Monday 1
I logged on to the Europa news group tonight and picked up on an email from another builder complaining that the “diamond shaped” piece would not fit in the wing tip end. Well, I thought, I don’t have any such piece, so I must be in a bit of bother.
Tuesday 2
I telephoned Europa today to discover what the mystery diamond piece was. Sure enough, I had not put in a piece that closes out the inner part of the wing tip. Bob at Europa assured me that putting it in after closing the wing was not a big problem.
Wednesday 3
Marty came over and admired my newly glued on skin. I think he would have liked to see it go on, but I was in the groove on Sunday with no excuses left so I had got on with it. I showed him the tip reinforcement piece that I had forgotten to put in before the skin went on and we both agreed that it wouldn’t be too hard to shape it and glue it in place. Marty told me that he had forgotten to put in a false rib that supports a part in his RV, and compared to fixing that problem this one was minor.
We trimmed the excess top skin back for the aileron and the flap. I was quite surprised at how little material I had to remove. We got the flap pretty well where I wanted, but the aileron was still a bit snug. Since I had put it on and off 4 times, I decided it was time to call it quits for the day.
Thursday 4
I did another 1.5 hours IFR training tonight, the days are getting shorter so its becoming more night flying.
Friday 5
I cleaned down my cutting table ready to cut some cloth. That sounds like a simple statement, but large flat surfaces are like a magnet, and what that really means is that I cleaned up my workshop. I cut my cloth from my previously made cutting list. (see May).
Saturday 6
I flew our C150 up to Dodge County airport again to help my friend Marty wash engine bits for his RV6 being overhauled. Marty decided that I should also do some instrument training along the way. I am afraid it was nearly rebellion in the cockpit, it was a nice sunny day and I wasn’t going to put my foggles on for anyone. I can’ remember the last time I went flying and I was actually allowed to look outside !!. Anyway, I did do a mediocre, localizer approach.
In the afternoon I moved the port wing out and brought the new one into the
workshop.
Sunday 7
I scuff sanded for 4 hours. Doing all the areas around the ribs is pretty tedious. I use a combination of things. I get a fair bit done with a triangular detail sander. Some areas can be done with a disk sander, and some with a drum sander on my drill and the really hard little spots I get with the Dremmel. I got a bit carried away and went though the skin near one of the W18 plates. Fortunately it was where some glass cloth goes. I was bending over for 4 hours and I really irritated my back. I can’t believe my body is cracking up, darn it.
I took my instrument flying lesson in the afternoon and managed 3 ILS
approaches to minimums without scaring the crap out my instructor. (He scares easily too)
Monday 8
I scuff sanded for another 2 hours and finished off most of the areas around the inner ribs. Lloyd, the guy I bought my house from, came by to look at my progress. He was intrigued by peel ply so I gave him the job of removing the peel ply on the spar root. All of my drop in visitors get handed something to do these days.
Tuesday 9
More IFR training.
Wednesday 10
Well I am pretty well set to do some laying up. Marty came over and Jenny decided to role her sleeves up as well. With one person mixing and wetting out cloth and two others putting in the cloth we had most of the work done pretty quickly. We ran out of cloth so we couldn’t get the real fiddly bit done on the inner ribs, but we sure achieved quite a lot.
Thursday 11
Friday 12
Marty and I decided to tackle the spar root lay up tonight. I mixed up just a little bit of flox to put around the spar bush and where the skin joins. I wetted out the cloth on cling wrap, and we had the six pieces of cloth done in about 2 hours. I glued in the tip piece as well. It sure is a whole lot easier with the skin off.
Saturday 13
I was going to go up to Dodge County airport again today, but when I got up at 7.00a.m we were fogged in. I thought it might just be at my end and I could get a special VFR clearance so I called up flight service. Nope, its was quarter of a mile and 100 feet visibility at both airports until about 9.30. Well, there was nothing for it but to work on the plane. Jenny and I cut the remainder of the cloth we needed for the wing and then got the sticky stuff out. We did the inner W18 plate and finished the cloth around the root end.
Then it was my turn to do some work in the garden. I am sure if I treated our yard with the same enthusiasm as the Europa I would have the best landscaping in all of Pewaukee, but I don’t.
In the evening we did the cloth around the aileron channel, both on the inside and the outside. I used icing bags to put flox up under the bottom of the channel. Icing bags make a nice quick and easy job of placing flox.
Sunday 14
I had a friend from Australia drop in today. He is also a pilot, so with an unseasonably sunny day calling us we went flying. Like me, he is a sailplane pilot and had some difficulty keeping the look of distain from his face when I cut the power on the pattern and the C150 began to glide like a manhole cover.
In the afternoon Jenny and I put in the two remaining W18 plates. Upon reflecting over the past weeks effort, I felt some satisfaction. We had managed to do what had taken me one month for the port wing, in one week. Everyone tells me that they would build their second Europa in half the time.
Monday 15
Tuesday 16
I did my regular Tuesday night flying with my IFR instructor again.
Wednesday 17
I got some sticky stuff out tonight and put the tape on the top skin edge by the rib. There was nothing tricky about this operation, it seemed to take less time than it took to do the surface preparation and to cut the cloth.
Thursday 18
I just did a quick little job tonight. I had to put a small rib between the W18 plates. This whole area seems to carry a lot of reinforcement to handle the outriggers.
Friday 19
Saturday 20
Today I managed to put a full day in on the project. I did the final assembly of the bell cranks, replacing all of the nuts with aircraft hardware. I put in the push rods, along with the lock nuts and adjusted them to length. I had to do a little more filing of the holes in the ribs to improve the clearances.
The last job was to make a cover for the inspection hole out of acrylic, which turned out really nicely. I am going to redo the one for the port wing because using acrylic makes inspecting the bell cranks so much easier.
Sunday 21
I put a few more hours in and drilled the holes for the aileron. It’s a bit of a tricky operation on your own, but with a little care it’s easy to get the holes in the exact place.
I mounted up the aileron so I could measure the aileron push rod tubes. I cut the tube to length and checked it for size before drilling the holes for the rivets. My friend Marty who has built an RV6 has been doing all of my riveting. After seeing what a good job a pneumatic rivet gun does I would not attempt to do them myself.
The last job I did was to put the nut plates on the hinges. Last time I did this I found holding the nut plates to drill them a bit tricky, so this time I used a screw partially into the nut plate and ran a nut up against the hinge to hold it tight. This made it easy to drill the holes in the correct place. I have put a picture in, but it’s not particularly obvious.
Monday 22
Tuesday 23
I got out the flap jig and hot glued it to the wing. I sat the flap on and the darn thing lined up perfectly. It’s a whole lot easier when you know what you are trying to achieve. On the first wing I think Marty and I circled that thing for the best part of a day. The problem with the last time was that I didn’t realize that the jig didn’t allow for the thickness of the missing wing skin.
Wednesday 24
Thursday 25
I went through all my boxes and got the hardware out for the flaps. I cleaned and alodined the aluminum plates. I seem to get very inconsistent results with this stuff. I have tried various levels of scuffing, and application times. I have even tried applying the stuff with a scotch brite pad. I can only conclude that it behaves differently with different batches of aluminum.
Friday 26
Saturday 27
I flew the C150 up to La Crosse today as a training flight for my IFR cross-country requirement. I had a stiff 35knot head wind all the way; sometimes my ground speed was less than 50knots. It was one of those days when even cars were going faster than me. I took 3.3 hours to get there and 1.8 to get back. I love our little 150, but trips like that make me yearn for something that will cruise at 130 knots….. you know, like a Europa.
Sunday 28
Monday 29
Tuesday 30
I managed to persuade my instructor to once again climb into my comfy C150
to do some more IFR training.