System Testing and First Fuel

LOTS and LOTS of system testing and tweaks after all the parts came together. I also wired the wings and wing tips as well as the tail light. Chasing small gremlins and finding a few things that should have been wired differently but nothing major and nothing was destroyed : ).

First fuel! ....I was really nervous about leaking fuel tanks but not a single drop leaked out. I then worked on calibrating the fuel tanks. For those that have floats, take note, the float can get stuck to the bottom of the tank after sitting for a while and it won't move when you put in fuel. But it will shake loose after taxing around with fuel in the tank. But you then have to re-calibrate that tank. So go fly around until you run that tank dry, can be a startling event, but it's a good test to be sure you are using all of your fuel. Then re-calibrate while refueling. 

Custom vinyl decals around the fuel caps.

Pitot, Lower Skins, and a Fuel Tank

It's been productive around here...I really want to finish these wings.
Tue 18th  - 1.5hrs - Started aileron actuation section, cut and drilled long pushrods
Wed 19th - 1.25hrs - Drilled RH lower skins
Fri  21st   - 2.5hrs - "Deburr Party" deburred all lower wing skins
Sat 22nd  - 5.5hrs - worked on pitot mount, worked on pushrods
Sun 23rd  - 6.5hrs - Primed parts, installed RH Fuel Tank, riveted pitot mount, worked on push rods

Total time for this post = 17.25hrs 

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My Dynon stuff arrived! It was like Christmas in June.

I received the heated/AoA pitot tube, it's controller box, the autopilot roll servo, mounting bracket and wiring kit. Everything look to be of very high quality. Really nice pieces of equipment....good job Dynon!

The servo just has 7" or so of wire coming from it, nothing has a connector installed. So my first order of business, with my new avionic,s was to install the connector on the servo and on one end of the wire bundle. The wire bundle will run down the conduit I installed in the wing and therefore one end of the wires need to remain without a connector installed to fit through the conduit. Having never installed a connector and it's pins before I recruited Mike, a coworker and friend of mine who happens to be an electrical engineer dealing with avionics integration everyday, for help. So I walked down the hall to Mike's office for a lesson on pinning connectors. Turns out it's really easy and we finished the job on our lunch break.        

No problems installing the connectors to the servo.

Drilled out the RH lower skins.

Installed the RH Fuel Tank.

 

Friday night the wife and I had a "Deburr Party", yep it's what you think it is, you stand around and deburr wing skins into the wee hours of the night. Of course the party can't get started until the baby is sleeping. Grab the monitor and sneak out to the shop, she'll never know we were gone : ). We finished all of the lower skins in a single night!

I got a lot of the aileron actuation section complete as well. I cut and primed the push/pull rods and attached the ends, which I etched and alodined, looks nice.

 

 

I needed to mount the pitot controller near the pitot tube so I made a mounting plate to attach to the rib. It rivets into place using four 470AD4 rivets which minimizes the size of the holes cut into the rib. The controller then screws into place using four #6 screws into the nutplates. There are two angles attached to the back to stiffen the plate and provide attachment points for Adel clamps to hold the pitot and AoA lines and wiring. The power wires run from the bottom of the controller and are held in place by an Adel clamp mounted on a spacer to the hole on the lower side of the mount (LH side of the picture below). More pics of the installation will come later when I get everything finished up.

Here is the single picture I have of the install more pics will follow when I finish up the wiring and such...kinda looks like a mess right now.

Finished Flaps and Other Stuff

I finished up the flaps on Saturday. These were a really easy build and they look great. I riveted the trailing edges with proseal and with the rivets altering directions, facing up, facing down, facing up.... I did this to prevent any warping in the part during riveting. (I also did this on all the other trailing edges I have made, so nothing new). I laid some blankets down inside the fuselage and stored them in there for now.

Saturday June 15th - 4.25hrs - Finished Flaps, Riveted trailing edges.
Sunday June 16th - 5.25hrs - drilled skins, pitot tube mount, drilled holes for pitot lines, installed fuel tank

Finished Flaps Total Time = 26.25hrs

I installed the LH Fuel Tank yesterday, RH will come later. This was easier than what I thought it was going to be. I imagined lots of sweat and grunting to be required, but everything lined up really well. I first spaced them up using boards underneath the jigs they were sitting in and then after lining up the first hole I inserted a cleco into the nutplate to hold that end. I then raised the other end and did the same. I few more clecos and everything was lined up. Then I started installing the 56(?) screws...there were a lot.

I drilled out the LH skins and I got some help marking holes I drilled. Then we did the big cleco migration, where every cleco moves over one hole, to final drill the unmarked hole it was previously installed in.

 

 

 

The pitot/AoA lines are installed. I am using the Pitot/Static kit from SafeAir1. It provides tubing, connector, etc for cheaper than if you buy the stuff seperately (trust me I researched it). The tubing is nylon and can withstand -40F to 200+F, very durable. I had to drill new feed through holes for the green line, which will be my pitot line. The blue line will be my AoA line and I used the existing feed throughs made per the plans.

 

 

I worked on my pitot mast installation. I am using the Gretz pitot mast kit to install the Dynon pitot. The instructions for the install are decent, but it leaves a lot up to you, which was fun.

I used an old rib part I messed up on to scavenge an angle bracket.

Here are the 2 main parts. The angle bracket and the backing plate. (Note: This pic was post drilling, the parts don't come with holes)

 

I match drilled the backing plate to the spar first, removed it, then clecoed the skin in place. Reclecoed the plate to the spar on the outside of the skin and with the angle bracket clecoed to the spar I match drilled through the plate, skin, and bracket at the same time.

A picture with the parts clecoed in place. The skin will install over this.

I am installing in the third bay from the wing tip on the outboard rib.