CHAPTER 2
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| Monday, November 14th, 2005 | Main longerons bending |
| I had a free day and decided to go bending the two main longerons. This went quite well. I had more fear doing this than necessary. Following the instructions goes well and after a full day, step by step working on these, everything fits well. I didn't take pictures of the procedure. Just this final result... To be hounest, I was so scared for this step that I forgot to take pictures during the process. But, everything went fine and I'm very satisfied with the result... It fits really perfect...
I even had time to fit both F-721B canopy decks. |
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| Time spent for this: | 9 hours |
| Saturday, November 19th, 2005 | Continue with longerons and aft fuselage |
| Just for the feeling I clecoed the bulkheads to the aft bottom skin (F-788) and the F-773 aft side skin. What a feeling! This starts to look at a airplane fuselage...
Again a good feeling. All parts fit exactly... |
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| Just for fun, and for a view on the fitting whe clecoed all aft skins together... | |
| Until time for the real work. Preparing and fitting the J stiffeners to the assembly... | |
| The instructions mention several end trim to be made on the J-stiffeners F-786B. This needs a good preparation to stay exact in line of what has to be done. So, we decided to make two templates for this, try it out one after the other, and, when we were sure, we finallu cut these parts and modified as necessary. It worked well... | |
| Most of these stiffener ends need exactly the same preparation | |
| But some of them, e.g. the top stiffeners aft sides are little different. But this is clear when you try it out. | |
| We repeated these steps until finished. | |
| Be carefull, the tailcone needs some special attention due to the two connected bulkhead parts... | |
| This skelet of the fuselage gives really a good feeling... | |
| ... especially when you clecoe the first time the sideskins to the assembly. | |
| Quite an important part of this assembly is the tail section. Some modifications have to be made in the skin and the tailcone to accept the tail spring... | |
| This took some time... Several try-outs, fitting, filing, cutting until this thing fits perfect... | |
| A top view of the result. | |
| It looks perfect... I finished with drilling the assembly to the F-711 and 712 bulkheads... SO this was it for today. | |
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A small impression of this day: cold, very cold ... I'm really looking forward to the continuation of this... Next thing I plan is the construction of the fuse jig. I will do this in the stand I constructed for the wing... |
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| Time spent for this together with Ron: | 12 hours |
| Sunday, November 20th, 2005 | Welding the jig and cnt'd fuselage |
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Foggy weather today... I decided not to go to Sanicole and to go to the workshop. This is the ideal moment to transfer the wing jig into a fuselage jig. So this was the planned activity for today... |
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| So, in the same way I prviously welded the wingcradle, I started to cut some bars to make a completely stable and flat surface to put the fuselage on. This is the best way to continue building the aft fuselage as straight as possible. Here you see some pictures of my welding job... | |
| Here completely finished. This will help me enormously to continue with the aft fuselage and the future parts of the project... | |
| ... and a view from the other side. I had some spare time and decided to start clecoeing the aft parts to the bottom skin. A nice picture of the result you see hereunder... | |
| Time spent for this | 5 hours |
| Saturday, November 26th, 2005 | Continue Aft section and start mid section |
| I HATE COLD... I went to a local shop to buy this pathio heater. This seems to work. This is at least much moer comfortable than the heat gun I bought last year. | |
| As the instructions say, I measured the possible twist in the fuselage with a wire and two weights. This looks to be perfect. | |
| It is necessary to control this before drilling the J channels to the skin...
After check-up of this topic, I put a center line over the length of the J channels and started to drill them to the skin... |
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| The arrows show the line on the J channels in the middle of the holes to be drilled... | |
| I finished all these holes. | |
| A complete view of the clecoes holding skin and J channels together. | |
| Next thing to be done was the fabricating of the rudderstops... | |
| ... and clecoe them in place. | |
| Ronny and I decided first to go further with the seat rib sub assembly. The instructions say first to trim some access seat ribs. Here the F-716 rib. I did this for a left and a right rib. |
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| The part cutted out is something you still need... | |
| One left and 1 right F-716 inboard seat rib needs to enlarge the hole. Here the result. | |
| Then some spacers need to be fabricated. The F-916C spacers which you need on the rear site of the mid 4 seat ribs... | |
| Once these previous parts are trimmed and made, the assembly can start. Here the assembly of the seat ribs to the rear F-704 center section assembly. | |
| And then the F-726 an 725 bagage ribs... | |
| And here the complete assembly. | |
| And that complete assembly was clecoed to the F-776 center bottom skin... | |
| Here another view from another side... | |
| Time spent for this with Ron | 14 hours |
| Saturday, December 2nd, 2005 | Prepare Aft section for priming |
| Ronny and I worked all day on the preparation of the aft fuselage part. Everything from this aft section was deassembled, and we deburred/dimpled everything. Not so thrilling to see those pictures but I can assure this was a hell of a job. Hopely I can spray these next week so we can go in with the center section... | |
| Time spent for this with Ron | 15 hours |
| Saturday, December 9th, 2005 | Inside priming aft section |
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Today it was a black day for Sanicole. A friend died yesterday, due to an airplane crash, yesterday evening. Martin Lenaerts, the eldest student pilot from my theoretical pilot class and flying member from the club, crashed just across the border in Holland. He was accompanied by his brother in law. He didn'nt survive the crash neither.
At 11 o'clock today, while I was working in the shop, I heared that rescue teams found the airplane and the two bodies. This was really shocking. Martin was 72 years old and a very carefull, friendly guy who allways smiled and joked with his colleagues. On the picture, which was a nice moment in his life, Martin just left the OO-ACS after his first solo flight a couple of years ago. This was also the airplane with which he crashed Friday evening. We will really miss him... |
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| I started the day with the preparation of the aft fusalage parts for priming and primed everything. These parts are ready to be riveted next week... | |
| While all parts were drying, I went on with the F-623 corner ribs. Both were drilled and clecoed in place. C | |
| Then all holes were drilled in the bottom skin... | |
| Inside view... | |
| NExt step was to bring the remaining part of the centersection bulkhead to the assembly. This took some time because the bolts didn't enter fluently the predrilled holes in the anodized parts. But, with the help of Ronny we managed this. Keep in mind that the spacers have to be in place to ensure the right dimensions of the assembly... | |
| Keep in mind that the spacers have to be in place to ensure the right dimensions of the assembly... Here you can see the two alu spacers we made previously... | |
| And finally, we brought both F 715 outer seat ribs in place and drilled them on the assembly...
So far, I think that I can start deassembling the assembly to prepare all these parts for priming. Again deburring, dimpling etc... |
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| Time spent for this with Ron | 13 hours |
| Saturday, December 17th, 2005 | Preparing Seat rib sub assembly... |
| The planning was to deassemble this assembly and to start deburring, dimpling etc... And this is what we did all day. At the end of the day all parts where ready for priming again. To be sure what we did until now, I mounted the cover plates on the seat ribs. Everything fits perfect... So, next session is a priming session and then we can go on with riveting the aft fuse section and this center part together... | |
| Time spent for this with Ronny | 13 hours |
| Friday, December 23th, 2005 | Priming Preparation Center section parts |
| I decided to Powder Coat the tailwheel assembly. So, after some desk research I found a small company in Heist-Op-Den-Berg who was in the possibility to do this in one day for me. My planning is to rivet the aft section on Saturday, so, time is important. And yes, a friendly and service minded Willy Weyns did this job for a very affordable price and immediately. Only one day later I could go and pick up this little beauty. Here you see the result. Perfectly done... Thnaks Willy for this perfect service... For those RV-Ators in Belgium, here are Willy's ID's... | |
| Weyns Poederlakken
Wouwerstraat 45A |
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| All day long I prepared and primed all parts of the center fuselage section. Not so thrilling for pictures... But, important, tomorrow I can start riveting the fuselage... | |
| Time spent for this | 4 hours |
| Saturday, December 24th, 2005 | Riveting Aft fuselage together |
| Tonight Xmas eve... So I have to go out tonight which means I have not so much time to spend on my RV... The planning is to finish riveting the aft fuselage today. I went to a local shop to buy some sawhorses that can be ajusted in height. Pretty nice stuff.... | |
| ... these will make it easier to rivet the assembly together this afternoon when Ronny is here. | |
| And then I started again clecoeing everything together. | |
| So, ready to start banging all these little AN-426-3-4 rivets into the fuselage... |
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| The tailcone needs special attention. A lot of clecoes will keep this nicely together until riveted. In the afternoon Ronny arrived and we continuously started riveting the skins and the bulkheads and all stiffeners together... |
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| And we almost succeeded in our planning... We needed some 20 minutes more to finish everything. But, you know, Xmas eve, ... time to go. |
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| Nevertheless, we were both very satisfied with the result. Nice job which will be finished on Monday. And hopely we can also finish the center part too... This would be very nice. And then, 6 o'clock in the evening. Time to go... Merry XMas everybody! Enjoy the parties, enjoy the Xmas-meals... |
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| Time spent for this | 13 hours |
| Monday, December 26th, 2005 | Ctnd Riveting Aft fuselage together |
| During the morning I started to paint the inside of the aft fuselage section. You can see it in one of the following pictures. I did this as soon as the last rows of rivets were set after Ronny came. Before I prepared the final things that had to be done to start riveting the center part of the fuselage. Some platenuts e.a.... The bagage ribs need some platenuts, |
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| and so do the seat ribs... | |
| In the middle part of the center section two holes have to be drilled to accept some bushings. | |
| After all this prepararation, the ribs were clecoed in place to finish the riveting job of this section. | |
| Here all rivets connecting the seat ribs to the F704 were finished. | |
| Then we torqued all bolts/nuts/washers and torque sealed them... | |
| Then the bottom skin was clecoed in place to be riveted... | |
| I was the bucker in service today. A comfortable place on top of the table with a bucking bar while Ronny riveted from the other side. We managed this job in less than one hour... | |
| As the instructions describe, I made the notches in both longerons to fit them on the F-711 bulkhead. This had to be done before a big step forward could be started. ... The merge of the center part and the aft fuselage. |
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| Well, here you see the result. It took quite a time to finish this because the drawings where not so clear about which line of holes had to be used in the bottom center skin. After a while we found the way this had to be done and... this is the final result. Both sections are together. We were too excited which made us forget to take some pictures of this progression. So, the result is nice. We start to see the dimensions of this bird... BEAUTIFUL...!!! | |
| Time spent for this | 20 hours |
| Tuesday, December 27th, 2005 | Adding the forward fuselage |
| This is really heaven for an enthousiastic homebuilder. Due to the holiday period I can spend quite a lot of time in the project.
I started today with the fitting and drilling of the two armrests F-720. |
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| The bending of both longerons was almost perfect. They follow exactly the line of the skinedges. I hope the twist in the forward part will be as perfect as this... | |
| This is the best technique to make a perfect bend in the F-770 skins. I followed exactly the description of the instructions by using a scrap AA-125 angle clecoed to the skin. As I installed it later back on the fuselage, it fitted perfectly... |
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| Next thing to be done was the drilling of both longerons to the skins, starting from the rear part and moving forward, alternating from the left to the right side, section per section... | |
| This proved to work perfectly... | |
| And then I fabricated theF-704 straps and drilled/clecoed them in place. | |
| Immediately hereafter we fitted the firewall in place. Just to get a first impression of the overall fitting... Here you see the reult photographed through the left vent inlet hole... | |
| We temporarily removed the firewall and clecoed the front bottom skin F-772 in place. Then, after we drew a centerline on the bottom flanges of the firewall we installed it in place again. | |
| And yes, the centerline is visible trough the holes which means that 5/8" is the distance needed from the firewall to the edges of the sideskins... | |
| All holes were drilled in the firewall flanges starting from the top and working toward the bottom... At the opposite side of the fuselage you see the clamped steel firewall brackets. On the front side you can see the rivets preventing the drilled holes to slip away. These keep the holes aligned... | |
| And of course we clecoed each drilled hole immediately to prevent the firewall to slip away... | |
| So far so good. This looks perfect until now. But I had to stop earlier because we exoected a visit from the Belgian RVAtor colleagues at 6 p.m. So, tomorrow I have to join Elvira for a shopping session. This means one day inactivity...
Hereunder a picture of the Belgian RVAtors before we had a cosy lunch in a local restaurant. Of course with a lot of RV-chatting... From the left to the right: |
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| Time spent for this | 13 hours |
| Thursday, December 29th, 2005 | Adding the forward fuselage Ctnd... |
| Drawing 23 and the instructions are about the reinforcements of the front section of the fuselage. I started today with the installation of the F713 auxillary longeron. Another centerline has to be put on this part to guarantee a perfect drilling in the middle of the longeron... | |
| After this was done I tried to bring it exactly in place. | |
| Lining up the front part of it, and... | |
| ... and filing a gentle corner on the aft side to make it butt to the edge of the F704. Immediately thereafter I drilled all holes | |
| Then the instructions tell to start making the F-719B Angle clips. As you see here I drew the exact dimensions on the part before cutting it to final shape... |
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| After these were made I attached them to the F-719 longeron. |
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| The assembly was brought in place after I drew another centerline on it. | |
| Then Ronny drilled the holes using the skin holes as a guide with the centerline aligned. | |
| And finally we clecoed this assembly exactly in place. | |
| To drill perfectly the hole through the vertical flange to the firewall bulkhead we removed the clecoes holding the skin. This gave us a perfect clearance to drill it. | |
| Then it was time to make the F-717 lower longerons as the instructions and drawings show. | |
| We brought them in place to see the fitting of it. Repeated the same for the other side and drilled/clecoed them in place... | |
| And the it was time to start making the F-684 Gussets. This took quite a long time to study the drawings and the instructions. But we finished them. | |
| This thing took a lot of time. Preparing, cutting, measure, filing, bending etc... until is was perfect. The other part will be done tomorrow... | |
| Time spent for this | 15 hours |
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Until now, I spent 238,5 Hours on the empennage, 533 for the wings and 228,5 hours for the fuselage.
This makes a total project time of exact 1000 hours until today... |
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| Friday, December 30th, 2005 | Adding the forward fuselage Ctnd... |
| First of all I continued installing the two gussets. I finally drilled and clecoed them in place. | |
| The result was pretty perfect. This is a very important part as the instructions explain. So, I took my time and studied the drawings again and again before mounting this in place... | |
| After clecoeing the skins in place again, I started to install both F-902 bulkheads as explained. This gave no problem at all... | |
| Then I brought the F-7101 gear attach webs in the correct position and drilled/clecoed it in place. | |
| Two sets of reinforcements for the tank bracket had to be made. Two strips of Alclad (0.063 and 0.032) are needed to support the F-796 angle, | |
| and these angles themselves. All had to be made as described on drawing 38. This took some time. | |
| Once these parts were made and we studied the detailed drawing 38 several times, we brought everything exactly in position and final drilled everything in position. | |
| Here the same assembly from a slightly other photographic angle. Behind the angle you can see the two strips in the previous picture. | |
| So, up to the next chapter in the instructions. Installing the rudder and brake pedals. For this 8 angles had to be cut out of my stock angles. These are necessary to mount the brake side plate and the opposit side of the pedal necessary to attach it to the WD 655 assembly... | |
| Step by step this procedure. After drawing a line on 3/4" it was easy and straight forward installing all angles to the pedals... | |
| Once this was done, all the brake side plates could be drilled and clecoed. | |
| This was also the moment to trim the angles where possible to lighten the assembly... | |
| And then one after the other we could install these pedals into the WD-655's. For that the necessary holes were previously drilled. | |
| Last thing was to install the Brake Master Cylinders. And there we are, the assembly temporarily installed. | |
| Here another view. Next we drilled all holes into the side and central rudder pedal bearing blocks and saw the central block into two halfs. To end this day we slipped the total assembly in place. Tomorrow we will drill all holes to the final positions. | |
| Time spent for this | 14 hours |
| Saturday, December 31st, 2005 | Pedals continued... |
| I continued with the installation of the pedals. I drilled more holes to have the possibility to adjust the pedal assembly. To ensure the exact position of these holes I made a template in which I calculated 7 holes starting from the minimum required distance from the firewall and back... |
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| Then the pedal brace was mounted in place and clecoed to the firewall stiffener in the neighbourhood of the excess. | |
| And as you can see I trimmed a part of the brace away to receive the firewall excess. | |
| Then the center rudder pedal brace was mounted in place. So far so good... This all took about 6 hours to finish... | |
| So, next thing is to continue with the floor stiffeners. For that I clecoed the bottom skin back in place. And, that's it for today. We are going to celebrate New Year at Ronnies place this evening. The next things are for 2006... | |
| Time spent for this | 8 hours |
| Saturday, January 7th, 2006 | Floor stiffeners |
| I really missed that daily work on the project. But, this is life... This makes it more a thing to look forward every week... So, we planned to finish the front part of the fuselage. The only things left were the floor longerons on the bottom. And this is what we fixed today. We had to trim some parts of both middle longerons... You can see it where the arrow points to. |
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| All longerons were placed and afterwards we finished some bagage ribs. And this was it. The only thing left is very frustrating. Disassemble the complete set-up and starting to deburr, dimple, countersink etc... I did not make pictures of this less interesting part of the job... And, this will take some time... believe me. Hereunder you can see the full forward compartiment as it is clecoed and drilled, ready for the disassembling job... | |
| Time spent for this | 16 hours |
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