February 9, 2021
Huge day! Cross off the first engine start. Boy did that feel great to have an near instant start and for her to run so smooth. Whew. Backing up, I started with installing the fuel tank vents, attaching the rudder cables to the rudder, and attaching the yaw damper cables. This is was engine prep time; flush both fuel lines,…
January 11, 2021
Oh my, oh my. The bottom cowling was not fabricated ideally from Van’s… Took a lot of cutting, grinding, filling, and sanding to get the cowling to line up pretty well. The sides, bottom, and front all look great. The issue was getting the curves on the bottom to match the fuselage. They are close but there will be some…
January 9, 2021
I’m not sure why I put off the Elevator trim tabs for so long but hey they are done now. Riveting, proseal, more riveting. Oh and blind riveting. Once the proseal cures I’ll slide in the hinge pins. The big excitement of the day was finishing up the electrical wiring. I put in the remaining instruments and flips the switch.…
December 10, 2020
Took some time but I got all the nut plates for the instruments installed and the instruments mounted. Also got the defrost fans installed, wired up, and tested. Then it was on to the baggage and rear seat pans. All the parts are now dimpled and deburred. Still nervous about a missed wire so I’ll hold off on riveting them…
December 9, 2020
The Aerosport panel sections near the firewall tilt up and results in the inability to drill a hold in them to secure to the tunnel cover. So today started with making a couple brackets to secure that two parts. That done I dropped off the carbon fiber pieces to Gene Kear (719-338-0173) a local legend who is going to give…
November 7, 2020
I started by finishing up fabrication of the two brackets for the Elevator trim. Then on to cleaning and priming all of the parts. Queue the fun, assembling the pitch trim. This went smoothly until testing, the servo hit metal before reaching the internal stop. Need to think a bit about how to correct this, I can’t see any possible…
November 6, 2020
Laying in bed last night what pops into my mind but that I forgot to pull the wire through the wings for my extended range fuel tank pumps. Ugh, that could have been a pain. So guess what I started my day doing… Reading through the instructions and reviewing the excellent builders log by Robert Lussow I decided the tanks…
October 23, 2020
The day started deburring the remaining parts for the Horizontal Stabilizer followed by dimpling the skins. Sweet Jesus are there a lot of holes to dimple. Then priming prep followed by priming the last Horizontal Stabilizer parts. Not to be forgotten the front and rear spars holes were countersunk. Back to the Elevators, I riveted the ribs and then installed…
October 19, 2020
So after all the prep work on the Elevator trim tab when trying to fold the trailing edge I messed it up. It wouldn’t affect the flight characteristics but visually it would always bother me, so I will rather redo it. Ugh. But it was bound to happen at some point. “Employment” work and helping another builder cut 3 hours…
October 18, 2020
So it was nice and quiet, just me in the hanger today and I was productive. I was able to finish up all the final prep work, knock out the three remaining skins that needed ribs riveted, and then rivet in the rear spar on the Elevators. That finished I cut the Elevator horn weights before moving on the last…
October 17, 2020
After playing hokey for five days to go mountain biking in Moab it was back to work. Cleaned up the tailcone light mounting before continuing the riveting the the Elevator trim tab bracket and the Elevator ribs.
October 9, 2020
So evidently there are a number of small steps I had yet to approach, so Elevator work continued. Drilled the trim hinge and primed the smaller parts. Next I took on cutting and sanding foam blocks for the edge of the Elevator and Elevator Trim. Those took much longer than I would have expected. Oh and I also scuffed the…