Restarting yet again - a year and half later

 Hard to figure out exactly where to start this Blog again. Recap - I screwed up the inner and outer skin of my left wing LE Mode in April of 2019. Tech Counselor came out and we discussed using a planishing hammer and dolly to reform the damage to the outer LE skin and inner subskin. I bought the hammer and the dolly, and was about to attempt the task of re-forming the skin, when I had yet another epiphany. 

1. I realized that positioning the dolly had to be done exactly right in a very tight spot inside the LE, and I determined that this would just be next to impossible for me.

2. After having a very honest conversation with myself, I also realized that even if I managed to reform the skins correctly, this mod went wrong almost from the start where I did not create the wood form blocks for the sub skin properly. This meant that curve of the LE of the subskin has NEVER been formed exactly as it should, and leaves a gap between the outer Le skin and the subskin that then causes issues with how the removeable plate would sit when screwed onto the subskin. It also puts additional stress on the rib flanges underneath. IOW, the removable plate will NEVER sit flush the outer skin because of the subskin deformity, and the added stress in the rib might lead to other structural problems later. I should have taken much more care and ensured that the wood form blocks I used to bend the subskin EXACTLY matched from the curvature of the LE Rib so that the radius would have mated with the LE skin correctly.

3. The final straw for me was the realization that, after seeing it all come together, there was a much easier way to approach this whole thing, without the need to use the massive subskin and all the forming, measuring, bending, cutting, laying up, and riveting that was involved. I also realized that I could still attempt this mod AFTER the plane was built per the plans that would take very little time, and could be done using much simpler techniques than my original design.

As a result of this, I decided to abandon the entire mod and order the necessary new parts, including a new left wing LE skin and some ribs to build a stock LE. The only thing I will still do differently is order a left wing LE skin from Vans WITHOUT the cutout for the stall warning vane service access plate. 

It is sad to have spent so much time and effort on this, only to reach the conclusion that I need to abandon it. It is even more sad to come to this decision only after assembling and almost completing it.  However, I am not sad about having made the attempt, as I learned tons about airplane design in the process, and I now have a very deep appreciation for those that undertake the challenge of designing airplanes from scratch. So my only regret is the time I have lost, but nothing else. Basically it was not until seeing entire mod coming together to figure out that there was a much easier, simpler, less invasive and less time-consuming way to do this. I'll keep the details of that to myself for now.

So what happened after all that?

Instead of working on the fuel tank as I previously stated in my last post, I spent the next couple of months working on some mods for my 14 inch RIGID bandsaw.  This saw became notorious for not being very well built to the point that it vibrated so badly that it was difficult to make fine, accurate cuts. With the forming of the forward Fuel tank mounting brackets looming in the distant future that would require the use of my bandsaw, I decided to spend the time to perform several well-documented mods to reduce the vibration and turn it into the tool that it should be. There are numerous You Tube videos on the subject and I watched all of them.  

I needed to purchase some new Neoprene tires for both wheels, some longer mounting bolts for the motor as well as the saw base itself, a custom cut piece of 3/4 inch plywood to fit over the top of the mounting stand, and some new composite saw guides. After much work on this, I ended up with a good saw that passes the "nickel" test, where you place a nickel on the saw table on its skinny edge, then turn the saw on. If the saw is balanced properly, the nickel will stay on its edge without falling over. I was able to achieve this to my satisfaction. 

The end result was that I could now cut the 1/4 inch thick Fuel Tank Angle Mounting brackets with reasonable accuracy on the bandsaw to reduce the amount of forming work to do after the initial cuts. One of the most challenging parts of the saw mod was the need to trim the 1 inch wide neoprene tires down to about 7/8 inches so that they fit in the wheel tracks properly. This required making a special wood frame and using my belt sander to trim the edges accordingly. That, balancing the wheels, and adding the 3/4 inch plywood base and a new composite "link" belt all contributed to solving the vibration problems with the saw. Unfortunately this was yet another delay in the build.

Then, my wife and I needed to take a much needed vacation together, so spent the next couple of months focusing on a multi-faceted trip the New York for the first time. We spent one week in New York City and did all the NYC things a newbie would want to do - Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island, 9-11 Memorial and Museum visit, which I highly recommend to any red-blooded American, went to a Broadway show, Times Square, Stood outside during a Today Show airing, had a real New York Pizza slice, learned how to ride the subway, went to Grand Central Station, Went to Battery Park, the Fashion district, visited the famous toy store FAO Schwartz, and much more.

Then we flew off to Buffalo and took a shuttle to Niagra Falls, Ontario to see the falls for the first time. We had so much fun there, and the falls were so beautiful, that we both want to go back someday. this all happened in early September of 2019. As the whole world now knows, only a few short months later all of New York and the rest of the world would be shut down and fighting for its life due to the COVID pandemic. I have not been back on the build ever since May of 2019 as the the wind just went out my sails after coming to decision about the mod, and too many other things got in the way. After  our vacation, winter and the cold set in yet again, and I still had no heat in my garage. 

Then COVID showed up in the spring of 2020, and the massive wild fires in Colorado soon followed, and it was a struggle to stay alive and to breathe through smoke and ash all at the same time. I almost lost relatives in the Troublesome Fire in Grand County - very scary. So airplane building was not on my list of things to do throughout that entire period.

I endured multiple furloughs and layoffs at work last year, only to find myself working 15 hours days, 7 days a week, for at least a couple of months. So you could say that yes, I kept my job, which was a good thing, but at great personal cost to my overall health and well-being.  Now we are in 2021, where winter is once again upon me, and still with no heat in my garage. What a wildly exhausting time it has been over the past year and a half. 

Is there a plus side to any this? Well, in the interest of counting my blessings, both kids have graduated college, have jobs, and are out of the house and successfully on their own. Several major financial burdens have ended, I have not contracted COVID nor have any of my family members, and COVID vaccinations have begun. Aside from politics and some extremely idiotic people in this world, it seems like the sun may be trying to shine on the world again. So I decided it is also time for me to re-engage with the plane project again. I need to order parts from Vans and finish the wings.

More to come..... Sorry for the long hiatus. Stay safe, respectful, and peaceful everyone. Life is too short. I'll have pics of the bandsaw mod, planishing hammer and dolly, and some other stuff in the next post.

Where have I been since March of 2018?

I know, I know, where the heck have I been March – certainly not working on an airplane much. Crappy weather, house falling apart – same old excuses and interruptions. I did mange to order some prefabbed fuel pick up lines, Proseal, and a few other things, which also went through their own adventure during shipment. Apparently Fedex decided to all but destroy the original packaging from Vans. Admittedly this was rather package to assemble, because I had ordered a big can of Proseal, and I also ordered a replacement .032 x 12 x 3.5 foot piece of sheet aluminum for the leading edge mod on the right wing, since I screwed up the other one that I had ordered an eternity ago.

Even so, all Fedex had to do was put it on plane, then put it on a truck, and deliver it. Easy – right? Yes, until you factor in the sorting equipment in between each of those phases of delivery. Somewhere  in the middle of all that, a sorting machine got hold  of it and destroyed the packing. Amazingly, they did not seem to damage the parts – just the packaging. I knew something was up because my package did not arrive when I expected it to. When it did finally show up, the cardboard was mangled with packing tape, did not look at all like a Vans package, and had obviously been mangled or torn apart somehow. The only damage was a minor bend on one corner of the sheet aluminum that I ordered, but I also noted that Vans had cut it with the grain running the wrong direction.  A call to Vans took care of that, and a few days later I had the replacement part.

Vans wanted me to take pics of the packaging, which I did, and they confirmed that was not the way that it left their facility. Moral to this story s don’t  trust Fedex with anything. I wanted to use UPS but Vans talked me out of it because “they get a better rate with Fedex.” Next time I will use UPS.

A couple of other things have occurred since I last posted. I had wanted to get a new travel trailer, and decided that this year was the year for that to happen. I wanted something a little newer and larger, with built in air conditioning and a nicer master bed. Not hard to find a better bed, since I had been sleeping on the couch for years. While I was pursuing a new trailer, my truck decided to start nickel and diming me. Time to make a decision – so I spent the past several months researching trucks and trailers, and ended up getting one of each.

Then, as if that was not enough, I decided with all the delays in the plane build that I needed to bite the bullet again and order a quickbuild fuselage for my RV-8 from Vans. So, in the past few months I have acquired a new trailer, truck, and 75% complete airplane fuselage.  Oh, and I also spent the past 2 months trying to sell my old trailer, which finally did sell about a week ago.

To top it all off, work has been a nightmare – that’s about all I am going to say about that. So here I am, several months later, a LOT poorer, completely exhausted, and oh yes, I am writing this in Oshkosh Wisconsin after making the maiden voyage in my new-found ground-based travel machines.  I have been running non-stop for months now and I am completely exhausted. I only had time to throw everything from the old trailer into the new one wherever it would fit – no time to organize. More about the shakeout of the new rig and all about the Airventure 2018 journey in the next posts.

Making Due with What You Have - The Continuation

Its been a crazy week at work, and since I am the newsletter editor for my chapter I have to spend a few evenings creating the monthly newsletter at the beginning of the 3rd week of each month. So I haven't been able to update the blog until now.

So here's the story I meant to tell in the last post. Every once in a while - and this has happened to me several times since I started the project - an opportunity arises where the materials and tools and techniques that are used to build an airplane come in handy for some unexpected purpose. One of the first things you experience when you start a project such as this, is that although you are working with metal, you sure end up spending a lot of time working with wood. All the fixtures and jigs and work benches and tables and clamping setups that you have to make out of wood in order to build a metal airplane is remarkable.

So as a result you develop a pretty good set of skills working with wood. On this particular occasion, I had a plastic tree stand for our Christmas tree finally give out last year, and I had intended on ordering a new one for this year as the holiday season started ramping up. The base was starting to crack where the legs attach to it, and it was no longer able to support the weight of the tree.

As I searched online for a replacement, I found out that there are a million different replacement stands out there, but none of them were to my liking.I was out in the garage one day staring at the fuel tank, and I turned and looked at an orange home depot bucket with a bunch of wood scraps in it that has been sitting around for years now. All of the wood in this bucket was remnant wood from the rib forms that I had cut from 2x10 boards to make the forming blocks for my subskin fabrication for the leading edge. Some of them are shown below:

The more I stared at these pieces of wood, the more I realized that I might just be able to use them to make a brand new stand for the Christmas tree. They were long enough to match to length of the original legs, and the only other thing I needed was a piece of wood to drill a 1.25 inch wide by 3.25 inch deep hole for the shaft of the first stage of the center pole of the tree to fit into. I determined this by taking the measurements from the original stand as shown below:

I figured I could use a 4x4 piece of wood to drill the new hole for the base pole, and I found some old L brackets that were removed from an old garage door frame assembly that was removed when I changed my door from a standard side spring configuration to a center spring configuration. I remember the guy asking if I wanted the old hardware, and I said, sure I'll keep those!. I had no idea what I might use them for at that time. Then I found some 1/4 inch x 5/8 inch lag bolts that were lying around, but I had to buy a few more as I realized I did not quite have enough for this holiday project.

I made some measurements, cut and trimmed all the wood with my saw, bought a 1.24 inch spade bit for the hole for the shaft, mounted it on my drill press and bored out the hole from the 4x4 piece of wood. Once all the parts were cut, drilled, and trimmed to the proper length, I took the L brackets and bolts and drilled pilot holes for them, and here is the final result:

The hardware was overkill, but it is what I had lying around, so why not use it. One thing is for sure, this stand is even more sturdy that the original one. The thing I love the most about this is that the natural curve of the wood from the shape of the LE ribs is a natural fit for this stand. I didn't even really have to do any sanding or anything, since all this ends up under the tree mat anyway. It was as if those pieces of wood were meant for this little project - amazing! Drilling out that hole was sure a trip. Saw dust kept coming out of it like a volcano as I drove the bit down deeper and deeper. As always, clamping the wood to the drill press base was a challenge, but I used a metal drill press vise specially designed for the drill press base to help take care of that. The spade bit bored a perfect 1.25 inch hole in the 4x4 wood, but now I have a mess to clean up in the basement.

So this just goes to show that you never know what your airplane building skills will allow you to do outside of your project. It is also a great feeling when you can solve a problem without going out and buying something from a store that will most likely cost you more than if you come up with abetter, cheaper solution. Unless someone reads this post, or I tell them how I did it, nobody will ever know that the legs came from scrap wood I used for the airplane project!

KPR.

Got some stuff from Vans

Not too much to report this time. I received an order that I placed for some stuff from Vans, including the necessary LP-4-3 and 4-4 pop rivets that I plan to use for the majority of the Leading rivets that attach the rear flange of the LE ribs to the wing spar.  I also ordered several #6 ring terminals and several feet of #18 wire so that I could practice crimping with my crimping tool, which I have not done since I took the Sport Air electrical class a long long time ago.

I needed to do this because the capacitive fuel sender kit requires you to put ring terminals on several pieces of wire that will be inside the fuel tank and screwed to each metal plate, and then to a BNC connector at the wing root that will connect to the other wire and  connector coming from the fuel gauges and converter units in the fuselage. So I watched multiple videos from EAA and from SteinAir, and practiced crimping several terminals. I think they came out OK but I'm still not 100% satisfied with some of them.  Continuity and resistance checks are all good, but some of the crimps don't look the way I think they should. Some combo the amount of stripped insulation and where I am placing the sleeve in the crimper I think.

I also ordered a small amount of Proseal just so I could play with that a little before I am ready to do the big job on the actual fuel tanks. I also ordered some rubber grommets that turned out to fit my .75 inch holes that I drilled in each wing rib for the black conduit to run my wires through. The problem is that the grommets only have a 1/4 inch opening in the middle, and I may want a bit more than that. At any rate, it was nice to have some to see how they install. I'm sure I'll have places where they will come in handy.

Some of the other stuff I ordered was the metal reinforcement kit for the horizontal stabilizer center section of the front spar, which was found to be prone to cracking in certain areas. I'll be installing this after I finish the wings while I wait for the fuselage so I can get it done. I may even decide to replace one or both of my stab skins, since that was the beginning of several "first time" blunders when trying to rivet my very first large skin.

I also ordered electronic copies of my RV-8 plans and instructions-something that Vans had made available for a while now but I never acquired. It makes it so much easier to to review everything without carrying around the big notebook.

Other than that, I managed to get outside tonight and final sand and clean the scuffed an filed areas of the skins for the scarf joint. Hopefully in the next day or two I will prime those areas and dimple the holes that still need to be dimpled, and then finally I can move on to bigger things with the LE again.

KPR

After a long absence........

.....I think it's time to get back to building an airplane. Lets just say, as I have said before, that life keeps getting in the way. The story that follows does have an aviation and airplane-building tie-in at the end, so bear with me as I try to remember how to type blog entries and add relevant pics to my posts.

To fast forward things a bit, starting with my last post, after graduating college, my oldest son managed to get a job, pay off half of his student loans, and buy a house in the Denver area (of all places), all within a few months of his college graduation. The house that he bought needed a lot of work, and so he decided that he and some friends (some of whom had volunteered to help repair and build new homes in New Orleans after Katrina had devastated the area) would basically flip the house, starting with the upstairs.

They completely gutted everything and rebuilt the entire upstairs of the house. One of the last things to go was an old door frame and the front door that went with it. When I saw the existing door for the first time I noted that it was just about to fall over, and you could not even close it completely. The next time I saw the door, it had been completely removed and replaced with a brand new door, and the old front door was laying on its side on the front patio. My son said, " I have no idea what I am going to do with this old door now."

It was then that I had brilliant idea. While looking over the door I noticed that it appeared to be a solid core door. I then asked my son to get me a level or two. I then started to run the level across the door and noticed that it seemed to be very straight. After a few minutes I told my son that I would be happy to take the door off his hands, so we loaded it up in my truck and off I went.

So why did I want that door? There were several reasons, the first of which stems from a problem that I had been dealing with ever since I build the first work benches for my garage-based airplane-building workshop. My original work benches were unfortunately built with 2x4 side braces for each benchtop that were not cut properly at the mill. While I did check them initially to ensure that they were not warped along the wider 4 inch side of the wood, I neglected to verify that they were also true and straight along the skinnier 2 inch side of each board. The shorter side was the one that my work bench tops ended up sitting on. As you may have already guessed, the bench tops soon adopted the shape of the warped side of each 2x4, resulting in about 1/4 inch bend in each bench top. Keep in mind that this was also after applying not one, but two 3/4 inch plywood benchtops for the top. Here is a pic of the original bench shortly after I had completed it in 2009. It makes me sick to my stomach to look at it because the bend in the top is very noticeable to me, and I should have corrected it right then and there.

My "solution" was to place shims in the middle of the bench top to try to level  it out as best I could. I have been living with this situation ever since I began my build. This is where the door from my son's house comes in. As soon as I saw that door I knew that it was time to address my crooked workbench problem once and for all. Last fall I began the arduous process of removing all the stuff from my existing bench, unscrewing the bench top and those crappy 2x4 side supports, and I began the process of preparing the door for use as my new benchtop.

One of the key changes I made was to replace those crappy 2x4s with some 1x8 wood from my old wing kit crate. I obviously check those this time to make sure that skinny 1 inch wide edge was straight.

There was one other major reason that I wanted to use the door. My original benches were not wide enough to support my dimpling table from Cleaveland Tools. To fix that problem I had to build a hinged extension to the edge of the bench top. The door is wide enough to support the dimpling table without the need for any extension. So I get a straight bench top and a wide-enough one all at the same time. A win-win.

Here is the "new" bench after completing all the necessary modifications:

It's a little bit thicker, a bit wider, and a bit shorter than the former workbench, but at least I know it's flat. Now perhaps I can get on with the build. Thanks to my son for providing me with a fix to a nagging problem. Sometimes you just have to make changes to the shop before you can proceed with the build. I also need to get heat into my garage somehow to solve another very bad problem in the winter months. I plan on getting back to work on the wings in a few weeks.

Can you guess what this is?

Had a bit of a surprise this afternoon while I was outside going over some car-related info with my son Adam who recently received his Colorado Driver's license. (Way to go Adam!)

It looked something like this:

While I was busy going over the finer points of jumper cable operation with Adam, he suddenly looked up to see what the deep droning noise was coming from the north. He then said - Isn't that plane flying a little low? Not hearing the engines I looked up and for a split second I agreed, and I thought we were looking at an airplane in trouble, heading right for the house! But then my attention focused on what has become a familiar sound to me over the years, and I realized that this this had to be Aluminum Overcast - the EAA B-17 back once again on its annual pilgrimage around the country just before Airventure arrives on Oshkosh Wisconsin in July.

BTW, the above pic does not do the airplane justice, because it WAS flying very low almost directly over the house. I became less worried when I realized that I could hear all 4 of those wright-cyclone engines purring along just fine, and it was maintaining a constant altitude. I assume it was low to avoid the low overcast ceiling that has invaded the Denver area over the weekend.

I am blessed to live where I live, because the path directly over my house is a natural navigation point from south to north for everything from jets flying over mile high stadium before a Bronco game, to Aluminum Overcast and a whole host of other historic warbirds that occasionally fly almost directly over the house. The bird should be here for the next 2 weeks giving rides and promoting EAA. And all this on the heels of the 70th anniversary of D-Day. I certainly paid my respects, and I hope you all did as well. I will NEVER forget.

Now back to the airplane project.....
I spent time today getting the top skins of the left wing installed after deburring both sides of the rivet holes in the skins, as well as both sides of the holes in the top half of each wing rib. Deburring the back side of the rib flanges has to be one of my top 5 least liked things about building an airplane, because ready-made power tool can get into that location to do the job. I had to take my deburring bit and debur all the back side flange holes by hand.Getting in between all those inboard ribs that are very close together was  a pain.

Prior to re-installing the skins on the frame, I vacuumed out all the tiny remnants laying on the trailing edge from all the drilling. With the top skins back on I could now remove the bottom skins and begin the process of removing vinyl and deburring all those holes. Here are a couple of pics of the bottom skins after the vinyl was removed.

I removed the vinyl from the joggled areas for the inspection plates so that I can prime those areas continue to drill out the holes for the nut plates that will eventually need to be installed. I also deburred the edges and corners on the wing walk doubler since those were still pretty rough. Tomorrow I plan on removing the vinyl from the larger outboard bottom wing skin and beginning the deburring process. Then I'll get to do it all over gain for the right wing. (UGGHHH!).

Removing wing skins and stripping vinyl, and pics of recent visit of two almost completed RV projects

I removed the top outboard wing skin of the left wing and began the process of stripping the vinyl. After the drilling is over you kind of start to dread the deburring part a bit because this must be done on both sides of the skin. SO there are a total of 8 separate wing skins for the top and bottom of both wings(4 per wing), but you have to debur holes on both sides, so that is all the holes on each wing skin times 2 for the front and back. Then you have to debur the holes in the rib and spar flanges - again that is also both sides of each of those. If you focus too much on the large number of holes then you can become overwhelmed sometimes, so it is best just to get started and see how long it takes to get through a certain number of them. Then you will know how long it will take to do the rest of them. When the time comes dimple the skins I will take my time to ensure that I do not create any figure 8 holes in the skins.

Anyway, here is one side of one wing skin with the vinyl removed. The new soldering iron worked much better, but it was not perfect:

Next is another important pic. When you remove the skins, you realize just how much material was removed during the match drilling exercise. The silver speckles are the chips of aluminum. These all need to be removed.

And then I took this pic of my makeshift movie night movie screen. It was such a nice weekend after having been such horrible weather around here for the past several weeks that I just felt compelled to get out the king size bed sheet and use some of my clamps for something other than mashing metal parts together. I rig a projector on the opposite end of the garage and connect that to my laptop to show some movies every once in a while. Works pretty well. My seating capacity in the garage is a bit reduced with both wings on the stands, but it still holds a few folks.

Next are some pics I promised a while back. Thanks to John Tedder and Lyn Langer whose RV-7As are well on their way to becoming real flying machines. I am really interested in Lyn's aircraft because he has a 180 HP IO-360 from Superior with their extremely popular Millineum Cylinders. I just noticed on their website that they have come out with a 195 and 200 HP version that I can build myself by attending their 2 week class. I took a ton of pics but will include a few of them here.

Here is Lyn's engine:

And the rest of the aircraft. I can't wait until mine is looking like this someday:

John had his wings off while he works on his avionics. I checked out his wing wiring, fuel tanks, and landing light installation....

NOthing beats seeing things assembled up close. If you get these opportunities you need to take tons of pics because they will help later. I captured most of Lyn's fuel system routing from the firewall to the fuel servo to the injector manifold and out to the cylinders. Perhaps I'll post some of those pics later on.

All for now. I hope to have all wing skin and rib holes deburred by the end of this week.

Wing Rib Prep Cont'd, and the loss of another good friend.....

I managed to finish scuffing the main wing ribs for both wings. In total I think this took me about 8-10 hours or so just to scuff and deburr the 28 main ribs (14 per wing). The last two ribs are the end ribs that are used to support the wing spar on the wing stands, so this meant that I had to remove both wing spars from the stands, remove the end ribs, and detach the angle mounting bracket from each rib. The leading edge ribs still need to be scuffed (14 more of those to do).

The next steps are to clean and prime the two end ribs so that these can be remounted to the wing spar so I can put the apars back on the wing stands. In fact, once these are primed I think I can go ahead and rivet them to the wing spar. The cleaning process is a bath in warm water and original formula dawn dishwashing detergent, followed by a deep cleaning with acetone and a micro fiber cloth.

For the primer I am currently thinking about using the NAPA 7220 from the spray can instead of the two part epoxy primer - mostly for time saving reasons, and because my two part primer has been sitting around outside in the garage for a long time and may now be unusable, and because the weather is expected to get colder next week.

And as if there isn't enough sad news in the world today, I just got word that another very good friend and Civil Air Patrol acquaintance John Butler has passed away. I spent a lot of time in my last several years of CAP service working with John by conducting a variety of different training courses for the Jeffco Senior Squadron. John was a great guy and he will be sorely missed. John had some medical issues but I don't have any details yet. All I know for sure is that at least he did not parish in an airplane crash. Rest in Peace John - Lord knows you have sure earned it.

This year just can't end soon enough for me.....

Scuffing alclad

Managed to start scuffing wing ribs after a long respit from building the plane. For me this takes about 10-15minutes per rib. Since I love doing the math for this kind of stuff just so I can realize just how much additional work I still have to do:
1. Each rib has 2 sides, a front and rear flange,and top and bottom flanges, and each of those have 2 sides. That means each rib has 10 sides of metal that have to be scuffed and made ready for primer.
2. There are 14 main ribs and about 7-8 nose ribs for each wing. Allof these have to be deburred, scuffed, cleaned, and primed. Needless to say this process takes several hours, or the equivalent of several days, for me to complete.

All but one of the left wing main ribs have been scuffed with a scotch brite pad. The one that remains is the one that the angle bracket is attached to on the very end which is still supporting my wing spar in the stand. I will have to remove the wing spar from the stand, disassemble the wing rib from the angle bracket, scuff it, clean it, and prime it, and then reassemble it all and reattach it to the end of the spar, and remount the spar back onto the stand.

The right wing main ribs are next, followed by the nose ribs for both leading edges. I have also had to perform the final edge deburring on the rib flanges on most of the ribs where they split into different sections that attach to the main wing spar and the trailing edge rear spar. There are small burrs on most of these separated flanges that have to be cleaned up. I used a small file, 200 grit aluminum sand paper, and the sctch brite padto clean them up. Many of the flanges had raised edges or small burrs and these will just eat away at the metal they are attached to if you do not clean them up.

At least I made some progress. My goal is to have all the main ribs scuffed by the end of the weekend.

On another note, I have come to realize that this "small" project of mine will most likely take me on the order of 10-15 years to complete. The number and size of the ongoing domestic interruptions, and the need to finance college expenses for 2 kids for the next 5.5 years are all taking a toll on me. I still see myself completing the project someday, but it certainly will not be completed completed in the 5 years I had originally hoped for. Not much else to say, except that life sucks sometimes.

ON that note, it is a sad day today after learning that the president of EAA Chapter 43, David Biesemeier, died Wednesday after taking off in his experimental aircraft from Erie/Tricounty airport. I had met him a couple of times and he was a really really nice guy. He will be missed. The details as to the actual cause are still not known, but there is some indication that he may have lost a wing or experienced a major engine malfunction or a possible breakup in flight. The media, as usual, is all over the place with their reports right now, so we will have to wait for the NTSB report to get anything closer to the truth.

I am finding that at my age I have started experiencing the loss of an increasing number of friends and loved ones for a variety of reasons. I guess this is a sure sign of getting older but I have to say that this just really sucks. We lost Alex to cancer just a couple of weeks ago - the boy who wanted to be a pilot that we were thankfully able to send to Oshkosh. Cancer sucks, dying in an airplane accident sucks, death sucks. There are too many people from all generations whom I respect dearly and from whom I have learned so many things that are no longer here,  and that sucks too. Sorry to rant, there has just been too much of this happening lately, and its a little hard to digest.

Anyway, hopefully I will be reporting more plane building progress in the coming weeks.

Latest Major Distraction Out of the Way - Getting Ready to Build Again

This will be the only reference I make to a project that literally almost brought me to my knees and severely crippled my ability to work on the plane. A before and after pic of the upstairs bathroom should take care of it, and then it is time to talk airplane building again.

Before the remodel from hell:

And after:

Took way too long and cost way too much in time, money, and sanity,but it is done. Still have a downstairs mess to take care of but will tackle that next year AFTER my wings are done.

Yesterday I finally managed to put together my new large paint table. One of the things that all the bathroom stuff did provide as a small contribution for the airplane build, was a very big box that the downstairs shower kit came in. I saved this box with intent of turning it into a very large paint table that I can use to prep and prime many large wing parts at the same time.

I used 36inch wide 2x4 inch wire fencing that has been laying around the house forever doing basically nothing, some 1x3 lumber, and a variety of different screws to complete the project yesterday. Just as was the case for the smaller table I built, the hard part about this is stretching the fencing out tight enough so that it will not sag when all the parts are placed on it.

I also had to close up the open end of the box on one side by using a short 2x2 piece of wood and some gorilla tape. This paint table should serve me well for many other priming and painting sessions to come. I started by cutting the top off, then I cut the flap on the end of that piece off and taped it to the end of the table. Then I measured, cut and screwed the wood frame together, then attached it with screws to the cardboard,and then cut, fit, and attached the wire fencing to the wood frame that surrounds the cardboard box.Simple but effective.Still, this is a very large item that I will have to be able to store safely somewhere.

Next step - prepare to get very sore arms and hands after all the scuffing, cleaning,and priming  of the wing ribs. All this while the next winter storm is bearing down on me. Great, just great! But, hey, at least I am building a plane again.

Planting seeds for future aviators, or just a fun outing with my niece and her kids and Mike and his family

A couple of weeks ago I finally hit the weather jackpot and found enough sunshine and fair winds in the forecast to be able to to take my niece and her kids for a fun ride down to KCOS, and Mike Rettig came along in a separate C172 with his family. Here are some pics of my young relatives having a really fun time in the cockpit of the KC-97-turned into a restaurant.

First is a pic of Mike's daughter - she was just barely able to climp up into the pilots seat, and I did not do this justice by getting a frontal happy face shot, so the one from the rear will have to do. I think that Mike probably has much better pics that he took!

Next are the pics of My niece's two boys - I don't think I could have made them smile any bigger!

The nightmare is almost over.......

As of this morning all of the major upstairs bathroom remodel work is done. Unfortunately all attempts to stop the leaking of the downstairs shower have failed, and I am all but convinced that the problem is with the drain that this stupid moron we hired to the work way back in March absolutely screwed it up. Now that I have a functional (and quite nice looking) upstairs bathroom again, I will wait until next year to start the process of ripping the shower out and re-doing that myself.

I desparately want to get back to airplane building. This house of mine has sucked enough life out of me this year, and it is time that I get my own life back for a change.  My only real saving grace throughout this whole affair has been taking time out to fly young eagles at the monthly EAA Chapter 301 rallies held at KFTG, and working with Mike Rettig to get his Flight review current. Mike's reccurency training was capped off with a great experience last weekend when both of us rented two different C-172s from a local flying club and we both accomplished a couple of "firsts" with our respective flights.

In my case I had been trying to take my niece and her two boys, ages 7 and 3, up in a GA airplane for the first time.We had been trying for over a month but seemed to hit bad weather each time until last week.

In Mike's case it was his first flight with the family,which now includes his wife and their new daughter. Mike is a good pilot, and it was very satisfying for me as a flight instructor to see him get back in the air again after a long respit from flying. Thanks for the opportunity to get you back in the air Mike! 

In all cases the weather finally turned out great, and all passengers and pilots made it safely to our destination and back. The destination,by the way, was a short trip to KCOS in Colorado Springs, where we then procured two very nice courtesy cars from the JetCenter FBO, and drove all of an eigth of a mile from the airport to get to a place known as SOLOs, or it is also known as The Airplane Restaurant. This is a fantastic place to go for a $200.00 hamburger. The restaurant actually incorporates almost all of a complete KC-97 air refuleing tanker from the 50s and 60s that served in the USAF during that time. The plane was procured and converted into a restaurant where you can actually sit inside the fueslage of the plane and eat a nicely prepared meal. I made reservations for all of us to sit in the plane, since there are a limited number of seats that are actually in the plane. The rest of the restaurant is in the main building, and there are all sorts of model plane displays and memorabilia to become absorbed in after you finish your meal. The cockpit has been largely preserved in an "as original" state,with the original cockpit radios, levers, and switches all still very much intact.

A great time was had by all, and both flights went very well. I am very proud of my niece and both of my great nephews for being comfortable with using the headsets, and for following my instructions when I needed to talk on the radio. The oldest one even got to fly the plane a little and he was excited about that.

So the act of actually flying every so often has helped me tremendously to get through all the trials and tribulations with the house projects, and now it is time to put aside foolish house things and move back into building mode. I am spending the rest of this weekend getting my shop back in order, and preparing to re-engage with the build, right at the point where I left off, which was getting ready to prep, clean and prime all of my Wing ribs.

Of course, another saving grace for me was to be able to attend Airventure in Oshkosh for my 4th year in a row. There is so much to recount from that trip that I will do so in a separate post. For all you serious builders out there, do not forget to keep your flying skills up during the build.

Wing spars relocated back on the work bench

As part of my ongoing major re-organization effort of the garage, I managed to clear off enough space from the work benches to allow me to move the spars from the shelf on the wall to the benches. I had not seen them for a while, and it felt good to get them down from "storage" so I can start match drilling ribs and skins and such.

The only problem I encountered whne attempting to move them from the shelf to the bench was that all of the parts that were stored on the shelf had been buried by almost 1 inch of shingle remnant when the jerks put my new roof on the house. THey did a great job cleaning up around the perimeter of the house but nobody even mentioned anything about checking and cleaning up my garage. This really pissed me off, but at the same time I realized that this was mostly my fault for leaving them "in harms way" adn not covering them with a tarp or something. I guess I just did not expect to ahve that much crap fall down into the garage.

IN any event, it looks like I was able to vacuum up most of the stuff, but this kind of thing always makes me nervous when I start thinking about all the little pieces tht may still be buried underneath the metal that will not show their ugly face until the vibration from the finished plane finally jars them loose, adn then who know what crevace they may find to deposit themselves into that end up affecting a critical flight control or something.

Here is the first of several pics - lovely shingle crap and sawdust all over my left elevator, and most certainly inside the bay where the electric servo and linkage  goes - the one place that I really don't want to have any of this crap in my airplane, where it can be fatal if something goes wrong.

Edit - and a happy new year to me!! Turns out that blogspot has had problems with uploading images apparently since clear back on January 4. Smells like a virus or even better a ploy to push users away from IE and onto Google chrome or Firefox browsers. Having recently had problems at work with Firefox's latest release, I am now leary of downloading anyone's browser. That said, it does seem that Firefox v 17.0.1 does not have the problem that IE does (do NOT under any circumstances install Firefox v 18.0 - very bad!).

Anyway, to continue - here is the pics of my roof debris covered airplane parts, starting with the left elevator:

Next is the rear spar:

And on a happier note, here are the main wing spars back on the bench. Unfortunately, my HS is still on the table in front of the bench, and I need to finish up some touch up work on the HS so I can hang it back up on the wall to free up the table so I can start attaching ribs - it just never ends.

Still dealing with another deep freeze that has put the stops on anything in the garage. Now working on the cleanup of the benches in the basement - getting tired of living in the junk heap of a house. Almost ready to break out the two fire pits that I own and start some serious burning!

And finally, this is better late than never I guess. A couple of weeks ago I attended a hangar party up at KBJC for a gathering of RV folks across the state. Compliments to Bob Market, who owns this awesome hangar which will soon house Ron Duren's RV-7. I met several people that I had never met before, and made some new friends along the way. Here is a list of things that happened up there:

1. Got a close up view of Sean Thomas' Metal Wing stands. I will post some additional pics of that in another post, but here is a teaser pic for now. Sean is doing a great job.

2. Finally got to see Sean B, who had some very bad luck last summer after his house, and nearly completed RV7 were lost in a large fire near Colorado Springs. It was really great to see him and to find out that he is actually back to building another 7 again and doing his best to put the fire behind him. Kudos to you Sean. I admire your intestinal fortitude! KPR my friend.
3. I got to meet Jim Gray, owner and builder of the 2010 grand champion homebuilt award at Oshkosh for his beautifully finished RV-8, which was finished in the colors of the Jolly Roger Squadron seen in so many movies, including Top Gun and GI Jane. I took a ton of pics and got to pick Jim's brain for some building tips for such things as the forward baggage door, etc.

4. As if that was not enough, I then got a chance to talk with Bob Markert, who is now working on his fuselage. Get ready for alot of green - I just love the color of the primer he is using:

Note the mockup of the instrument panel - alot of Garmin goodies going in this one. He also has a rear seat throttle that I am also considering putting in the back as a safety feature more than anything else. I am NOT going to put the rear rudder pedals in mine - too many stories from other folks about ineffective control and uncomfortable foot position for the rear seat occupant. here is the forward throttle quadrant  - very similar to what I am going to do.

And the rear throttle:

And here is shot of an improvement over the stock landing gear provided by Vans - Grove lnding gear struts are made from one piece leaf spring steel (I think), and they are designed to carry the hydraulic brake fluid inside the actual strut instead of from a separate brake line that is typically strapped to the the landing gear strut. These also serve to eliminate the need to make fairings for the landing gear legs since they already come aerodynamically shaped.

And finally a shot of one of the auxiliary fuel tanks that fit at the tip of each wing. These are from SafeAir and are very expensive (about 1500.00 for the pair), and they give you about an hour of extra fuel. I plan on getting the bungle kit which is simply the fuel line fitting that is added to the main fuel tank which connects to the fuel line coming from the aux tank shown below. I will simply cap this off for potential future use shold I decide to add the aux tanks at a later time. Part of the tank fits inside the wing tip (bottom of pic), and the rest of it (long tube) fits inside the lightening holes of the outer wing ribs. It was very cool to see these up close.

Then Bob showed me a custom windscreen that he ordered from the same company that makes the canopies for Vans. The stock canopy comes molded as one full unit that must be cut and trimmed to create the wind screen and the separate bubble canopy. I had no idea that you could order just the wind screen by itself. I learn something every day.

So it was one hangar, good friends, good food, good conversation, and a mind blowing awesome experience to see flying RVs and RVs under construction all in the same place. It certainly had an airplane factory feel to it. Now I just need to get back to pounding some rivets! All for now.

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.

Tail Wheel Endorsement and Aluminum Overcast Visit

One of the things you are ocassionally reminded about during the build is the fact that you just can't stop flying all together while you are building and expect to be able to hop into your new RV aircraft and head for the skies. I have posted about this at various times in the past, and it bares repeating here. An RV is a hot rod high performance aircraft, regardless of how that is defined per the Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs). I am constantly amazed by the folks that seem to think that just because you ahve the money and the time, that you will be ready for what is in store when the day finally comes to step into the cockpit and fly it. The most surprising one I encounter are individuals that either do not even have their pilot certificate yet, or low time private pilots with absolutely no experience or flight time in aircraft that are considered complex or high performance, or simply contain advanced flight and avionics systems.
The bottom line is that all of the RV line of aircraft fly very fast, and they are very hard to slow down, and in that respect their flight characteristics are very similar to a Mooney. I was fortunate enough to fly in a Mooney M20J during my commercial instrument training in college, and I have also experienced a multitude of other aircraft that have given me an appreciation for the term "high performance."

Anyway, the bottom line is that whatever you do, you cannot stop flying while you are building, so you have to find a balance. As such, I have decided that now is the time for me to pursue my tail wheel endorsement. I made this decision just about the same time that 2 days worth of absolutely severe weather hit the Denver area, with unGodly amounts if hail, wind, and tornadic activity, all taking their toll across the entire metro area.

I decided to join a local flying club at Centennial Airport, one that I had actually been a member and instructed at many years ago. Aspen Flying Club currently has a Citabria for rent, and I decided to take advantage of that. The bad news is that I always wanted to join to get access to several other Cessna and Piper aircraft, but as it turns out the airport got hit heavily by the hail, and several of the club aircraft, which are all tied down on the ramp, got damaged by the hail. The good news - the Citabria was under a covered parking area and did not get damaged. SO I am in luck as far as tail wheel training is concerned, and I am very happy about that.

Why am I doing this? Well, I am still at a point in the build where I can remain undecided about building a nose wheel or tail dragger airplane, which is an option for most the Vans RV aircraft designs. I do not ahve to commit to this until I am ready to order the fuselage kit. The main reason is that the landing gear location and design is different between the two types of aircraft, so once you start working on the fuselage you have to know which one you want.

I am using the tail wheel endorsement to help me decide which way I want to go. Here are some of the pluses and minuses of going either way:

Tailwheel

Pluses
Cool factor - looks neater and more nostalgic, especially if building a WWII look alike like me.
Clearance of the prop tips from the ground is exceptional = opens up landing at grass or other soft fields.
Allows different sizes and choices of prop and engine - moreso that nosewheel airplane.
Better ground handling
Easier to enter/exit the cabin and aircraft (No additional foot step weldment required)
More difficult to inspect under the wing at critical flight control attach points

Minuses
Requires constant stick and rudder skills to keep from groundlooping during landing
Forward visibility during initial takeoff and finl landing phase is almost nil
Difficult to tie the tail down securely
Nose over and flip over potential if breaking too hard or a brake locks up
Harder to take off and land in cross wind conditions
May be more difficult to start due to angular differences of fuel tanks, gravity working against you, and more dependence on fuel pumps working correctly.

Nose Wheel
Pluses
Forward visibility always during take off and landing
Better cross wind handling on take off and and landing due to shorter moment between center of gravity/lift and the location of the nose wheel compared to same with a tail wheel (longer moment)
Fuel tanks level - easier starting at all fuel levels in the tank
Forward CG forces nose to come down onto nose gear and angle of attack of wing to reduce, aiding in landing stability (tail wheel down forces the wing to go to a positive angle of attack).
Shorter moment of nose wheel results in less sensative steering control (can also be a minus)

Minuses
Less cool factor than for a taildragger RV, but in my opinion it will look cool either way
Harder to enter/exit the cabin. Big drop off the back wing, and must only load one person at a time or airplane tail will strike the ground hard.
Prop is much closer to the ground - limits prop sizes and choices, and potential for prop strike is increased.
Vans nose wheel design on their "A" model aircraft has been under some scrutiny, and is considered a weak point in their design by some. This is due to a number of accidents that appear to have involved a nosewheel collapse to one degree or another.

My personal thoughts on this go back to my opening paragraphs about level of skill and ability. Throughout my flight instructing career, I have yet find a private pilot with the takeoff and landing skill and precision experienced by those that continue their training for a commercial pilot certificate. Therefore, private pilots without the benefit of this additional level of skill and training are much more prone to performing bad landings where the nose gear can experience a large degree of punishment. I think that many of these nose gear failure incidents in RV airplanes can be at least partially, if not entirely attributed to improper landing technique by the pilot. Proper take off and landing technique should significantly reduce, if not entirely eliminate all nose gear failure episodes in RV airplanes IMHO.

So, I signed up at the club today, and it also turns out that the EAA-owned B-17 Flying Fortress, Aluminum Overcast, is in town this week to support the Rocky Mountain Aerospace Museum. Unfortunately, the folks on the ground really messed this one up as well, and did not put the aircraft in a hangar when the hail arrived either. The B-17 has cloth aileron, elevator, and rudder surfaces, and they were all damaged beyond reasonable repair. The aluminum skins were also damaged, but not nearly to the extent of the control surfaces. Here are some pics of the damage:

And I thought my ailerons were big - holy cow!

And here is the aluminum skin damage all over the airplane

Now if you are like me, this is just nothing less than very sad to see. Why did they leave it outside? As far as I am concerned, screw the business jets and protect the heritage of our past to the Nth degree. These eloquent pieces of machinery protected and served our country jsut as much as the service men and women did, and they deserve just as much care and attention again IMHO. Truly ashame that this happened, adn if this was due to decision or lack of decisions made by our own local FBOs, then shame on them.

Now, having said all that, the good news is that EAA knows how to ahndle these situations, and much to my surprise, when I arrived, I learned that EAAD had already transported two new ailerons and two new elevators all they way from Oshkosh to Denver by ground transport shown below, and they had already removed the damaged ones adn mounted the new ones in place. Truly spectacular!

Nice to see my annual EAA dues put to good use. SO the word is that they will have to finish installing some spacers and hardware and reconnect everything, get it inspected, and they expect to have this all done in time for flights to be conducted by next weekend. Ground tours are still being conducted, adn the min event is open to the public through tomorrow at Signature FLight Services Hangar on the south side of the airport. You can fly the B-17 on MS flight simulator (I crashed the first couple of times but eventually got the hang of it - very cool). Hangar Dance is this evening - wish I had someone to go with. SO the airplane will be here through next weekend - if you are local you should definitely come out and see it - maybe even sign up for a ride. There is much more to see and do, especially for the kids.

Here is a picture show of some of the other attractions:

I really like this next one. Don't forget to click on each of the pics to get a larger resolution image with much better detail. :)

As a final thought, at one point I was just standing under the nose of the B-17, when I noticed something odd. On the bottom of the clear nose cone, sitting in what appeared to be a puddle of water, I found a rubber ducky just sitting there looking, well, ducky I guess. Never expected to see that. Right at that same moment, a gentleman by the name of Mike Niles from Bomber group 490 that flew as a bombradier during WWII in the B-17, asked me if I knew anything about the Norden bombsight. (He thought I was staring at the bomb site, and I did not have the heart to tell him that I was staring at a rubber ducky sandwiched in between the plexiglass and the frame of the airplane.

 Can you see the duck?

Anyway, as I have written in previous posts about similar encounters I have had when speaking with several other veterans, I became absolutely fascinated by all ythe stories he was telling me. But before he started on those, he told me that the bomb sight that is installed on aluminum overcast is pretty close to the actual real thing. He explained how the course correction and other sight alignment knobs worked, adn explained to me in detail how the ahnd off between the pilot and bombradier was performed in preparation for and during the bomb run. Absolutely fascinating. We must have spoken for about 25 minutes before e begged off saying "I am sure I ahve bored you to death already," to which I replied - "Absolutely not!It is the details about how some of this was done that I have always yearned for, and evey opportunity I get to speak with someone that is willing to tell the stories and divulge some of that detail is what I long for." Then I thanked him for service, shook his hand, and we parted ways. As I walked away I could not help but get the same feeling that I have had many times before during similar moments, that this was probably the first and the last time I would ever get to speak with this gentleman, and how truly blessed I am for having had the opportunity to do so. God bless our servicemen and women.

I will divulge more of the stories from Mr. Niles in future posts, as they are quite fascinating. This one has become long enough that I should probably close for now and go get some dinner. More rib work scheduled for this evening hopefully.