CHAPTER 10 Finishing and final assembly
To read another Chapter click hereunder:
| Friday, April 19th, 2008 | Brake fluid and wheelpants |
| We plan to start the engine next week. So, it is important to have brakes for that. That's why we planned to put the brake fluis into the system. The method we used: the brake fluid reservoir was extended with a fitting and a tube. It is from here that we will suck the fluid through the system. | |
| Here another view of the fitting and the tube connected to a special pneumatic vacuum pump that will suck the fluid from the wheels to the reservoir. | |
| The reservoir is connected with this thing. By blowing air (4 Bar) through this system, it sucks the fluid from te bottom to this reservoir. By doing this all air is pumped out of the braketubes... | |
| And here it starts. A bottle with brake fluid connected with a tube to the brake nipple. | |
| You can see the red fluid going into the brake system... Works perfect...
So we finished this and everything works as necessary and expected... |
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| I defined the middle of the airplane in the front and on the tail. Both middle points were connected with a line. | |
| The middle line will be the reference to line the wheelpants. | |
| And this I used to line up the wheelpants. | |
| I did this for both wheels. So this is finished and ready to finalize with the fairings. | |
| The fairings temporarily installed. Nice view... | |
| Time spent | 9 hours |
| Friday, April 26 th, 2008 | Intention to start the engine |
| Luc came and we had the intention to start the engine today. We spent the whole day to adjust the perfect runs for the control cables. Some other minor controls were done. We didn't reach a full run between idle cut-off and full throttle. At least we found a problem in one of the control cables obstructing a right adjustment. The cable was damaged due to a quite big angle the pushrod in the cable had to made. I will order a new cable and remake a better attaching point for the cables. | |
| Time spent with Dimi, Luc and Ronny | 30 hours |
| Saturday, May 2nd, 2008 | Remake the attachingpoint for the control cable |
| The problem is the fact that the three control cables and the nuts to fasten them take much more width than available in the throttle quadrant. To avoid this, I decided to mill a part which will secure the cables in a way that the nuts can be avoided. The white teflon part was milled to guide the cables and to fasten them in place. By using a hole some smaller that the thread on the cables, it will be pressed in the teflon and stay in place... | |
| Here you see the white teflon cable clamp in place into the bracket I milled to attach the complete assembly behind the throttle quadrant. By avoiding the nuts with this pressing bracket, the three cables can be aligned and take exact the place available for the quadrant. | |
| I placed one cable and covered it with the top teflon part. The two teflon parts will sandwich the cable and by bolting them together, the thread of the cable will be pressed in the softer material that teflon is. The cables will for sure remain in place. Advantage is that loosening the top part will give the possibility to adjust the running length of the control cable in an easy way. | |
| An alu top cover presses in an equalo way the two teflon guiders together. | |
| To easen the installation I installed some platenuts on the top alu cover. | |
| Here you see the idea. Works perfect... | |
| And at least I installed the complete assembly in place. You can see the three control cables nice and equal divided in the 5.3 cm available width. Nice secured with the teflon pressing them together and holding them in place.. | |
| And last but not least a picture from the bottom to the top. The 4 bolts press the two teflon guides nice together. The cables need in this way a minimum width and are perfectly aligned. By operating the throttle quadrant now, the pushrods remain almost perfect in line which avoids the same problem. The angle they have must be kept in an absolute minimum.
Tomorrow I will continue working with Gerry. If it works, we will try to find our Alt Hold problem which still exists after I received the repaired unit. |
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| Time spent | 8 hours |
| Sunday, 3rd, 2008 | Fixed the Altitude Hold problem |
| No pictures folks. We spent the whole day in figuring out the problem I had with the altitude hold system. After I sent it back to Trio Avionics, I received it, installed it back and we remained with the same problem. After starting it up, the alt hold stays in the testing phase while it should go automatically in the "ready" mode after 8 seconds. This returned set is doing the same. So, Gerry and I started buiding up a new wiring harness and this worked well. So, back to the installed harness we found out that the shields on the servo side were connected with the wrong cable. After fixing this, the system started up as expected. So, problem solved. Up to the next step... | |
| Time spent | 12 hours |
| Monday, 4th, 2008 | Grinding varnish sprayed layer of wing |
| Well, here the picture of the altitude hold ready and working. Works nice. In the meantime I upgraded the EZ 1 to an EZ 3. With preselecting desired altitudes etc... Read the info at the website of Trio Avionics. | |
| Rudy sprayed the varnish layer on the wings. This is regular automobile Akzo Nobel varnish. The final layer will be a special varnish for aircraft. Varnsh with an extra UV protection and scratch resistant. But, before this will be sprayed on the wing, this layer has to be grinded in a way that the lines in the flight direction on the wings are eliminated as much as possible. So, grinding and grinding and grinding...
This requirement is mine due to the fact that each disturbing influence on the lift coefficient has to be eliminated... |
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| Nevertheless, this gives already a nice idea of the final quality of the wing. It's like a mirror... | |
| It's hard to start grinding on a fresh painted wing. But it has to be perfect... Here the scratches of the grinding job. But, one of these days it is the end of these three weeks painting job... | |
| Another painfull picture... All layers of the design are now grinded in a way that the layers are almost equally and without feeling where they are sprayed on top of each other... | |
| A nice detail of the design. All flaring out lines of the wipes. Life it is really beautiful... | |
| Time spent | 7 hours |
| Saturday, 10th, 2008 | Installing wheel and gear fairings |
| We continued installing the platenuts for the wheelfairing and finetuned the gear fairing. By installing a Petzel light in the inside of the wheelpants, it is simple to drill the holes for the attachement points. | |
| The inside of the gear and the wheel pant temporarily installed. All platenuts are placed and riveted. So we could check the position and everything seems to fit as required. | |
| The bolts in place and measured again the drawings. Both sides finished. | |
| Then we installed temporarily the lower cowling to make it match with the wheelpants. The only thing left now are the fairings to the cowling. The intersection fairings. I ordered them @ Fairings-etc. who shipped it weeks ago. It seems they are stuck at the customs... I will call them on Monday. Further, Rudy came by and told the result of the final layer Varnish looks perfect. Before Wednesday the wings will be back in my workshop. Looking forward... |
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| Time spent with Johan | 14 hours |
| Saturday, 17th, 2008 | Grinding - Priming - cowling and wheelpants |
| This week I spent some time in preparing the wheelpants and the cowling with primer. I filled all pinholes, grinded and primed the wheelpants. What a job. I will never make an epoxy airplane... for sure... | |
| Only some nose finetuning is left. All pinholes are covered and the complete cowling is roughly finished. Johan assisted some time in grinding...
In the meantime I discovered the parts from Fairings-etc. They where stucked at the customs. They needed some more information before releasing them. So, this week they will arrive... |
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| Together with Ronny we bolted the two Amphenol connectors to the fuselage. | |
| The inside of the fuselage, we supported the cables on these connectors with some foam to prevent them for possible shafing. | |
| And then we proceeded with configuring the two Dynon toys... By connecting them together with the DSAB communication cables to make them communicate together. Now we have the possibilities to display all different windows where we want them. On the EFIS (left) we configured just for fun the engine information. | |
| ... and vice versa. This really works fine. | |
| After we upgraded the Dynon EFIS and EMS, we also customized the information screens. This is a screen where the frequencies of all Belgian airfields are bundled together. | |
| And here a picture of one of the checklists. This is the run-up checklist. If anybody would like to have this configuration file, just let me know...
Hereunder a better view on the working panel. |
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| Time spent with Johan and Ronny and the time spent for grinding and priming during the last week... | 30 hours |
| Thursday, 22nd, 2008 | Test run engine |
| Double click on the image to see... and hear the first run up. Have an eargasm...
Luc came and we planned to do the first testrun with the engine. We decided to do this before closing the fuselage. After preparing everything we fired it up in the afternoon. Total time running was approx 1 hour. Engine gages looked good except the fuel flow sensor which is not correct. We have to reposition this. Another thing we discovered was that the wires on the shunt have to be switched. All the rest is OK. No leaks, no problems (after we connected a ground cable from the engine to the battery). The control cables need some additional adjustments but that's all. We can proceed to the next step. Finishing the thing... |
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| Time spent with Ronny and Luc | 15 hours |
| Saturday and Sunday 24-25 May , 2008 | Proceeding cowling and connectors |
| I used epoxy to finetune a part in the cowling that didn't match. After drying and grinding I started with the final touch. Again, grinding, filler, grinding, priming etc... | |
| At least 6 times filling and grinding to get rid of all the pinholes in the cowling... | |
| But, at the end, the surface is very nice. I still have to go on for some minor repairs... | |
| In the meantime the fairings arrived. I started positioning the lower fairings with clecoes. This is for the next time... | |
| The wires from the EGT and CHT sensors still where waiting to be brought together in a waterproff connecetor. I bought these circular connectors to do this. This took me almost a whole Saturday to finish. The second female connector in in backorder. I hope to have it next week to finish this... | |
| But, at least the right side is finished and tested. Works fine. | |
| Then the panel. The panel uses several Molex connectors to connect all wires. I decided to replace all Molex connectors with this one. A 18 pin rectangular connector I ordered at Spruce. Nice stuff... So, today I started to connect the 18 wires from the panel to this one connector. This will make removing and installing the panel much easier. And, on top, the quality of these connectors is wany times higher that these stupid Molex things... | |
| Somewhere in the middle. 10 wires inserted in the male part of the connector which is on the panel. I finished all and to test the connections... | |
| ... inserted the pins (females) one by one in the male connector before fixing them finally. I'm glad I did this because some functions seem to give a problem. We will find this out next week... | |
| Time spent with Ronny | 15 hours |
| Tuesday 27 May , 2008 | Intersection Fairings and proceed connectors |
| The clock ticks... I would like to finish the project before the end of June. At least somewhere in august the Skypassion RV-7 has to fly... So, that's wgy I proceed in the evening hours when possible. Yesterday Ronny joined me to find out why some annunciators gave a wrong indication. We solved the problem.
Today I went to the workshop to proceed on the intersection fairings I received from Fairings-etc. I trimmed them to fit. |
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| Afterwards I clecoed them in place and laminated them to the wheelpants. | |
| Now just wait until dried and then finishing these things. | |
| This was the missing female circular connector. It came today and I finished the connection. Afterwards I tried it and this is perfect... | |
| And this is the female rectangular connector which connects all wires of the panel with one connector. Much better than that Molex stuff. I ordered it at Spruce. | |
| Time spent with Ronny yesterday | 4 hours |
| Saturday 31st May, 2008 | Intersection Fairings and cowling finishing |
| This is what I hated most to do in the complete project. All epoxy work and the filling up of pinholes, grinding and finally priming. Everytime again, after priming, I discover new pinholes... | |
| Nevertheless, I have to go through this. In the meantime you see that I finished the laminating of the lower intersection fairings to the wheel pants. This needs some more finetuning but it starts to look good... | |
| Another view of a rear wheelpant finished so far... | |
| I finished also the rear rudder fairing. Although.... finished..?? Pinholes and pinholes, ... | |
| The cowling is primed and again... pinholes... This starts to look well, but, I discovered another 15 pinholes. I will continue until these bastards are covered... | |
| And then last but not least, I started with the upper fairings. I will go on tomorrow. | |
| Time spent with some support from Johan | 15 hours |
| Sunday, June 1st, 2008 | Intersection Fairings and cowling finishing |
| The meteo predicted bad weather. So, back to the workshop and proceeding with the intersection fairings. My target for today was to finish the installation of these fairings.
Ronny came and said to be back in the afternoon. This was really a nice thing to hear because the installation of the platenuts in the cabin for the intersection fairings is something you absolutely need a helping hand for. |
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| And this was in the afternoon the result. Both sides finished and ready to prime. | |
| Afterwards we continued by finishing up the wires going to the rectangular panel connector. In the meantime we fixed some issues we still had to do. The two wires on the shunt were changed. So, now the load/unload indication on the Dynon is perfect.
ANother thing was the problem we had with the annunciator LED between the Dynons. This has to indicate a possible error in the Dynon. We switched the Pos 12 V and this had to be changed to Ground. Fixed now... ANother thing was the communication between the two Dynon screens which was disabled. We couldn't fix this or find the reason. So after reading some trouble shooting lines in the manual we decided to re-upload the latest firmware to the EFIS. The version 4.04. |
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| Here you seen the EFIS accepting the communication from the PC with the firmware. | |
| Here the progress bar of the upload. After we uploaded the latest version, everything seemed to work perfectly. Also the ARINC-communication was back perfectly. We also made the connection with the Garmin 340 which gives now communication with the GNS 430...
So, another big step forward. We can now staring to think on the final steps. Closing up and painting... |
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| Time spent with Ronny | 14 hours |
| Monday, June 2nd, 2008 | Preparing epoxy parts for final primer layer |
| After I finished some things I had to do professionally, I left to the workshop in the late afternoon and continued working to the late evening hours. I really want to finish this before the end of June. And this must be possible if we have some luck.
The planning was to grind with water grinding paper and to fill the last pinholes I would descover. So I did this for all parts from epoxy. The cowling looks perfect after I filled these last little bastards. The same for the wheelpants. |
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| Then I sprayed all parts the last time. For the intersection fairings and the gear fairings, these still need some filler and grinding to get rid of the pinholes. But the end of this is nearby... | |
| So, if I have the possibility, tomorrow I try to end this chapter. I hope to have some hours after my work that has to be done first... | |
| Time spent | 7 hours |
| Thursday, June 13th, 2008 | Turning reduction for eyeball vents |
| The eyeball vent system has a diameter of almost 3". The tube coming from the naca vents is about 2". So, I needed to find a system to make a reduction from the eyeballs to the requiered 2". I fugured out that I could turn this on my lathe. Here the lathe ongoing... | |
| And here the results. Two home-made reductions. | |
| Here you see the idea. A 3" part to fit on the backside of the eyeball system with thereafter the reduction to the tube diameter. | |
| Here assembled. It fits perfectly... | |
| And here the right side installed to the nacavent tube. I still have to bolt this in place. | |
| While the left side is fixed in place. Here a picture from under the panel to see how it looks finished... | |
| Time spent with Ronny | 6 hours |
| Saturday, June 14th, 2008 | Replacing the external power and some miscellaneous things... |
| This took almost all day. We brought the external power connector firewall forward and made this assembly to install it. It is really the best position for this. We started also with the external power door in the cowling. I will continue making and finishing this next week... | |
| We installed the induction snorkle in place. Also this took some time. For one or another reason, the fitting gave some problems athough it was perfect in the past... | |
| Johan cleaned the aft fuselage. This is ready to be closed. But we saw a problem with the static port on the right side. We will finish this next week and then we can close this up... | |
| Time spent with Ronny, Gerry and Johan | 22 hours |
| Monday, June 16th, 2008 | Cowling door external Power |
| Inbetween I had the opportunity to proceed some hours with the manufacturing of the external power door in the cowling. Here the push latch I used to make a piano hinge free door. I started clecoeing it in place after I made an alu door. | |
| Finding the exact position for the buttons was not so simple. I premanufactured it in a piece of plexi. I used the plexi as a template to final drill these holes. | |
| And then I installed the hinge finally after preparing it with anticorrosion and primer. | |
| This is the idea. The external power can be plugged into the connector behind the cowling. | |
| The latch installed with rivets | |
| Just a simple push opens the door now... | |
| And behind the door the connector... So, finished. Up to the final finishing of the remaining things... | |
| Time spent in the evening | 5 hours |
| Saturday, June 21st, 2008 | Finishing bagagecompartiment and extra sensors |
| In the morning I started with the installation of the two socks for closing the side holes of the pushrods for the aillerons. Elvira made these for me. I found the drawings on the website of Sam Buchanon. | |
| This is the final result. The pushrods will come through this and can be closed with the rope. Perfect system. Also to keep all small innsects out of the fuselage later in the hangar... | |
| Ivo joined me in the morning and we proceeded together with finishing all remaining platenuts in the bagagecompartiment. We started installing these two blocks. | |
| Afterwards we installed all these platenuts holding the center part of the floor cover. | |
| And then finished setting these blind rivets... | |
| And last but not least, these platenuts to receive the backplate. | |
| In the afternoon, Johan, Ronny and Gerry joined us. Gerry and Ronny proceeded with some sensors to be placed on the oilcooler and the alternate airinlet. These will be connected to the contact positions of the Dynon EMS. Before they discussed a way to install them. | |
| This proximity sensor will annunciate the oil cooler door closed or open. We will later programm this into the EMS. This proximity sensor gives contact when metal comes in the neighborhood. | |
| And afterwards Gerry and Ronny proceeded installing the sensor for the alternate air inlet with the same purposes... | |
| In the meantime, Johan installed the springs connecting the pushrods to the electric trim system. He also added an extra pisano hinge on the floor to accept the backside of the pilot/co-pilot chair to be a little more rearward. This to allow Ronny to have some centimeters more for his legroom...
Next step is the seat section to be finished. We reach closer the final closure of the canopy and top cover behind the instrument panel. |
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| Time spent with Ronny, Gerry, Johan and Ivo |
31 hours |
| Sunday, June 22nd, 2008 | Front top cover and defrost holes |
| The weather was predicted to be stormy and at noon, a lot of wind and towering cumuli showed the weather forecast to be true. I decided to proceed in the workshop. I went on with the front top skin. First of all the two holes for the defrost system had to be positioned and made. Together with Johan we defined the position and cut these out of the top skin. | |
| I drilled the six mounting holes and countersunk them to receive the right screws. | |
| This is the system as it is opened to let hot air be blown on the windscreen... | |
| It is possible to close this too...
Oh yeah, I ordered these at spruce, months ago... |
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| This is in bottom side of the top skin with the installed system... | |
| I clecoed the top cover skin in place and tried this out. Works fine. Even dealing with the slight curve of the skin on that place... | |
| This is the template to install the Deluxe glare shield trim that I ordered from Classic Aero Design.
You can see this in the following link... |
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| A better overview of the clecoed top cover skin. On top you see the two defrost systems... | |
| Ant then a first look of the non-trimmed windscreen in place. | |
| And the side view of this. Next step is the cut... | |
| Time spent with Johan | 7 hours |
| Monday, June 23th, 2008 | Windscreen cut and trim |
| Guess, Elvira leant me a hand to perform the windscreen cut... We measured an approximate cut and trimmed from then on until we reached a good fit. | |
| We went a little lower with the plexi than Vans decribes. I will have a look on internet to see how other builders made a sleeve to bring the plexi behind the side skin... | |
| This week, during the evening hours I will try to fix the windscreen so that we can close it up on Saturday... | |
| Well, this starts to look as an airplane. I discovered some problems with the primer. Probably a complete removal of the primer will be necessary... Shhhhh... | |
| But have a look at this. The Classic Aero Design glare shield trim... Looks good not?... | |
| Time spent with ELvira | 5 hours |
| Friday, June 27th, 2008 | Wheelpants painted and removal primer fuselage |
| Yesterday evening I received the wheelpants painted in white. I made the striping on it for the yellow layer and today it came back painted with the yellow color. | |
| Here you can still see the striping and the masking film after it was painted in yellow. | |
| So, as we did with the wings, this layer masking films has to be removed to finally put the blue striping masks in place. | |
| Before the blue masking and after removal of the masking film of the previous step... | |
| This is really hard to do. These "eggs" are difficult to stripe. But we succeeded putting the stripe edges on it with masking film. | |
| And then finally closed up all remaining parts which have to be protected for the next painting layer. I brought them back to Rudy who promised to spray the blue wipe on it today...
In the evening I received a call that this was finished. Maybe I will pick them up tomorrow. |
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| I took the finished empennage with me and installed it temporarily in place. | |
| And then... MAJOR ISSUE ...
while taping the windscreen in place to hold it's position I discovered that the painting layer came off the fuselage where the tape was set. So I investigated this and decided to get rid of the complete primer layer. Reason? Well, 3 possible options... 1. ZinChromate out of date. Most probably 2. It was too cold / wet when I sprayed the fuselage in the primer. 3 Insufficient degreasing before painting... I think that the first reason will be the truth. So, no risk. I started to grind everything off the fuselage and will redo this. Shhhh..... |
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| This afternoon Bernard visited me. We had a lot of brainstorming and before we knew, it was almost 7.30 PM. So, I stopped and we will proceed tomorrow. First of all we will close the front section of the fuselage...
Again a big step forward. I still hope to bring the fuselage to Rudy end of next week... We'll see... |
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| Time spent | 3 hours |
| Saturday, June 28th, 2008 | Closing fuselage frontsection |
| What a day... A lot of helping hands, difficult part of the project and although, a big big step forward.
Dimi and I started with closing the front section. Step by step. We started with the center rows to avoid as much as possible bucking from the inside. And this went perfect... |
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| During the riveting we finished also the tubes coming from the hot air selector to the defrost. The orange tube is the one to the left side defrost point. Also the center bar to the roll bar was bolted in place. | |
| The whole day, Dimi took care of the bucking bar. A lot of the rivets had to be bucked from the inside. This gave some nice pictures like this one... | |
| Well, comfortable is something else. But Dimi did a wonderfull job. | |
| The riveter was sometimes Ronny, sometimes me. Some of the rivets are really hard to be set. But we went on step by step... | |
| ... and last but not least, around 7 PM we finished the last rivet. This is ready and waiting now for the last step before painting. The windshield... | |
| In the meantime, Ivo took care of the primer removal. At the end of the day he finished almost the right side. Perfectly done with a lot of care... | |
| The bottom side remains. So we decided to lift the tail as high as possible to finish this job. To prvent the airplane tilting forard we secured the engine to the ceiling. This gives more space to proceed. I proceeded with this and will continue doing this tomorrow. | |
| Have a look. All primer has to go off. So, ginding until gone... | |
| This is the result of Ivo's job. The right side is what the bottom has to be... I hope to put the aircraft back into primer tomorrow. And maybe I can start with the windshield. Let's hope.
With some luck the aircraft will go to the paintbooth at the end of the coming week.... |
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| Time spent with Ivo, Ronny and Dimi | 28 hours |
| Sunday, June 29th, 2008 | Further paint removal, back to primer and windshield... |
| Well, a hell of a job. Removal of old primer is something you feel for days in your arms for sure. But, I finished it and started with the zinc chromate primer. I sprayed the complete fuselage and waited a couple of hours to let it dry. | |
| This gives a good feeling. The color of the sprayed chromate changes at the moment it etches into the aluminum. I'm quite sure this was the problem with the previous layers. But OK, by working these days on this this sh... will be forgotten soon...
Ready for the primer spray... |
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| I only made these pictures after completion. | |
| The complete fuselage is back in shape as required. I tried also with tape the fixing onto the surface. Looks perfect now... | |
| In the meantime Johan, who joined me this morning, prepared the windscreen for the Sikaflex job. He taped exactly the protection tapes in place so that I can find my orientation for the Sika place to be added... This is the top side of the windscreen... | |
| And here two layers of two different tape colors. Also perfect in place. | |
| Before I can glue the windscreen in place, I have to attach the leather on top of the glareshield. I made a template to cut the right shape out of the leather I bought at Classic Aero Design. | |
| Here some samples after the cut? | |
| I prepared the glareshiled completely with the famous Gorilla Glue from Spruce and attached the leather in place. The tapes are to hold the leather perfectly flat onto the glareshield while curing. I leave this over night. Tomorrow I will make a picture of the final result... But, this looks nice... | |
| Last job of this hectic day, the filler I used to finish the riveted oil door. I will grind this and then the cowling can be moved to the painter. | |
| Time spent with Johan | 14 hours |
| Monday, June 30th, 2008 | Windscreen install |
| This afternoon I could free-up some time and went back to the workshop. First I removed the tape I put on the leather to hold it in place. This is the result so far of the glareshield. AFter this I started to install the windscreen fairing on top of the canopy. | |
| Since the fit was already done, I had to start with the side mount of the windscreen. I prefer to let the windscreen go behind the top cover on both sides. So I drew the lines where the cut needs to be made to put the windscreen through. | |
| And then I made the cuts on both sides. | |
| I went for an alu fairing. To find the right swing in the shape, I started to make a template with some carton. This needed some cutting and fitting before it was OK. | |
| And then I drew the shape of the fairing template to a sheet of aluminum, cut it out and tried it. This looks good. I had to divide the complete fairing in three parts. The left and the right side and a middle section. | |
| Then I brought this fairing in place and put it in between the canopy and the front top skin sides. | |
| I drilled all holes necessary to attach the complete assembly to the roll bar. | |
| I made the right screw threads in the holes to receive the screws. | |
| And finally countersunk the plexi and dimpled the fairing. If possible I will glue the canopy tomorrow evening. On Wednesday evening I will put the epoxy so that I can start grinding and finishing the complete fuselage to send it to the painter.
So, I'm confident that the painting job can start beginning of next week. I went home at 11 PM. Time to sleep. Things go fzst now. The end is near... |
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| Time spent | 9 hours |
| Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 | Windscreen glue with Sikaflex |
| As planned, big day. Glueing and installing the windscreen. So, I started with all preparations for the Sikaflex job. I roughened all surfaces where the Sikaflex will come. | |
| Then I cleaned all these regions with the Silikonen entferner from Spiess Hecker and afterwards with the Sika cleaner. | |
| The plexi parts where primed with the Sika Primer, and had to dry for 30 minutes. The metal parts where cured with the Sika activator and had to dry for 10 minutes.
I asked ELvira to help me position the windscreen in place. So she came and helped me with this. |
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| Just in time, I put the Sikaflex on the roll bar and on the front section there where the canopy windscreen touches each other. We decided to keep all in place with the little plates in front and temporarily with clecoes. Immediately we installed the fairing on top and screwed it in place after putting Sikaflex in between the screen and the fairing. | |
| So, the front side of the windscreen installed with the Sikaflex layer. I made a perfect shape using some mix of water and shampoo. This works fine with some plastic gloves. | |
| The fairing seen from the inside. | |
| I grinded the fairing outside and I grinded extra the top side of the windscreen and the alu where the epoxy tissue will come. Afterwards again degrease with the Silikonen entferner and aceton. Ready to bring the epoxy on it. Johan came to help me with this... | |
| ANother view of the ready-to-epoxy windscreen... | |
| We put 4 layers of tissue in the curve between the windsceen and the top cover. | |
| The yellow tape is the top tape which is positioned a little higher than the bottom tape. This gives us some more reference once we start grinding. | |
| So far so good... Next thing is making the good shape with filler. And then grinding, grinding, grinding and finally the primer to prepare for the paint booth...
Will be continued soon... |
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| Time spent with Elvira and Johan | 13 hours |
| Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 | Windscreen filler, grinding and priming |
| I started making a pallet to apply the filler in the curve of the windscreen. | |
| Here you can see the shape and the way of applying the special epoxy-based filler to the edge of the windscreen and the top cover. | |
| The filler needs only 10 minutes to harden and becomes very hard. The advantage is that it is quite interesting for grinding. | |
| While the filler was drying, I made a grinding block to easen the grinding in the wanted curve. | |
| This is the result after some hours of grinding... | |
| And finally, after cleaning tons of dust, I primed the assembly. Some final touch is further necessary but it looks very nice.
Tomorrow the fairing with some minor things and then grinding to prepare the fuselage for the painter. Thrilling...... |
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| Time spent | 6 hours |
| Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 | Fairing filler, primer final touch and grinding |
| The fairing was the only thing left so far for finalizing the fuselage priming. I started grinding, filler and grinding again... This until perfect... | |
| In the meantime Elvira started from the backside top to final grinding the primer on the fuselage and tail. While she proceeded I used the filler to finish minor things we discovered. | |
| I painted with primer after I put a zinc chromate layer to this top cover. All new alu regions are now covered with primer. Then... again grinding, repaint, grinding, filler, grinding, painting....
The first tape removed from the windscreen and then grinding again until last tape and primer became equal on thickness. |
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| At least we removed all tape and the plastic protection and then we could see the first time the fit of the frontside of the windscreen. This looks quite good. Some more final minor retouches... | |
| And then this view... Nice fit... | |
| It's really kicking to see the glare of the cockpit. | |
| So, now it looks more then ever on an airplane. The only thing left is some minor optimalization. The complete fuselage is grinded and ready to spray... This is for next week... |
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| Time spent with Elvira | 10 hours |
| Friday, July 4th, 2008 | Spraying the cowling |
| This was really difficult. The masking film is applied after Rudy painted the complete cowling white. The striping makes a very difficult three dimensional swipe/curve which was absolutely difficult to apply. After we finished this, Rudy sprayed the yellow color on the top cowling half. | |
| The bottom half does not contain any yellow. This will only have the blue striping running all over the fuselage. On the top half there is also a part blue which is masked as you see on this picture.
After the blue will be painted, we will make the striping of the grey wipe from which I plan to let it airbrush to a head of an eagle. But this is later... |
|
| Rudy sprayed the blue layer and I waited until it dryed. And this is the result so far...
Have a look in the design. The blue forms something like a cartoon propellor. A mini propellor... |
|
| . | From the side this is the beginning of a long blue striping over the fuselage, dividing the white and yellow color. By doing this, I put a kind of artificial lengthening over the fuselage. Making the fuselage optical more streamed. This is also the reason on the wings. The design divides the wing in two smaller parts which gives more length to the wing... |
| So, a better view from the side... This looks really gorgeous... | |
| Last step for the cowling. The curve of the grey wipe. This is where the Eagle head will be airbrushed into... For this I will visit another airbrusher on Monday. I saw his work which is absolutely really art. I try to imagine already the final view... | |
| Time spent with Elvira | 6 hours |
| Saturday, July 5th, 2008 | Last small touches before painting fuselage |
| The fuselage is ready to be sprayed in the paintbooth. Normally today Rudy will pick it up and transport it to his place for the paintjob next week. So, knowing that Gerry will come and help me, I started to do several small things which are also necessary in this stage. We started installing this cover plate. All blind rivets were set. | |
| Then we screwed all remaining plates in the inside of the cabin. The heating system, the cover in the middle of the floor and the cover over the high pressure pump. | |
| After this all was finished, we put the carpet in place. This is really nice. Let's say, the finishing touch inside the cabin... | |
| The stick boots I bought at Classic Aero Design are attached with velcro. | |
| Then, the glareshield edge was screwed in place. In the mmeantime we installed the flood light on the glareshield bottom. | |
| Here the floodlight in the top of the instrument panel working... | |
| And then suddenly we realized that this little thing has to be installed before the painting job. The lock...
We put an oval hole, exactly the shape of the lock, on the side plate of the canopy. |
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| We bolted it and put the lock plate on it. Afterwards we measured the exact place where this plate is going in. | |
| And this was made on the slider bar. The lock works perfect...
Now waiting for news from Rudy. Probably tomorrow we will transport the fuselage to his shop. |
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| Time spent with Gerry | 16 hours |
| Sunday, July 6th, 2008 | Fuselage transport to paintbooth |
| Sunday morning... The big moment for transporting the fuselage to Rudy's paintbooth. Rudy could use a small van for this from one of his friends. The wheel base was exactly fitting on the van. We secured everything as good as possible... | |
| The nose came out of the van for almost 1 meter. But no problem. This was absolutely safe to do... | |
| Last checks and the enroute... | |
| You can imagine the faces of the inhabitants of this small village. Everybody was pointing on this aircraft coming through the village. I didn't make picures of the moment we manouvered the fuselage into Rudys place. I'm really talking about millimeters to guide the complete fuselage through walls, gates etc... When the aircraft will go out, I will make pictures. This is really spectacular. So, now painting. Tomorrow morning first masking the cabin and the engine and the gears. ANd then the white layer first... | |
| Time spent with Ian and Rudy | 3 hours |
| Monday, July 7th, 2008 | Fuselage first masking, preparing for painting |
| Today I masked the complete fuselage and prepared it for painting. The canopy was masked in a way that the top painting is coming just 1 mm on the plexi. For that the plexi was roughened and sprayed with a special product to receive the paint. | |
| I masked the complete engine,... | |
| and the cabin was covered with paper. | |
| Then the canopy was covered and prepared for spraying.I will paint it yellow outside and inside. This to put a varnish layer at the end. | |
| We discovered some minor issues on the elevator which had to be filled and grinded again. This is ready now... | |
| The bottom cowling was installed to see the position where later the striping will be placed. We marked this for later layers... | |
| The propellor covered and this just to see the painted nose on the fuselage... | |
| The paintbooth gives the possibility to tilt the aircraft in front. The ceiling keeps the nose down. This will help Rudy to do the spraying of the bottom side... | |
| Here you see the same from the backside. Makes it much easier...
Rudy will try to paint the white layer today or tomorrow during the day. This gives us the possibility to do the first striping so that Rudy can proceed with the following layers while I'm abroad on Wednesday and Thursday. |
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| Time spent | 7 hours |
| Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 | Fuselage first layer painted and masking for second |
| Today, early in the morning, Rudy sprayed the first layer. The bottom side received some more layers and is ready to be varnished. The sides and the empennage will be painted later today. | |
| I masked a curtain around the finished bottom to prevent it from paint dust while Rudy was painting the top and the both sides.
After he sprayed the top side of the empennage, a very strange issue appeared in the white painted layer. |
|
| to prevent | Here you see a detail of the structure appearing in the painted layer on the empennage. No idea concerning the reason for this. There must be some silicone particles on the surface. Strange because we used degreasing fluid before spraying. |
| So, wet grinding was necessary to remove the fresh sprayed layer. I can not describe our emotional situation. It looked like frustration, disappointment, ... I don't know, but nothing else possible than grinding and removing this layer. | |
| So, after more than one hour grinding I finished this job. Rudy sprayed again while I went home to eat something. When I came back, the empennage was resprayed and looked beautiful.
The reason is still a mysterie but, it is OK now... Elvira joined me and we went to attach the first masks to give Rudy the opportunity to spray the blue striping tomorrow. |
|
| What you see in white will be sprayed in blue tomorrow. I leave for business for two days but Rudy can proceed with the blue and I hope he will have the possibility to spray the yellow layer too. If he succeeds to do this, I can put the last wipe layer on Friday. In that case the job can be finished before the weekend. Well, than only one thing rests, the final varnish layer... | |
| On the fuselage we put the striping with special striping tape. | |
| Starting from the cowling, where the blue line stops, we finished the masking for the remaining blue line. | |
| All the rest was covered with paper for only this small blue stripe... | |
| Another view from the backside.
So, I hope Rudy can finish the two colors before Friday. Tomorrow, the airbrusher will pick up the cowling. I'm really looking forward to see his artwork appearing on the cowling. |
|
| Time spent with Elvira | 13 hours |
| Wednesday, July 9th, 2008 | Fuselage painting blue layer |
| From my hotelroom in Germany. I asked Rudy to send me some pictures of the painting job he did today. And this is the result. The blue layer is painted and looks OK from here. The empennage... | |
| ... and the fuselage striping. Next thing is remove the upper coverage on the fuselage and masking the blue. The white masking can remain. It has to be extended for the blue and then... paint the yellow color.
So, I hope Rudy will succeed doing this tomorrow. This would be perfect. In that case we can add the grey wipe on Friday and then the varnish in the beginning of next week. Would be marvellous... Thanks Rudy. Perfect job...!!! |
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| Time used by Rudy | n/a |
| Thursday, July 10th, 2008 | Fuselage painting yellow layer |
|
I received a mail from Rudy that the masking tape was infected by the tinner in the paint. You see that the masking layer from the previous day shrinked. |
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| Rudy had to use special tricks to lign the part where the blue and the yellow touch each other. After he fixed this, he painted the yellow layer. | |
| So, this is the result. Perfectly done so far. Wonderful job Rudy. | |
| So, tomorrow, after my professional activities I have to do, I will go to mask the last thing... The wipe over the fuselage and on the empennage. And then, the varnish...
I'm really looking forward to "undress" the beast... But that's for tomorrow... |
|
| Some minutes ago I received the following pictures. Rudy "undressed" the beast. Together with Fred, the dog. | |
| From the pictures I see a straight edge between the colors. | |
| The complete view from the backside | |
| Even the empennage looks good dealing with the problems of some days ago... | |
| And last but not least, this more detailes picture.
I'm very curious to see it closer. Tomorrow the grey wipe... |
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| Time spent | n/a |
| Friday, July 11th, 2008 | Fuselage painting grey wipe... |
| Grey wipe time...
After I masked all, Rudy sprayed the grey wipes. |
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| After painting and drying, we could remove all the masking films from the fuselage.
Big surprise. This looks marvellous... |
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| Here you see the remaining part coming from the cowling. I had to measure the exact positions because Pat is already ongoing airbrushing the eagle head... | |
| We tilted the fuselage up to do some final retouche work under the empennage which is finished now. | |
| And then I positioned the small stickers pointing to the static ports | |
| and the Altitude Hold static... | |
| And this just to show how sharp edged the Skypassion letters are sprayed.
So, tomorrow the varnish and then we can move it back to the workshop. This is planned to be done on Sunday... |
|
| Time spent | 8 hours |
| Saturday, July 12th, 2008 | Doing some assembling work on wings and Varnish the fuselage... |
| As planned I started to finalize all remaining small items on the wing. Johan joined me for about an hour to help. We closed the inspection covers of the Left wing after checking the belcranks to be secure and bolted / torqued. | |
| The pushrod connection of the flap finalized. Made bushing and bolted together. | |
| All screws (the painted ones) of the wingtip in place... | |
| Sealing strip between the plexi of the landing light and scewed in place... | |
| Nav light / strobe light plexi cover screwed in place. | |
| After Ronny came (straight from the US) we went to Rudy to see his proceedings with the varnishing job. He fionished this. | |
| We made a short inspection and everything looks nice... | |
| Here everything is still covered where necessary. But the shiny glare on the fuse is beautyfull... | |
| Have a look from the backside... | |
| We couldn't resist to remove all remaining covering material to see the project in its full glory... | |
| And then admiring, enjoying... | |
| It really looks as I dreamed it to be. Perfect... | |
| Now the cowling and then we can transport it to Sanicole for the build up...
Tomorrow a special transport... |
|
| Time spent with Ronny | 13 hours |
| Sunday, July 13th, 2008 | Transport Fuselage back to workshop |
| The varnish dried, masking films and covering paper sheets removed, ready to transport back. We dicided to push the RV from the paintbooth via the village over the road back to the workshop... | |
| Fist thing first, trying to manouevre the fuselage out of the paintbooth via the small corridors out of Rudy's workshop. So, many hands and a dozen of eyes to watch all possible opbstacles...
First opbstacle, conquer the exit of the paintbooth which was 20 cm too small. But this went successful... |
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| Second obstacle, getting the fuselage out of the workshop. 20 cm too small. We had to lift the fuselage to have more room for the turn out of this room...
Went successful... |
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| Third obstacle, turn the fuselage to the exit tunnel on a square place outside where we had only 50 cm to turn the aircraft for 90 degrees.
Went successfully... |
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| Fourth obstacle: pushing the fuselage for 15 meters through the exit tunnel. On both sides 5 mm space left.
This was OK with many hands and eyes... |
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| OK, we are out of Rudy's place and the fuselage is on the street. So, for 1.5 km through the village to the workshop. | |
| This was the spectacle for the village. Many spectators and a lot of organisation. Ronny found his new dreamjob... he organized the traffic... | |
| And then last but not least back home. The fuselage is back home. Remaining is the cowling and some assembling... | |
| Time spent with many hands and eyes | n/a, just fun... |
| Monday, July 14th, 2008 | Final assembling part after part... and airbrush |
| As you could see in my design, I planned to put an airbrushed head of an eagle on the cowling. Via Rudy I met Patrick Smets. I saw some of his artwork and was immediately in love with his style and way of working. I start here with a small overview of the way he is putting nose art on my cowling.
Again it starts with a masking job to protect the sprayed cowling against overspray. |
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| The idea is to integrate the noseart with the wipe on the fuselage. So, Patrick grinded the position very softly and than started his work with the mini spray gun. | |
| It begins with making templates from the basic design. And then very slowly the mage builds up. Here you can see the outlines of the head sprayed. | |
| Step by step the nose art starts to live. By putting minor accents with smooth shadows and lines the noseart becomes a nice composition. | |
| So, here you see Patrick Smets in action. He called me to approve the design which I did. The eagle head on the cowling looks perfect. A real piece of art... | |
| Here more in detail the head. Patje said that he needed one more day to finalize it but... | |
| in the afternoon Rudy called me that Patrick brought the cowling back... finished. So now thye complete cowling needs the last varnish layer and than the painting job is finished... | |
| In the evening I went to the workshop and started the final assembling together with Ronny. We will continue tomorrow evening. The rudder is finally attached, bolted and torqued. So we will proceed tomorrow...
Hereunder a more detailed picture that shows how nice Pat's work is. The eyes look real and the total picture contains many beautiful details... Once the varnish will be sprayed, more in depth sharpness will be created and this will for sure enrich te total composition. So again a big step forward. Tomorrow the further assembling... |
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| Time spent with Ronny | 7 hours |
| Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 | Final assembling part after part |
| Most of the time I spent installing the rudder. I bolted and secured the rudder completely and went on with all fairings and inspection covers below the elevator. This is finished now and is ready for the final inspection. | |
| I mounted the rudder cables and the springs + clips for the tailwheel. | |
| The tailwheel and all assembly for this finished... | |
| I installed the navigation taillight and the strobe. I tested it and this works perfect. | |
| Together with Ronny we installed an antishafing strip all around the sliding part of the canopy to prevent te painted fuselage against shafing of the canopy. Once closed the tape is not visible. Looks good and works very efficient...
Tomorrow the interior finishing and the wheel fairings... |
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| Time spent with Ronny and Johan | 14 hours |
| Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 | Final assembling part after part |
| Rudy sent me the following pictures. The cowling varnished... | |
| The front side varnished | |
| ... and the right bottom side. These were the last things to be done in the paint booth.
Wonderful job finished... |
|
| In the meantime I went to proceed assembling. I decided to try out the fitting of the wheel boots. They look marvellous installed. The same design in these things give an extra touch to the total view... | |
| Here you can see the frontside installed.
I mounted the fairing in place. They can stay there for final. The wheel boots will be disassembled once again for the transport. |
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| Afterwards I installed temporarily the upholstery for fit check. This also fits good. I didn't install them for final with the velcro strips. This will be done later after the final inspection. | |
| Here the co-pilot side. I also fixed the buckles. So, one thing to be done in the cabin... the instrument panel. This is for tomorrow... | |
| So, this looks like a real airplane, not? The picture below, a little larger than usually, to show the overall quality of the final result. Tomorrow the cowling in place which will for sure show a nice finished total project... | |
| Time spent | 5 hours |
| Thursday, July 17th, 2008 | Cowling varnished/install/assembling |
| I picked up the cowling this morning. Rudy finished the varnishing job. I installed the lower part immpediately to see the fitting. | |
| And then the top cover of the cowling to see the global picture of the RV. This is really kicking... | |
| Now you see the design in all it's glory. I put all screws in the spinner. | |
| Nose view. Also nice to see. | |
| So, back to the to-be-finished details. I mounted a female BNC-connector to attach the coax cables for thye wing-antenna and the VOR-antenna. I will proceed with this this evening.
If everything proceeds as planned, tonight the complete RV is ready to wait for it's transport to Sanicole. |
|
| As you remember, I installed a sensor on the latch to annunciate the open/not latched canopy as part of the checklist. This is a proximity sensor which needs a counter plate in metal to come close to the sensor to make a contact. This is the sensor which is already working but still needs the counterpart on the slider... | |
| So, this is the counterplate we installed. In the plate we installed a bolt with a counter nut to make a very fine adjustment possible. | |
| And here, the complete installed assembly working after adjustment. So this was one of the last things to be done in the cabin. The remaining things are to be done on the airfield once the wings are attached... | |
| The right inlet of the cowling still needed the baffle material to be attached. This is also finished now. | |
| Finally we installed the nutplate in the baffle to hold the bolt in the centersection of both cowling halfs. This is done on both sides... | |
| And last but not least, the instrument panel in place and checked for proper functioning.
So around midnight we finished. The aircraft isready to be transported now. On Monday I will collect all parts and tools I will need on Tuesday for the final assembling of the remaining things at Sanicole. |
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| Time spent with Ronny and Johan | 19 hours |
| Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008 | Final preparation for transport |
| Big moment... The final transport to the airfield... the homebase...
Away from the worshop. Well, this is quite an emotional moment. 4 years of building and pleasure. All these fine moments with my companion builders, the helping hands... This is over so far. But, this phase is also thrilling. I could use a trailer from a pilot collegue from EBLE. Perfect thing. Just fitting the fuselage. The wings will be transported with a second van. In the cradle... |
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| So, enroute. About 40 Km to Leopoldsburg. 4 cars together to transport all in one drive.
And honestly, this went perfectly. It took us about 1.5 hours to clear the job. |
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| Around One o'clock we reached the airfield. Just two days after our yearly airshow. A lot of activity was still ongoing. But OK. After we dropped the aircraft we helped further with the clean-up and around 8 o'clock we were back home.
Tomorrow Luc and Gerry will come to attach the wings to the fuselage. This is the next step forward. Next few weeks I will try to prepare everything for the final inspection which is planned in the middle of August... |
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| Time spent with all helpers for transport | 8 hours |
| Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 | Attaching Wings |
| So, here I am again. Another day finished and a huge step forward. Luc came and Gerry. We planned to finish the attachment of the wings today which was successful.
After try-outs we prepared all things to final attach the wings. |
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| Luc started to "paint" all sides of the center section where more parts touch each other with an anti-corrosion lube. I forgot the name but will post this later to the site. This lube is especially to avoid dissimilar material corrosion. So all parts where treated where the main spar touches the centersection... | |
| I received this picture from Francis Bensch a while later. The attachment of the wings was a matter of teamwork. Thanks for the nice picture Cisse...
And... thanks for the helping hand Leon... |
|
| Then we connected the antenna cable and the Amphenol connector. This last one was also safety wired.
The left wing needed some extra for the attachment of the pitot tube. |
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| All boltswhere also treated with the dissimilar material corrosion protection before they where put in place. | |
| Then, after the holes were synchronized, Gerry attached the close tolerance bolts and torqued them. This tookj quite a lot of time but we finished this in the evening. | |
| Then all remaining bolts, spacers and necessary connections where bolted/torqued in place... | |
| And then it was time for kicking and admiring. We drove the Skypassion beauty out and took just some fotos for the fun and... for the site. | |
| I don't put all picture here but see below how nice the design fits from the backside...
I'm really proud of this. It remains a piece to look at and to stay looking at.... Well, it's like a birth of a fisrt born child. This is really joyfull... |
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| Time spent with Gerry and Ivo and Luc | 25 hours |
| Thursday, July 24th, 2008 | Proceeding final build-up |
| I didn't make pictures today. Gerry and I proceeded with the building-up of the plane. Yesterday, after we finished the wings, we tested all electric functions. And guess, the right landing light didn't work. In the right wing, the fuel guardian didn't work. So, thinking about these two problems I went back to Sanicole with the idea that in the worst case we had to remove both wings to reach the connector. But, after some investigation we found all problems. The landing light in the left wing wasn't connected. I disconnected it in the paint shop. So... solved.
Concerning the Fuel Guardian, Gerry found in the fuselage side of the connector a wire which was disconnected in the connector. Probably while installing the bolts of the wing we damaged the wire. So, against soldered and... solved. Last issue we had was the BNC connector from the antenna in the wingroot. So the connection between wing and fuselage for the coax. Stupid but the male connector couldn't go into the female. After investigating, it was simply the center pin of the female which was installed badly. So, a new connector and... solved. Once all these minor issues were solved we started with the control functions of the wing. |
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| Time spent with Gerry | 11 hours |
| Friday, July 25th, 2008 | Proceeding final build-up |
| I started today with the installation of some weather strips on the canopy. Here on the slider leading side the rubber channel to close the canopy against the windscreen. | |
| And on the fuselage side we installed this strip to avoid wind to come into the cockpit through this side. This also protects against some incoming water via the aft side of the canopy. | |
| Then I installed the right wing root fairing with the rubber channel to seal the wing against the fuselage. | |
| This fits perfectly also in the leading edge. | |
| ... and the left side. I glued the rubber channel on the fairing cover with some 3M glue specially for rubber | |
| Gerry did a fantastic job. He took care of all to-be-connected bolts and pushrods. He also finetuned and programmed the FPS flap positions. So this is also completely finished concerning the wing. We adjusted the sticks to the ailleron pushrods and finally bolted everything to final stage. | |
| Let's say that the wing and fuselage are ready. Tomorrow we will proceed with the remaining things under the cowling. Then the interior finishing and... ready. Now time for a BBQ at home...
Probably we will have scales tomorrow. So what will be the weight? |
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| Time spent with Gerry and Ivo and Luc | 14 hours |
| Saturday, July 26th, 2008 | Proceeding final build-up with upholstery and weighing... |
| Last plates were attached and screwed in place. The flap pushrods side covers in the bagage compartiment. So now ready to install the top cover of the upholstery. | |
| For this we had to place the support bar in the backplate of the bagage compartiment. For this we used blind rivets. | |
| This is the support bar in place ready to accept the top cover. | |
| And here the top cover installed together with the floor carpet and the side upholstery. | |
| Here the top cover closed. Looks really nice... | |
| All remaining weight influencers were put into the aircraft and then we started the first weight. These scales were positioned under the main gear... | |
| ... and one under the tail wheel. The scales will be calibrated one of these days because the official weighing needs a calibration report for the scales. Luc will take care of this. | |
| And then the big moment. The total empty weight for my aircraft without unuseable fuel but with filled oil is 1186 Lbs. This is more than what Van's predicts but comparing the basic installation Vans relates to, this is a quite good result keeping in mind that the OO-149 is completely IFR equipped and very comfortable. So, with a passenger we will need to reduce the fuel from a 5 hour endurance to a 4 hour endurance. So be it... No worry... | |
| And this is what I mean with fully "IFR" equipped and comfort. The complete upholstery gives a very nice and professional impression. It is also. Gerry buckled up and tried the control movements. This looks OK although the left ailleron movement is now still too low. But I didn't install the ailleron stops yet. We tried it now with the maximum the stick can give. And this goes over the maximum Vans is saying it to be... The stops of the ailleron is the next to-do. | |
| Just a funny picture. Gerry after his work enjoying what he will start for. After my first flight Gerry will order his RV-7 kit and then we proceed with this second one... I'm really looking forward.
Have a look at the interior. Looks really nice. |
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| Time spent with Gerry | 14 hours |
| Sunday, July 27th, 2008 | Photoshoot impressions of OO-149 |
| Monday, July 28th, 2008 | Ailleron stops and adjustments control functions |
| Now that all controls are finally installed it is time to adjust these in between the max and min values Van's is mentioning in the manual. So we started with loosening the aillerons froml the wings to measure the deflection and install the two stops into the wings. | |
| We only unmounted the outside bolts and folded the aillerons up to get clearance to do this. First we drew a line on the inside ailleron bracket on 28°. | |
| Then we prepared both stops and riveted them in place. This went well. Afterwards the aillerons were measured again. We measured digitally a deflection as follows:
Right ailleron up: 28° |
|
| For the elevator we measured a max up of 29.2° and a max down of 19.5° The rudder needed a lot of additional regulations and finetuning to reach a max right of 31.3° and a max left of exactly the same value. On Wednesday Luc will come to pick up the scales for certifying and then we will also safety wire the prop. Tomorrow I will proceed on the POH and the maintenance handbook. This has to be finished before the inspection of August 13th... |
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| Time spent with Gerry and Ronny | 19 hours |
| Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 | Tank cleaning, prop safety wire, parameters avionics and testrun |
| In the morning I programmed all parameters into the Dynon EMS 120. I also prepared the OO-149 for the visit of Luc in the afternoon.
Then I started cleaning the tanks. We filled about 15 liters of fuel in each tank and then drained it completely while shaking the airplane. The collected fuel into a plastic jerrycan was then filtered. We looked very close in the filter and saw some minor residues coming out the tank. So, this is really something good to do... We repeated this for each tank. Afterwards we closed them again. |
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| Finally we filled the filtered fuel again in the tank and disconnected the gascolator. In the meantime we opened this and investigated the 10 micron filter for residues. Here also we found some very small dirt particles.
After we cleaned the filter and pumped via the fuel pump some fuel through the lines, we closed it up again. Now we are sure that the tanks and the fuel lines are completely cleaned from dust and possible smalle residues. Safety first... |
|
| Then we adjusted the throttle control and torqued all bolts and nuts used for all controll cables. We found out that the travel of the governor control cable was insufficient. This took some time to finalize. A last check was performed firewall forward before a possible run...
We performed some testruns and readjusted until we reached a max RPM of 2730 and a minimum of 750. This is very good for Luc. Especially during run-in time of the engine this minimum is OK.After some hours Luc will block the max RPM to 2700 exactly. |
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| Last thing to do, torque the Propellor bolts as described in the manual of MT. 40 ft/lbs for all bolts. | |
| Luc performed this very carefully and then started to safetywire them. | |
| This is a dertailed picture f the safetywired two-by-two bolts. | |
| And then testruns. First without cowling. Later we closed the cowling and repeated this. Everything looks fine. Perfect behaviour of the engine, (to) good cooling. Especially cylinder 1 needs some attention due to the co cool temperature we saw. But that's for later...
I did some taxi tests... Unbelievable, the power coming out the engine. The brakes are doing well, the deflection on the rudder, the instruments. Everything is doing it's work perfectly... |
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| Time spent with Luc and Ronny | 28 hours |
| Thursday, August 1st, 2008 | Finalizing the airplane preparation for the inspection, fuel tank calibration and taxitests |
| We proceeded with the fuel calibration. To perform this calibration we had to level the airplane. | |
| Then we asked ELvira to climb into the airplane and input the several pours per 10 liter for each tank. | |
| We saw at the end that the sensor values didn't change anymore. This was quite confusing and at the end we had different values for the left and the right tank. On Saturday we will backup the Dynin and ty to equalize both tanks. | |
| This was quite a set-up but worthwhile. We will proceed with this on Saturday... | |
| Afterwards we started the engine after Elvira joined me in the cockpit. Then we did some taxi tests which was a perfect experience... | |
| After our taxitests I asked Geert to do some acceleration tests just to see the speed indicators coming alive. This was successful.
Next Saturday we have to fix the heating system since it remains open. While the ambient temperature was about 35°C, it was really hot with all that hot air blown additionally into the cockpit. So, to be fixed asap. We discovered also a problem with the fuel guardian system. The lamps remain blinking... So these, and some additional small things need to be fixed next Saturday... |
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| Time spent with Luc and Ronny | 13 hours |
| Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 | Final Inspection. OO-149 APPROVED !!!!!!! |
| Well folks, this day is the big day. Mr. Brotcorne, the inspector of the Belgian Aviation Authorities came by to perform the final inspection. This was quite thrilling.
First of all the final official weighing had to be done in his presence. We put the OO-149 in flight level on the scales. |
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| We indicated the leading edge point to the ground to find the right arm and to calculate the Center of Gravity for this baby... | |
| The same was done with the center of the taiwheel. | |
| And then we performed the complete weighing and calulations. I will put the reults with the final report in the site later.
After this was done, Mr Brotcorne checked all deflections, wing incidence, engine installation, control system installation and, a huge job which took the last period a lot of time, the final documentation on the airplane. I wrote 7 complete binders with all manuals, official certificates, the Pilot Operating Manual and the Aircraft Maintenance Manual. This took 4 complete days with 2 persons to finalize but the reult is perfect. I will show this later. |
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| After all inspections were done, we had to do the last thing. Fuelling and do the engine test run with the inspector inside. Here he is checking the working of the Pitot Heater after he checked all exterior lights. | |
| ... some pictures for the dossier... | |
| And then ready to do the run. Some advises and support of Luc before this took place. | |
| So, Mr Brotcorne asked me to fire it up. | |
| Whie I was preparing this, Mr Brotcorne proceeded with some additional external inspections. | |
| And then, proudly but nervous, my start-up... | |
| Everything looked fine and the engine started after the first cranck... | |
| But, then the obstruction of the weather. It started to rain and we had to interrupt this for some minutes. | |
| But then, second trial, Luc went into the cockpit with Mr. Brotcorne and they did all the engine testing. Everything looks perfect. | |
| So, at the end Mr Brotcorne gave me his felicitations and approved the project without real remarks. Today is a real milestone for the project. The airplane is certified and tonight or tomorrow morning I will receive the final permit to start the testflights. So, maybe tomorrow if the weather is OK. I'm really looking forward to see this bird flying now... | |
| Time spent last week for all documentation and the preparation for the inspection. Elvira helped a lot, Luc's support and Ronny his helping hand made this possible. | About 115 hours for all this |
| Thursday, August 14th, 2008 | FIRST FLIGHT. THE OO-149 is AIRBORNE !!! |
| So folks, this is the end of a wonderful 4-year building experience and the beginning of a, hopefully, future enjoying time with this wonderful flying machine. Since the first take-off, we spent about 5 hours in optimising the engine values, settings for Dynon, finetuning of the trims on the ailleron and elevator and several small issues we discovered during the trial flights. We had to install a small trim tab on the left ailleron to make it fly perfectly straight. Ihe coming period will be dedicated on testing. I still need to fly 20 hours in Belgium before I will receive my final airworthiness certificate but this is already enjoying of coarse.
Now and then I will update the site with some adventures and experiences, but for now, i first wil try to enjoy... For all those still building... proceed. It is worth finishing this beautiful machine... Enjoy as much as I did the last 4 years. And remember... time is flying. 4 years is nothing... |
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| ENJOYING STARTS HERE ... | |
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Time spent last weeks for all preparation for testflights, modifications after tests etc in labourtime: 170 hours
This time = spent by all helping hands: myself, Gerry, Luc, Ronny, Geert and all temporarily helping enthusiastic hands... |
TOTAL TIME FOR THE COMPLETE PROJECT:
4117 HOURS !! from day one until the airplane flies perfectly... |
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