After The Inspection

Austin came down Sunday and spent the day helping me put the airplane back together after the inspection. There are a whole bunch of panels on every airplane that get removed for regular inspections. We almost finished but got tired about 5:30 and went to have dip cones. I'll finish up early this week and hopefully have the first flight very soon. Maybe Thursday, Shelby :).

It's An Airplane!

It's officially an airplane! I got my airworthiness inspection done on Saturday morning. The inspector was DAR Tim Martinez of San Antonio. There were no problems and he said it was the best homebuild he had inspected and that the quality of riveting was better than the factory airplanes he had inspected. I showed Paula the pink slip (airworthiness inspection) and she said it's peach, not pink.

Finishing Empennage Assembly

I'm finishing the final empennage assembly. Hopefully I won't have to take it apart again before I fly. It's not terribly hard but there are a bunch of tasks like running the trim and tail light wiring and getting every nut and bolt properly torqued and checking and adjusting the pitch of control surfaces that just takes time. I've probably removed and replaced the big parts 20 times. The bottom of the rudder doesn't have its fiberglass cap as I'll probably finish and paint the remaining fiberglass pieces as a group. I plan on putting the tail number (N4EW) on the tail where the temporary number is taped and possibly some stickers like the Phantom II guy that Austin gave me. I'm also looking for a Combat Infantryman Badge or Screaming Eagle (101st Airborne) sticker for my Dad.

Repaired Elevator Horn

While final assembling the empennage, I realized I drilled the bottom holes on the elevator horns too large. I checked VAF and found it was a common mistake and that the solution was to weld up the holes and drill it again. I called Van's Aircraft to confirm and talked to Gus. He's one of the engineers that man the technical help line. He confirmed that it was a common mistake and to just weld them up and redrill and they would be good as new. I wrapped both of the painted elevators in bubble wrap and took them to Hofmann's Welding in San Marcos and had Jim weld up the holes. I redrilled and repainted and they are as good as new just like Gus said.

Flight Control Rigging

I'm rigging the empennage flight controls. This is my new digital level that allows me to check that I've got enough up and down travel. Here, I'm checking the elevator trim tab.

ELT Antenna

After much thought, I decided to mount the ELT (Emergency Locator Transmitter) antenna in the tailcone. It will be under the fiberglass empennage fairing which will allow clear transmission and protection in case of an accident.

Elevator Pitch Trim

I've mostly finished the elevator pitch trim. I just need to secure the wires and I've got several orders coming including one from McMaster Carr that has spiral wrap. I'll use it to protect the trim wires where they run through the horizontal stabilizer and fuselage.

The trim buttons on the sticks are now all working. It's fun to run the trim up and down and left and right.

I bought the Ray Allen stick grips used from a fellow Vans Airforcer and needed to replace a small sticker and one tiny screw. I called them and they sent the whole sheet of stickers and a set of four screws at NO CHARGE. I love dealing with companies like that.

Elevator Inspection Plate

Finished a small job, the elevator inspection plates. They're removable to allow inspection of the elevator attachment.

Empennage Fairing Work Continues...

Still working on the empennage fairing. I can see why folks get tired of fiberglass work. It's coming along well and I'm getting close to finished. I will have to remove the tail and horizontal stabilizer again to tap the holes in the longeron for 6-32 stainless screws that hold the fairing. I'll be glad to move on to some metal work.

More Work on Empennage Fairing

Work (sanding!) continues on the empennage fairing. Also, I got the Sherwin Williams wash primer and the catalyst reducer today. Thanks for the help, Scott!

Custom Empennage Fairing

I trimmed the lower aluminum empennage fairing per the plans for the rubber gasket and found it didn't fit well so I decided to make a custom one piece fiberglass fairing. Here's the work in progress. Lots of sanding left. Probably spending too much time on it but it's good practice for the cowling.

I have gotten quite a few other tasks completed but I didn't take pictures of them. I follow the construction plans in order but if I need to skip a small task and come back to it later, I record it in the front of my manual. Some times, I'm waiting for parts or need to change the order of construction for various reasons. For example, I couldn't finish the flair on the fuel line from the fuselage to the wing until the wings were off so I finished that this weekend while waiting for fiberglass to dry.

Finishing Empennage Attach

I'm close to finishing the empennage attachment. It will come off for deburring and priming of parts that get permanantly attached and painting but most of the alignment and final drilling (reaming) is done. The picture below doesn't show how big and tall the tail looks. Paula passed it and said "pretty, it's looking like an airplane".

Made the Elevator Push Tube

I finished the elevator push tube. It goes from the elevator control horns to a bellcrank behind the baggage bulkhead. The bellcrank attaches to another push tube which goes under the floor to the bottom of the control column. Then you can pull back to make the houses smaller. Van's sent the wrong size bearing that goes on the end so I have to order the correct size. Then I can finish fitting and move on to the vertical stabilizer and rudder.

Attached Horizontal Stabilizer and Elevators

Here, I've attached the horizontal stabilizer to the tailcone. All the bolts are in and the incidence is set to 0 degrees and leveled side to side. The bolts are not torqued yet as everything will come off to paint.

Drilling the proper holes took a lot of careful measuring and cross checking to make sure I hit the center of the longeron. I think I measured them 10 times before I drilled! Turned our great.

Finishing Fiberglass on Tail

I'm finishing up all the fiberglass on the tail. I haven't posted in a while partially because it's so messy working with fiberglass. I was nervous about getting resin on our camera and computer. Here, I've finished the bottom cap of the rudder.

Below is the last of the fiberglass tips on the empennage. It's the upper cap of the vertical stabilizer. I'm adding a resin shell to the part after adding and then sanding the lightweight filler smooth. I think of it as adding the candy shell to an M&M. The lightweight filler is too porous and won't paint well so that's why the outer layer is added.

Working On Fiberglass Tips

Here, I'm working on the fiberglass tips of the right horizontal stabilizer and elevator. I wanted to get the back side of the stabilizer tip to be concave to match the convex curve of the horn on the elevator tip. I used some of the green flower arranging foam from Hobby Lobby that I cut about 1/2" inch thick and then pushed the tip down onto it like I was cutting out cookies. The foam was only $1.77 and should be enough to do all the empennage. Plus, I didn't like the idea of buying a 4' x 8' sheet of insulation foam at Home Depot and throwing 95% of it in the trash.

I then used folded paper as a spacer taped to the elevator horn with sticky backed sandpaper on the leading edge.

I used the leading edge of the elevator horn as a sanding block to shape the green foam to the perfect concave shape with a consistent gap. Then I removed the tip and layed several layers of fiberglass over the green foam. The resin didn't stick to the foam and it was easy to chip out after it dried. I then filled the inside of the new fiberglass layups with several more reinforcing layers like shown in Vans' instructions. I can't imagine an easier or more accurate way to do this so I'll do the same with the left side and the rudder and vertical stabilizer.





Fiberglass Elevator Tips

Here, I'm getting some good work done on the fiberglass tips. This fiberglass stuff is messy but it's not too hard; certainly not as hard as metal building RV folks have made it out to be. Kind of like proseal and fuel tanks.

Finished the Empennage

Well, I've finished the empennage, sort of. Just a few little details like trimming the counterweights to balance the elevators. I still have to do the fiberglass tips but most people wait to do all the fiberglass work together because of the mess. The wings are next and I've gotten the OK from my Chief Financial Officer to order them once I've gotten the Hardi siding for the house ordered.

Finished Trim Tab

Yea! I finished the trim tab version II. This one turned out much better. I hadn't planned on this being a "how to" blog but I learned so much and the trim tab turned out so good, I thought I'd share some of what I learned. This post may be a little jumbled as it will take me more than one sitting to put everything together.

You can stop reading now if you don't want the technical stuff. Here's what I learned to make a great trim tab:

1. Use hard wood. I used oak. I first tried pine and it wouldn't make a crisp bend.
2. Use a strong clamp. I used a Bessey parallel jaw woodworking clamp.
3. Make your jig from 1 inch nominal (3/4) stock. I first tried 1 1/2 in. stock and the extra width put a crease in the skin when clamping.
4. Use a back brace. You can see it in one of the pictures below. Basically, it kept the jig from sliding when using the rivet gun on the fold.
5. Use a protective strip when softly riveting the folds. I used a very thin strip of oak but something like formica would work well, too. You can see me using the strip in the last video below.

Elevators Hung

I hung the elevators on the horizontal stabilizer to check for fit while I'm waiting on the replacement trim tab. There was a little trimming to fit required per the plans on the stab where the elevator horns swing. Also, I wanted to see a big airplane part. With the fiberglass tips, it's almost 9 feet wide. Cool, something that's starting to look like an airplane.