hole in the seat rib for the com radio cable. This will then pass through the seat skin as well.

 

I made the stiffening angles for the baggage area floors.

Finished Ailerons

A productive weekend leaves me feeling good again.
- Finished the ailerons
- Ran Conduit in the wings
- Finshed the Flap Gap Fairings
- Hung the wing skins in place
- Started the Flaps section

It felt good to finish up another section of the plans and to do it so quickly when compared to the tanks. The Flap Fairings have been patiently waiting to be completed for a while and I crossed those off the to-do list. Conduit needed to be ran and I finished that as well. I cut the little tabs off the 22(?) flap ribs, sanded and deburred them as well, while grilling outside. I hung the skins in place, placed the ribs back on the shelf, then cleaned the shop and put my tools away to be prepped and ready to start the next section after Memorial Day weekend.

Friday May 17 - 1.25hrs - Riveting Ailerons
Saturday May 18 - 4.25hrs
             2.0hrs - Riveting Ailerons, proseal trailing edges
             2.25hrs - Run Conduit
Sunday May 19 - 3.25hrs
             1.75hrs - Finished Ailerons
             0.75hrs - Finished Flap Gap Fairings
             0.75hrs - Cut Flap Ribs

Finished Ailerons Total Time = 25.5hrs

I was able to use the squeezer for all but the last rivet and instead of fighting to get a solid rivet installed there (and possibly bending the edge of the aileron) I just popped a blind in and moved on. I used an MK-319 rivet instead of the the AD3 rivet that is called out. The blind rivet is weaker than the solid, but in this case the material will fail long before either rivet would, so it doesn't matter.

I used an extension on the unibit to drill through the wing walk ribs. I then sanded the holes down with a dremel to clean up the hole.

I ran all the conduit through the wings. I just enlarged the standard hole that you create in the plans. Somewhere Van's aircraft has posted that enlarging this hole to 3/4" is acceptable to run their conduit through the wings. I still went with their conduit even though the corrugated edges make it difficult to pull through the holes and I've heard it's difficult to pull wires through, for three reasons:

1. It sretches, help during flexing of the wings.

2. It's made of Nylon which has a temperature range of -40 to 185 degrees F.

3. It's cheap.

 

 



A look at the finished ailerons.

Wing bottom skins hung in place.