Leading Edge and Fuel Tank Cradle Done

I set out to tackle the Wing Leading Edge and Fuel Tank cradle today which is used to support the are the skins that form the leading edges of the wing. part of this consists of the outboard leading edge of each wing, and the other part are the fuel tanks which are also a part of the inboard wing elading edge. They are called integral fuel tanks in that they are designed as part of the aircraft structure.

It consists of a 36 inch base, and 15 inch high by 13 inch wide support brackets, spaced 26 inches apart from each other. The plans say to use 1/2 inch plywood for this cradle, but I had an abundance of 3/4 inch particle board remnant from the shed doors that I completed early this year, so I decided to use that instead. This was basically a repeat exercise that is similar to one half of the wing cradle with the cutouts for the ribs. It is configured to hold either end of the leading edge skins in place while the ribs are assembled.

It is very difficult to attach the partially bent, spring tensioned leading eadge skin just by forcing it around the ribs with your bare hands. I have a video that shows what must have been an early method of doing this where the LE ribs are attached to the main wing spar, and then the skins are attached to the top side of the ribs first, followed by the bottom side. The plans simply say to perform this same assembly by using the LE cradle to force the LE skins into the correct preliminary shape of the rib, land the ribs are clecoed together in the cradle. ALl this makes me think of is the times that attached the HS and VS skins, which were also spring tensioned by design. I sure hope I do a better job of riveting the LEs together than I did with the HS and VS.

Anyway, here is a series of pics showing the steps I took. I also deviated from the plans after reviewing many commnets on VAF complaining that vans design for the cradle appears to be unstable, which I was inclined to agree with when I realized how much force I may need to apply to get the clecos inserted correctly the first time.

First was reviewing the plan dimensions to determine how I would modify mine:

 

Then I set out to make the two end pieces that will be cut out to match the ribs for each leading eadge. It is hard to see my measurement markings on the wood, but the I basically used the existing width of 16 inches (Vans calls for 15, but a little more length here is actually a good thing). I did cut them to 13 inches wide per the plans. The tricky part is where to position the rib. I decided to use the rear flange of the rib and tried to align it parallel with the edge of the wood, and then I traced the rib pattern onto the wood.

 

 

Below is my method for cutting out the rib area with the jigsaw. I had to reposition the clamps periodically to provide enough clearance for the jigsaw to complete the tight turns at the front of the rib:

 

Next was my modification to use 2x4s as a corner brace for each bracket:

 

Then I clamped each of the brackets to a wide flat piece of particle board (36 inches long x 16 inches wide). ONce each braclet was clamped to the base, I flipped this assembly over and screwed the base to the 2x4 corner supports:

 

 

The inside edges ofeach bracket are supposed to be 26 inches apart, and mine are as well. This is supposed to allow the skins to be inserted so that the rivet lines for each rib are clear of the brackets for clecoeing and riveting.

And here is the finished product:

The base can then be clamped to the work bench. I may still need to sand the insides of the cutouts a little bit and put some tape or someing over the edges to prevent the skins from getting scuffed or scratched. That was enough for today, however, since the weather forecast around here for New Year's Eve is about 0 degrees. Tomorrow I will see if I can brave the cold long enough to reposition the LE skins from the shelf onto the work bench. Then I may even bring down the left wing spar to prepare for match drilling the main ribs to the wing spar.

Wishing everyone out there a safe, happy new year, hopefully filled with lots of airplane building and flying fun!

Wing Cradle Done - Well Almost....

I was able to finish mounting the cross members on the spar side of the wing cradle today, and I also mounted the four furniture dollies so that it now has wheels. I was then able to re-arrange everything on the one side of the garage  so that it fits neatly out of the way until I have some wings to actually slip on to it. I still need to cut some slots on the spar side for the main wing spar to rest on, and figure out how to attach the carpet remnant on both ends, but that can wait a bit I think.

Here is set of pics showing the almost finished cradle:

 

Next on the list is to make a couple of supports that are used to attach and match drill the leading edge skins for the wings and fuel tanks.  Then I can work on the final grinding and prep of each of the four wing stands. And then I can work on clearing off the mess on both of my work benches so I can get the main wing spars off of the shelf and start match drilling them. It's nice to be focusing on building again for a change, even if it is cold as hell outside. If anybody has or knows of a way for me to get cheap or free 24 inch wide R38 faced Owens Corning insulation for the garage I am all ears. Otherwise that little project promises to cost me upwards of $1,000.00. The last pick also shows the space where I will be mounting two of the four wing stands, so as I progress this same shot will start to show a wing in progress hopefully in the not-to-distant future.

Got My Metal Wing Stands Today!

I made a trek up north to fellow RV-8 builder Aaron Miller to meet him and his Dad, Ron Miller to pick up my all metal wing stands. I wasn't sure what to expect when I got there, since I don't really know the first thing about wht it takes to weld things together. All I say is that I learned an awful lot about welding today, and aside from the garage being about as cold as mine is right now, it was an extremely educational experience.

This is a personal shout out to Aaron and his Dad Ron with a sincere THANK YOU for taking the time (turned out to be about 5 hours total) to weld my wing stands together. Ron even let me dawn all the welding gear and taught me how to weld the last two seams on my wing stands. Here is a shot of Ron hard at work:

I learned that Ron and his wife are devout tool people, especially when it comes to welding gear. Ron used a process called MIG welding. No, I am not going to try to dig out all my Airventure welding forum material from a couple of years ago to explain what all the different welding acronyms mean. What I can tell you is that he plugged this MIG welder into a 9000 watt capacity generator, and a grounding clamp was attached to the metal being worked so that when the welding tip was engaged (trigger pressed) a very high current circuit is completed which melts the metal and welds everything together.

I also learned that welding helmets are even more cool on the inside than they look on the outside. There is a lot more to these helmets than I ever realized. And yes, for all the welding pics I shot and for all the welding that was allowed to observe, I did so while wearing one of these helmets. Failure to do so could make you go blind from the intensity of the light that is produced, which the picture does not really adequately display.

The basic process for all this was to grind small angles along the edges of the iron angle pieces as well as the edges of the posts, to clean the areas to be welded from any contamination and to serve as flow channels into which each weld could flow between the parts being welded. Then everything was clamped together, checked for square  and for centering against the post, add then the welding began.

I was put to work almost immediately on the "grinding station" where it was my job to channel and clean each of the 90 degree angle iron pieces that serve as the mounting base for each wing stand. These were then given to Aaron where they were clamped into position, and Ron did most of the welding.

There were some bumps along the way. One of the welder tips was compromised so we had to replace a tip at one point, and then we ran out of welding rod at another point. This "rod" is actually .030 wire that is continuously fed into the joint being welded through the gun that is held by the welder. Luckily Ron had all the necessary supplies for us to continue welding.

Here is a shot of the generator that was powering the MIG welder:

And next is Aaron with a surprise look when I snapped this pic. Sorry bout that Aaron. You were so busy moving around getting everything prepped that I had a hard time getting a good action shot of you:

I think this next shot of Ron is after the welding was done, and were now starting to play with his new plasma cutter. This thing actually slices through the steel and makes very precise cuts. Aaron had wanted to trim off the upper corners of the 90 degree angles on his wing stands ebcause he found that his foot tends to trip over them while he works on his wings. He asked if I wanted to do this on my stands, and I said certainly. So we proceeded to experiment with the new plasma cutter on my stands first. Unfortunately, several seconds after starting to use the plasma cutter, the generator gave out and would stop running. We were getting a power spike or something and could not figure out why. So Ron resorted to checking the manual - when all else fails..........

I am going to get some better pics of the finished wing stands that I will post tomorrow, but this last shot shows a long distance pic of a completed one still sitting on the sawhorse in the background. The nagle pieces were roughly 18 inches long, and the posts are about 66 inches tall. They also weigh at least 80-90 pounds a piece. One thing is for sure, once I get these babies secured to the garage floor they won't budge from there until I am ready to disassemble them after the wings are done. These posts will serve as a great platform for the fuselage as well, and also as a painting platform, should I decide to take on that task later on down the road. They were not cheap for set of 4 compared to the standard wood post method, but they are well worth the investment as far as I am concerned.

I still have some grinding work to do to cleanup the bottoms of each stand so that they will sit as flush as possible to the concrete floor. I also need to drill the mounting holes, and then scuff, prime, and paint each one to prevent corrosion from setting in.

Again, a huge thank you to Aaron and Ron, and even Aaron's wife Lisa, who kindly made snacks for us to eat once we finally made our way inside after freezing int he garage for several hours. That was most appreciated. This is just another example of the kind of people that I meet that are building their own airplanes - first class folks all around. This was a really great day! Wing cradle is almost finished as well - more on that tomorrow.

Wing Cradle Progress

Today I was able to make some pretty good progress on the Wing Cradle. I am going through the trouble of detailing this because Vans drawings for this are horrible, and because I only seem to get a lot of pics from other build sites, but no details on how exactly this thing is put together.

The next step was to attach the bottom 2x4 supports to each of the panels. I started by drawing the center line (18 inches) down each panel. I then took each of the 2x4s and clamped them in place, screwing them to the panel while keeping in mind clearance for additional screws that would be added later for attaching additional cross member supports on the corners of each panel.

I staggered the screws for the bottom 2x4, which is placed flush against the bottom of the panels.

Once the first 2x4 is secured to the bottom of the panel, I flipped it over and placed the second 2x4 into the position shown below:

I screwed this bottom board into the other 2x4, and then took a W709L and W709R end rib and used it as a template to draw the outline for the leading edge panel of the wing cradle.

I placed the wide end flange of each rib flush with the top of the panel and drew the lines. Vans offers no dimensions in the plans as far as the spacing between the ribs is concerned, so I took a guess from looking at the drawings in the plans and from other pics of completed cradles from other builders. The concern was the amount of space on the outer edges of the top of each panel, since there would not be a lot of material there. I ended up with about 3-4 inches on each outer edge after I removed additional wood to account for the width of the carpet that will be inserted in each cut out to cushion each wing leading edge.

The next shot is a 3/4 inch extension to the lines drawn around each of the ribs. This is the additional amount of space I added to each cutout to allow for the thickness of the pile carpet remnant I have had lying around in the garage for years now. I used the ruler to make marks around the drawn edges and then connected them via freehand as best I could. This should leave enough space to add the carpet to each cut out, and provide some measure of shock absorbtion to the leading edge of each wing while it rests in the cradle.

Both cut outs are ready to be cut with the jigsaw

And here are the cut outs after some relatively quick work with the jig saw:

Next are pics of the carpet remnant I intend to use:

And finally I fast forward a bit to show the 8 foot long 2x4 center support attached to both panel ends, and I managed to get 3 of the 6 total support brackets mitered and attached to one side of the cradle.

The support brackets were measured as follows:

The two side supports were between 24 3/8 inches and 24.5 inches long, mitered at 45 degrees on both ends. One side attaches to the inner 2x4 panel support, and the other end is attached to the center 2x4 as shown above.

The center vertical panel support was cut from a remnant 2 foot long 2x4, again mitered at 45 degrees and secured with screws - the top side was drilled and screwed from the outer side of the panel, and the bottom attach point was into the top of the long center 2x4 support.

ALl that remains is the 3 cross members for the other side of the cradle, the cut outs for the main wing spar ends on the other panel, and adding the carpet and the cut outs on both panels, as well as the furniture dollies to the bottom of the frame. SHould be able to finish it up tomorrow morning.

Building the Wing Cradle - FINALLY!

With the space in the garage taken care of, I now need to make some fixtures that are long overdue for my build. The first is the Wing Cradle, and the second is the leading edge/fuel tank stand. I will be picking up the metal wing stands from Aaron on Saturday, so hopefully I can get the wing cradle done before then. A quick note about the fixtures. Sometimes folks intermix the terms cradle and stand, as well as the word "jig." Just to clear some things up, The wing stand or jig is simply the two posts with some angle iron supports to mount the wing spar so that the wing skins can be attached to the ribs as easily as possible. The wings are built vertically as though they are climbing straight up vertically. So the words "stand" and "jig" are used interchangeably. The wing cradle, on the other hand, is a fixture that will store the completed wings once they are finished. The cradle stores each wing on the opposite position from the wing stand, or with the leading edge of each wing facing straight down. The cradle is what I am working on now.

Before I show the pics, I just want to extend a shout out to my friend and fellow RV8 builder Steve Riffe who has some great pics of his wing cradle at the very begining of his Wings section of his builders log. Without his pics I might have had to call Vans to figure out how the hell to make it since their plans for this are less than adequate IMHO.

First step was a trip to the local airplane store (Home Depot) to buy a bunch of wood and some hardware.

Shopping list for the cradle:
5 each 2x4x8s
1 each 1x6x8
3 each 1x3x8s (these are actually for the frame for my newest priming table from the cardboard box that my recently installed screen door came in).

Assortment of 1 1/4, 2, 2.5, and 3 inch deck screws.

Additional items already in house:

2 particle board panels 2 foot x 3 foot - After removing the doors from my 2x4 foot storage shelf, I noted that the dimensions of the doors are about 2 feet wide x 5/8" thick x 6.5 feet tall. You need 2 separate 3 foot x 2 foot panels, one on each end of the cradle, to support the wings on both ends. One panel has notches cut in it to support the wing spar at the root of each wing, and the other panel has cutouts for the leading edge of each wing.

A set of casters to allow the cradle to be moved around as needed. I plan on using the 4 sets of furniture dollies I used to support the Wing kit crates until I was able to purge them and store all the wing parts elsewhere.

The shelf doors will serve quite well as the panels on either side of the cradle. the doors are 2 feet wide. The leading edge ribs on each wing extend out from the spar about 17.5 inches, and the 2 foot width allows enough space for that as well as the space required for the supports on the bottom of each panel for strength. One note about Vans Plans for all this. They are contained in DWG 12A. Mpst of the drawings are labled as being 1/12 scale, but I found that one of the drawings that specifically mentions the height of each panel does not seem to be drawn at 1/12 scale at all. This becomes misleading, and like so many other areas in the plans, is also entirely inaccurate. I wish they would fix some of these things....Nothing new....

Here are the door panels that I cut down to size for the wing cradle. Note the two leading edge ribs. These are the end ribs for each wing, W709 right and left. They are used to draw the initial template for the cutouts on one of the panels:

The above pic shows the orientation of the wings as they will sit inside the cradle - the upper part of each wing will face inward to each other, adn the bottom parts of each wing will face outward. The wide part of each rib is where they will attach to the wing spar, and cutouts will be made pretty much as shown in the pic, with the wide end of each rib at the top of the panel. I may try ot make them a little deeper to allow the wing spar flanges to be supported by the sides of the panel so that the stress is placed partly on the wing spar and not solely on the leading edge ribs.

Next is measuring and setting up the fence to cut each door panel to the correct size. I used my circular saw for this.

And here are the finished panels after the cut. The holes that you see are recessed holes that were in the doors to support the hinges thart came with the shelving unit. These will be covered with 2x4 or other support wood frames when the cradle is complete so I am not cerned about these extra holes being there:

There are 2 sets of 3 foot long 2x4s at the bottom of each panel. This is part of Steve's cradle design and is not what is drawn on Vans plans. I happen to like Steve's design and so I plan to copy it.

And finally a shot of some of my Xmas booty I acquired for the build. I received a set of 4 books written by a well respected EAA member by the name of Tony Bengelis. This ought to keep me busy for a good long while. His books are easy to read and contain a wealth of great tips and trickes and information for all aspects of building an airplane. Worth every penny.

The other plier-looking item is an automatic wire stripper from Ideal, part 45-097, which contains the dies for most of the wire sizes I will be using for the airplane, including the 26 gauge wire for the trim servo. After agonizing over this for quite a while I was able to track down the right part number and set of dies that will handle the small 26 gauge wire of the trim servo wire bundle. Now I can add the extension to that wire bundle with confidence that I will not be removing any strands of wire when they are stripped. I also recieved a spare set of dies:

Rearranging the workshop again

As I predicted a long while back, I have waited until it is as cold as it has ever been this winter to get started on the project again! Why I do that I will never know, but that's just the way that it is I guess. The first order of business is to rearrange the work shop in preparation for the wing stands that I am about to receive thanks to a local fellow RV-8 builder Aaron Miller.

I became acquainted with Aaron in much the same way that I have become acquainted with so many new friends while building my airplane - a post by Aaron on VAF contained some pics of some metal wing stands that I have also seen on some other builders sites. I had been agonizing over exactly how to do this for my project. The choices are to do the 4x4 wood stand or to bolt some metal posts to the garage floor.

I had resigned myself to using the wood posts because I did not know anyone locally that had a set of metal ones or knew how to make them - until I saw Aaron's post that is. We have since exchanged mnay emails and it looks like his Dad is going to weld me up some brackets this weekend, which I will then mount to the garage floor after drilling about 16 holes in the concrete to anchor them down in just the right spots.

Aaron's builders log is located here. Another site that contains the specs for the same stands is from Rudy Greiling in South Africa. I will need to rent a rotary hammer drill to drill the holes for the anchors that will be used to secure them to the garage floor. I will be using RedHead 3/8" x 2 1/4" concrete anchors, 4 per stand for a total of 16. I will drill 4 half inch holes in each mounting bracket for each stand to allow some wiggle room in case I don't get the anchors drilled in just the right spot.

But before I can get to that, I had to determine of I would even be able to build both wings at one time or if I would only have enough room in my 2 car garage to build them one at a time. After a long bit of eyeballing the space inside my garage, I decided that I could in fact build both wings at the same time AND still manage to get both cars in and out of the garage when needed. IN order to do that, I needed to rearrange several things.

I basically determined that I could turn my large white storage cabinet 90 degrees and remove the 2 foot wide doors, adn then I could trade positions of my freezer and my other 2x4 foot storage shelf, and this would open up the area enough to allow me to setup the second set of wing stands. I also moved my table saw out to the shed since I do not use it that much for the airplane anyway.

Now for some long awaited pics:

First is the chaos on the work benches after cleaning all the stuff off of the shelves so I could move them:

 

 

And here is the freezer moved from one side of the garage next to the compressor on the other side:

 

And my parts shelve now located on the other side of the garage where the freezer used to be:

 

This little switch made it easier for me to get my car in the garage and also gave me more room on the other side to place the second set of wing stands. The first set will be located in front of a parallel to my work benches. I will have to find another place to store the long table I have been using, and I think this will make its way to the back porch for a while. Funny how switching a couple of things around can open up new opportunities.

Using available resources

"Normal" people would look at this next photo and say .."so what, it's a box." Builders of experimental airplanes would look at this and say "...Cool! another box I can use for priming large parts!"

Actually, this is the box that the new screen door came in that I am currently in the process of installing on my front door, part of which can be seen in the background. As I was opening it up, two things struck me:

1. This is quite a large piece of cardboard
2. This should make at least one, and possibly even two separate priming tables that will be able to hold a large number of wing parts.

The next step in the build from where I left off long ago is to scuff, clean, and prime all of those straightened wing ribs. This will require a lot of elbow grease and probably several days to complete. One thing that helps to complete this work is to have a large enough work area to setup adn prime all the parts without having to do them in smaller batches at a time. This box will allow me to place several ribs on it, and with this and the two other priming tables I already have, I shold be able to get the priming work done fairly quickly. I will need to make another box frame with more wire fencing, and then I can proceed.

It's funny how events of every day life can sometimes generate opportunities to help complete this project. Time to start building an airplane again. The new goal will be for both wings and both fuel tanks to be complete by the time Oshkosh 2013 rolls around next summer.

Fundamental Decisions About Cockpit Layout

This post starts with a recent attempt by me to search VAF for some info about Wing Stands and Jigs that may have been posted by Paul Dye (VAF user Ironflight). This is a gentleman whose wealth of knowledge I have come to greatly respect throughout my experiences thus far with building the RV8. He contributes articles frequently for Kit Plane Magazine and was a systems engineer for the Space Shuttle and Space Station programs at NASA. If anyone knows about all things "experimental" when it cmes to aviation - he is certainly one of those individuals.

Anyway I had heard that he had a simple wing jig solution and I was trying to find a post to that effect - that is until I stumbled on a couple of posts from him back in 2006 after his RV-8 Valkyrie was completed and flying. Doug Reeves, founder of VAF, had captured several pics of his panel layout, and as I started studying the photos there were some comments about the reasoning behind his panel layout that I did not want to lose reference to.

So this post is now dedicated to a small tidbit of information about some things that I must not forget when the time comes to figure where all the goodies will go in my instrument panel and various consoles on either side of the pilot seat. I like Paul's reasoning for why he put certain things in certain locations, and will plan on emulating those same considerations in my own plane when the time comes. Here is a list:

1. Overall he tried to group common items in the same locations to make it easier to locate systems with similar functions.

2. All primary electrical switches are located on the right console next to the pilot seat

3. All engine-related controls are placed on the left console, including the engine monitor.

4. He used a rail system on either side of any essential electrical switches to provide a bit of stability for manipulating the switches during turbulence - a technique used extensively at NASA. Gee, I wonder why?! The rails provide a platform to rest your fingers against to help actuate the switch, and it also prevents inadvertent activation of a switch by bumping into it with your hand or your knee, etc.

5. He placed his avionics that require the most interaction with the hand and fingers so that his dominant hand performs the actions such as turning small knobs or pushing small buttons, etc. He discussed this with some human factors engineers at NASA after initially planning to place the radios in the opposite location. His initial thinking was that his dominant hand should be focused on flying the plane so that it would be on the stick, and the weak hand would do all the radio switching and tuning work. He was advised to change his perspective, and allow his dominant hand to take care of the fine motor skill work, and the weak hand to focus on the joystick work. For me this means that the radios and GPS should be on the right side of the Primary flight displays if at all possible.

5. Then I encountered some interesting tidbits about nav/strobe combination lights. I noted that Paul seemed to have a 3-position switch for his strobes - top was ALL, middle is OFF, and bottom is TAIL ONLY. My current thinking was to put a combination red/white beacon on the bottom of the fuselage if that will satisfy the FAA requirements for visibilty to the rear. I also finally found post in the builders log from someone else that confirmed that the Wing tip Strobe location that Vans provides DOES NOT meet the requirements for rearward visibility of the anti-collision loght system, and therefore this discrepancy in their design needs to be addressed somehow. Putting the strobes in the wing tips, as most people do, only allow visiblity from the side and the front, and NOT from the rear. This is, in essence, a violation of the relevant FARS that I have reffered to in previous posts that is excrutiatingly specific about the distance, number of lumens, and angular visiblity requirements for the required exterior light systems.

6. One last thing that I noted about his overall panel layout, as well as those from several other builders, is that he retains the basic scan format with his backup airspeed indicator positioned on the left side of the EFIS display (which provides attitude display in addition to the other information when everything is working), and the altimeter on the other side. The backup attitude indicator is located elsewhere on the panel. I have seen several builders emulate this configuration, and then I have seen others that tend to try to keep all 3 backup instruments in one line across. The problem is that the EFIS is always in the way in the small panel space provided by the RV-8. This makes positioning all 3 backup instruments together in a location that will be readily viewable by a pilot that needs to use them in an emergency a bit of a challenge.

There are numerous schools of thought out there on the positioning of the backup instruments. One interesting insight is that if the backup instruments are located in a position that is readily viewable by the pilot most of the time, then the they tend to focus on the back up instruments instead of the EFIS for primary flying tasks, even when the EFIS is working perfectly. I am almost of the opinion on this that I would rather have a backup EFIS on a secondary power system so that not matter if the primary EFIS fails, I am still maintaining reference to flight instruments from a similar display. Works pretty well if you have the extra cash and the extra panel space to go with it such as in a side by side RV like the RV-7, etc. This does not work as well in the RV-8, where panel space is at a premium. Anyway, when the time comes, I may keep the backup round dials in a single line or I may break up the attitude indicator - just not quite sure how I will decide to do that yet.

There was also a comment about putting a combo nav light/strobe in the tail. Somebody mentioned that this is a major distraction for a low wing airplane at night, with the light reflecting off the wings from the rear, possible entering your peripheral vision. So he recommended not putting a strobe in the rear. I am hoping my decision to place this system on the bottom of the fuselage eliminates this problem, but I am worried about electrical noise affecting the ADAHRS unit for the EFIS, which will also be mounted in the rear of the airplane.

So much for checking out wing jigs! Here is the link to the post that contains Ironflight's panel photos.

IF I can just shed some of the cold weather that finally appeared in Colorado I am just about ready to re-engage in the wing work. Personally I will be glad when the holidays are done and over with - I need to get back to building an airplane.

Finally posting pic of the new air hose reel

 

 

My account with Google finally kicked in and I now seem to have access to my additional space for pics. So here is the pic of the hose reel that was installed in the rafters of the garage last week.

Almost 7 more gallons of fuel or cargo.......

Well I would say that this latest dry spell has gone on almost long enough, so here is an update for the fans, and also to get me back in the habit of posting my "progress."

Again, not much done on the actual building of the airplane, but I have spent a ton of time researching and prototyping my secret project, which involves a bit of electronic magic. If I can get it all figured out for the larger scale of the aircraft, it should be a lot of fun. Sorry, still can't divulge it to the general population just yet, but by the time I get done with the wings it will be fairly obvious.

On another front, I have now managed to lose 40 pounds, with another 47 pounds to go. Not bad for only 9 weeks of work, if I do say so myself. Ultimately this will translate into allowances for more fuel, heavier back seat passengers, or more cargo, or maybe even more avionics goodies, and it is great to be able realize that kind of additional flexibility with the airplane just by losing some excess pilot weight. Of course the medical and physical benefits of doing this are also obvious, and will hopefully allow me to further ensure that I will be able to maintain my medical certificate for many years to come.

So when you are not building, what else are you doing? Well, hopefully one answer to that question is that you are still finding time to get up in the air and fly. Over the holiday week I flew twice. The first flight was my second PIC solo flight in the Citabria, and involved one solid hour of 3 point landings. About half of these put a big smile on my face, and the other half left me cursing myself for basically flaring too high, followed by several PIOs. All the bounces were still straight ahead down the runway with no departures to one side or the other, but it was still enough of an eye opener to remind me that you have to stay on top of this airplane every second. Next time I fly the Citabria I will try to get back to some wheel landings.

The second flight was in a C-172 with my friend and fellow RV builder Mike Rettig. We flew (I should say that HE flew) for about 2 hours. I basically put on my CFI hat for most of this flight, and Mike did a nice job of flying after not having done much for the past 5 years or so. The longest dry spell I ever encountered for a pilot that finally decided to get current again was about 13 years. It really is like riding a bike - you just knock off some of the rust and spend a few hours to get proficient again, and you are off to the air races.

Afterward we ate lunch at the Perfect Landing restaurant, and then headed back to my place. Mike helped me get a long awaited workshop project off the ground and into the air (literally). A long time ago I had purchased an air hose reel complete with a heavy duty red air hose, but I had not found the time or the where-with-all to get it hung up on the rafters. All this time I have been dragging my air hoses on the ground while drilling, riveting, priming, etc. Well, that time has finally come to an end, thanks to the help from Mike. A few measurements, a few cuts of wood, a trip to the hardware store, and finally drilling some holes and setting some screws and bolts - and it was all finished - almost.....

Unfortunately it looks like I have been hit by the same 1 GB free storage limit on blogspot that Ron Duren recently reported about on his blog. Hmmm - guess I will need to cough up 30 bucks to get more storage.

Anyway, pics are pending I guess. Afterward I had to seal up a couple of leaks in the air fittings to the hose on the reel, but I think I finally got them all sealed up tonight. It is so nice to hear silence when you pressurize the hose with a non-running tool on the other end, instead of that pesky hissing sound of air leaking from somewhere that it shouldn't be leaking from. I now need to find a 25 foot long section of hose to run up nd over the rafters from the reel back to the compressor and I should be all set to start using this setup to rivet the wing parts together in the hopefully not-too-distant future. Mike also mentioned something to me about insulating the unfinished roof in the garage to warm it up a little in the winter time (and cool it down a little in the summer). I will need to invest in some 24 inch wide R19 or better insulation, but with Xmas on the way, and a full host of recent home repair bills pending, this may have to wait until next winter. It sure would be nice to warm up the garage another 10-20 degrees!

Anyhoo, just thought I would chime in and let others know that I am still lurking on their build sites, so don't get complacent like me - - KPR!

Catching Up After a Long Dry Spell

Man, this year is just flying by. Wish I could say the same for my project. I have been overtaken by events over the past several months, and the result is that not much has been done on the build. It started with the decision to get my tailwheel endorsement, followed by attending the Sport Air Electrical workshop earlier this month, and then I got the hankering to do a bit more flying for a while. SO I also checked out in the club C-182 and C-172s. Then work got in the way - you know, that pesky thing that allows you to embark in this crazy activity known as "flying." Unfortunately in my line of work October means huge deadlines for software releases that have been worked on for months, so one has to do what one has to do to get to the finish line.

Then I had a couple more revelations that have served to get in the way of actively working on the project. The first was an opportunity through the company I work for to take part in a weight loss program called Slim-genics. For far too long I had let my weight get the better of me, adn now it is slowly taking its toll on my ever-aging body. So I took a huge plunge and dove in head first and I am now about 4 weeks into this program and have lost almost 30 pounds. The ability to continue holding a medical certificate and continue to have the privilege of flying where ever I want to is a very strong motivator for me to get and stay healthy from now until the end of my days. Unfortunately this also required a time commitment to do all the things that are necessary to change bad habits and get back to a healthy life style. SO other things must suffer a bit while I take care of the truly important stuff. ONly other thing I will say about the program is that IT WORKS! I had to go buy a new smaller belt today and new clothes are not too far behind. Looking forward to "getting smaller" in the window. (reference the movie Apollo 13 for the pun!)

Then I decided to take the opportunity to fly my very first EAA young eagle this weekend. His name was Logan and his Dad's name was Mike. IT turned out to be a bit if challenge to make this happen, since we had two snow packed systems roll through the Denver area last week, and unfortunately this set the stage for a heavy Frost on Saturday morning. I was out at KAPA at 0600 in 17 degree temps to provide enough time to preheat and preflight the airplane and reposition up to KFTG where the YE rally was taking place. The sun finally warmed things up enough for me to depart in a C-172 at about 1000, and I was able to catch one of the last flights with Logan and his Dad before it eas time to turn around and head back to home base. That ride was a lot of fun. I thoroughly enjoy introducing aviation to the young peopel in hopes of lighting a spark in some of them that may someday result in them pursuing the same dream as I.

Then, as if that was not enough, I also decided that it was time to dust off an old project I had started a few years ago when I had a hankering to put together a miniature christmas village, complete with christamas trains and and little holiday scenes being played out by miniature people in a different place and time. I first caught this bug after discovering a system provided by the Woodland Scenics company, which specializes in products to create such displays. They have everything from specialized plaster products to fake trees and rocks, etc., and they have a series of how to videos that take you through the process step by step.

I became acquainted with all this when I helped my oldest son with a High School class project that involved creating a midieval scene from the Roman empire that involved a castle dn draw brige and such. That is when I got the idea for the christmas village. I made it as far as getting the train track laid out adn a basic idea for the village that I wanted. I stopped working on it after a lot of detail work on the tunnel was completed, with a bit more left to do. It has sat in a corner of my basement gathering dust ever since, so I figured it was high time to try to get this project moved along for this upcoming holiday season, so I am now neck deep in that effort.

Needless to say, this does not leave much room for working on the plane. I will say that the Sport Air Electrical class was just awesome. Fellow RV-8 builder Scott Larsen also attended. In that class we learned how to attach a variety of different crimp connectors, including a BNC connector to some RG58 antenna coax. Then we also got to wire up and solder an actual Phone and Mike jack for a PPG intercomm system, and the acid test was whether you could plug in a headset to the actual intercom unit and hear yourself speak over the microphone. Mine worked just fine. The final project was one that emulated an on/off nav light circuit and an adjustable interior cockpit light circuit. Again, mine worked as expected. I cannot say enough how valuable all of these Sport Air classes are for learning basic skills tht can be applied to the airplane project. The class was taught by Dick Keohler, whos is also one of the folks that presents a variety of electrical how to hints in the EAA Hints for Homebuilders series of instructional videos. Dick is a great guy and a great instructor.

Then there is all the current events that have unfolded within the EAA organization over the past several weeks. Recently appointed leader Rod Hightower resigned and President and CEO of EAA, sighting family relocation concerns as the reason. There are a lot of long-time EAA members that are not happy at all with this transition, adn it seems the root concerns are centered on EAA losing its focal point on Homebuilding, Experiementation, and Innovation, to a much more all-inclusive aviation audience adn community.

Dick Koehler also told us some stories about the massive re-org that took place at EAA after Hightower took office, adn some of shady things that occured behind the scenes that seems to have negatively impacted a lot of really good people. I was very saddened to hear some of these things, as my experience with all things EAA up to this point has been largely positive. The most disturbing thing that Dick told us was that the traveling Sport Air classes that I was attending may very well be the last ones to be offered at satellite locations forever more. EAA is sighting financial issues as the reason and apparently was moving toward a philosophy to conduct the classes at Oshkosh about once per quarter, instead of traveling to a variety of different locations throughout the country. This was truly disheartening to hear.

These are truly trying times for EAA as it struggles to determine it's niche in the rest of the aviation world in this present day environment. Now that a new leader is being sought, I hope that the integrity of the namesake for the Experimental Association will be preserved as we move forward in the vast world of all things aviation.

So, enough for now. Hopefully the remainder of the year will be a bit more serene, and a little less hectic. And then, true to my past experience thus far, I will probably find the time to start working on the plane again just about the time there are sub-zero temperatures in the garage. That just seems to the be the way of things for me and this project. The wings will get done - - eventually.

Back to Building = Thinking it Through....

Hopefully if you are  a fellow builder you will not have to endure the lengthy pauses I seem to experience at just about every turn in between building efforts. I am doing a horrible job of sticking to my original goal of 3-5 years for completion, but life gets in the way sometimes, and so you just keep doing what you can do I guess.

One of the problems of having lengthy delays is that it is easy to forget just exactly what you doing or what your were thinking about at the time that you stopped working on the plane. You forget where certain tools are located, and you forget the small details about certain activities.

So I spent a short time tonight just reassissing where everything was at. I know that I still have a crap load of deburring wing ribs to do, but I also realized that I still had my horizontal stab sitting on my work table - constantly getting in the way. Only problem is that I knew that I had left it there after taking it down off the wall of the garage some time back because there were still several small things that I needed to do before I hung it back up again.

- final torque the 4 mounting bolts for the center bearing/hinge.
- smooth out the cut lines where I had trimmed the edges of the HS to allow proper clearance for the elevator counter balance arms
- re-prime a couple of areas around the center joint of the HS forward spar and support angles, and also around the tips
- smooth and re-prime the area of the rear HS spar flange that had to be trimmed to allow clearance for the control horns during full down travel of the elevators.

After reviewing those items, I also realized that I still needed to drill and mount a couple of K1000-4 nut plates to accept an AN4 bolt along the web of each elevator. Here is a shot of a 3/16 inch cleco that I inserted through the large hole of the nut plate first, and then inserted the clec through the large tooling hole in the forward part of the rib web of the counterbalance support and the tip rib of each elevator.

This additional nut plate allows me to secure additional lead weight to the elevator in the event that more is needed to balance the controls when the time comes for that. You simply take a piece of lead, drill the necessary hole, and mount it to the web using an AN4 bolt and the nut plate. The subject of some controversy among builders is where to place the nut plate - on the inboard or the outboard portion of the elevator. I have chosen to mount the nut plate on the inboard side of each arm, so that any additional lead and the bolt head will be located on the outboard side of the arm (where the fiberglass tip fairing will be installed).

The reason is simple. if the bolt ever becomes loose for any reason, bot the bolt and the additional lead weight would be retained in side the fiberglass tip fairing. If either of these items are located on the inboard side of the elevator, then they could become lodged between the elevator and the horizontal stab, effectively jamming your controls and causing some very serious problems. Some builders sluff this off and decide to put the bolt and the weight on the inboard side because it is more accessible since it is not covered by the tip fairing, and this is true. I guess I view this as being safe rather than sorry. So it is a builders choice.....

I will need to enlarge the hole for the AN4 bolt (1/4 inch hole I believe). SO I will drill it out a bit, then drill the holes for the rivets, and check that little assembly off the list of to-dos.

Last item for tonight is something that I spent considerable time researching, adn I am still not 100% sure I am going with this solution, bit I think it will work.  Here is a series of pics that shows a pipe support bracket that I intend to use for securing my wiring conduit to each wing rib. I found them at HD. Unfortunately, they are just wide enough to allow the conduit to slip very easily through each hole. I figured I could place a zip tie on each side of the bracket around the conduit to hold it in place.

Using these is  a bit easier than drilling large holes in certain areas of each rib and running the conduit through the holes. The only thing I still need to check is if the aileron pushrod will clear the conduit in the last lightening hole of each rib. There are some other nylon brackets that are designed to do the same job as these, but they are more expensive and come from specific aviation suppliers. It tool me forever to find the information about them on VAF. Anyway, these brackets from HD are readily available, and aside from being a bit bulky should do the job. All you do is mark the rivet hole locations for each hole, drill them, and mount. Most use pop rivets for this which is perfectly fine. I also like the fact that they are non-conductive and therefore are perfectly suited for supporting electrical wires and such.

I am now a tail dragger pilot!

After last Monday's performance I was a little bewildered about this endeavor, and was even wondering if I would be able to get comfortable enough to be able to call my self a tail dragger pilot. John had tentatively scheduled us for this past Wednesday, but the entire State was engulfed by heavy rains pretty much all day Wednesday, and the bird needed a new tailwheel as well, so we opted for an early morning flight on Saturday.

Today was one of those days that reminds you why I live where I do. I awoke to a gorgeous sunrise full of pinks, blues, purples and reds filling the cirrus-laden clouds above. THe winds were forecast to remain below 10 knots out of the south - just what the doctor ordered.

We preflighed the plane (the new tailwheel looks great John!) and we were off and running by about 7:00am. WInds were favoring runway 17 L. John had me do two 3 point landings to start with, and these were not super good, but good enough. Then we did the wheel landings - The first one was spot on - just enough power added to allow me to fly the plane all the way down. Then before I knew it, we kissed the runway with that ever familiar "chirp" of the main wheels, without feeling any side load or even vertical load in the seat of my pants. Then it was power off and stick forward to plant the wheels firmly on the surface - could not have been a better landing IMHO. Then I tried one more - probably leveled out a bit too high and did not add enough power to compensate, but the landing was still do-able, so I stuck it on the runway after a bounce or two and finished the landing on two wheels without any problems.

We finished up with a full stop 3 point landing on runway 10 - a rare occurance for Centennial airport, but traffic was light so ATC had no problem clearing us for 10. The last time I saw an approach by an aircraft to runway 10, was the first of two Presedential visits by O-butthead to the Denver area, when the secret service brought their jet in low and fast as I watched in amazement from my office window. Never seen a jet approach and land on that runway before.

Anyway, after .7 hours, John gave me a pat on the back and a well done. Feels pretty good to beat the demons and regain the feeling that you are in total contol of the airplane. John asked if I wanted to take her around solo a couple of times, and told hime I would wait till later. I just wanted to bask in my success for a while I guess.

Here is my endorsement that allows me privilege of operating aircrqft with conventional landing gear (planes with tailwheels for the none-aviation minded folks). I got 'er done in 10.8 hours over about a 3 week period of pretty consisten flying. Your mileage may vary on several factors.

 

As a closing note, all I can say is that I feel very nostalgic right now, knowing that I am now in the company of many other pilots that came before me - from the days of the Wright brothers and the infancy of powered flight, through WWI and WWII, and up to present day conventional aircraft. From Sopwiths to P-51s, to DC-3s, Citabrias, Cessnas, and so on. As John put it to me a while back - you are doing something that not a lot of other pilots know how to do today. I am sure I will continue to reflect on American aviation history as the rest of this day passes, and lazily comes to rest with another beautiful Colorado sunset on a beautiful Fall day.

Now I guess it is time to get back to building an airplane - an RV-8 (that's not an 8A)! Taildraggers here I come!

Will teach you how to fly this airplane for cheap....

Would YOU want to learn how to fly fromTHIS flight instructor? Actually, I would. This is John in a stellar "real life" pose, just prior to our Saturday departure last weekend to terrorize the skies over Erie/TriCounty (EIK) and Longmont Airports (LMO). At that point I had about 3.3 hours remaining to be "eligible" for my tailwheel endorsement. This was a rare late morning/afternoon flight for us, with the majority of the flights thus far being very early morning flights to accomodate work schedules and availability and such.

Then there is even the more rediculous looking student (aka me). Bet you are wondering how a big guy like me can fit in a tiny airplane like that. Well, lets just suffice it to say that John gets a good chuckly watching me maneuver my way into the cockpit. Definitely a tight squeeze, but I manage. So ignore the ugly guy in the below photo - nice plane though, eh?

We burned about 2.4 hours on the Saturday flight, and another hour today. The original plan was to travel to Platte Valley as well. Unfortunately I was (and still am) in a bit of a plateau in my ability to confidently handle this airplane in a variety of different conditions, and so I had some difficulties at Tri-county and again at Longmont that I later attributed to mishandling the rollout and flare attitude by raising the nose just a bit too much before allowing the airspeed to bleed off just a bit before executing my 3 point landings. When John told me that the runway at Platte Valley was even less wide than the taxiway at Tri County, there was just no way I was even going to attempt that landing.  I managed to salvage the last landing back at Centennial, but I was just not happy with the landings at all.

So with .9 hours of "eligible"  time remaining, John was gracious enough to schedule an afternoon flight with me this evening. Well, the forecast winds for this evening were supposed to be light and variable, and don't ya know that ya just can't trust a forecast very much. The winds turned out to be direct crosswinds of 9-12 knots, and they pretty much beat me to a pulp tonight.

So what have a learned? I learned why you don't let the tailwheel stay up forever during a wheel landing in heavy crosswinds. I learned that I need to remember to take the power out during my wheel landings (something I seem to keep forgetting to do), and I learned the hard way what happens when you forget to allow the speed of the airplane to build up fast enough to depart the runway smartly on a crosswind takeoff. All very stupid mistakes on my part - and ones that I know better than to commit. The airplane is pretty much kicking my butt during landings at this point. Not very fun lessons to learn, to say the least, but lessons that must be learned to conquer this type of flying.

Personally, I don't think that a private pilot has as hard a time as I am having while trying to nail this down. Once you possess the type of flying experience that I have accumulated over the years, you have a certain degree of very high expectations of yourself. While John is always quick to remind me not to beat my self up too much, the fact of the matter is that I always have hight expectations of myself at this stage of my flying career - both as a pilot and a flight instructor. And when I don't live up to those expectations, it weighs quite heavily on me.

So am I giving up at this point? Nope. Just need to keep getting back on the saddle until I finally get it figured out. My measuring stick of success is quite simple. I just need to prove to myself that I can spend just one lesson performing landings of different types where the outcome of the directional control during each takeoff or landing is never in doubt. I ain't ashamed to say it, but right now I am a little afraid of this airplane and what it can do to me if I screw up too much. I just have to get over that somehow.....

Anyway, here are some more fun photos of our journey to front range a while back.

and finally John calling for fuel.....