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...

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.