Saturday 1
Well I did the final fit up for the engine mount frame and I have got it pretty well where I wanted it. It was a combination of using the digital level and measuring from the front corners of the firewall. I doubt if it's exact but it will be quite easy to shim the engine if I need to.
The next job was to fit the bushes and attach the LG08 arms. Well this 5 minute job took the next three hours. I pounded the bushes into the engine frame only to find that the tube in the frame was distorted from where the tubes were welded to it. This distortion was then transferred to the bronze bushes and the LG09 shaft wouldn't rotate. The only way out was to hand remove the high spots slowly and carefully. The upside to this is that I now have a perfectly hand lapped bronze bush set. I then drilled the tube and attached the LG08 arms. The only thing I am considering doing is to put a grease nipple in the center tube somewhere because there is no way that I can see to re-grease it in the future.
The last job of the day was to drill the fuselage for the engine mount frame. I used an angle drill attachment for my hand drill, this went fairly well.
Sunday 2
It's nice to be able to open the manual and find yourself at a new chapter. Well chapter 22 is about fitting up the rudder system. I am half way through the manual, but I doubt that I am halfway through the project.
The first job is to mark out and drill the holes for the rudder pedals. A word of caution here. The XS foot well is deeper on the pilots side so make allowance for this when marking out the holes. I used my dremmel with a 1/8" parallel permagrit cutter to rough out the holes and then cleaned them up with a small diameter drum sander.
After cutting the holes I could then get a good idea where the floor panels were going to go. I made up some cardboard templates for the floor under the rudder peddles, and cut out the ply.
I had made a bit of a whoops earlier on because I had cut the flange off the foot well that the floor panel mounted to. This ultimately didn't pose a problem, I made a small bit up with some blue foam and shaped it up to fit.
Monday 3
I mounted up the rudder pedals with the tufnol brackets, in order to drill out the holes in the ply acurately. I managed to do this task twice over because when I mounted up the pedals I had not included the CS21 arms so the spacing was wrong. One nice thing about composites is that usually it is easy to correct mistakes with some sticky stuff and make it all better.
I fitted up the riv nuts and called it a night.
Tuesday 4
Being a typical engineer I avoid reading instructions at all costs. I missed a couple of things out. Firstly I should have glassed the ply before putting on the riv nuts which wasn't a great problem. The second is that the manual specifically mentions to keep the tufnol blocks as a set. They don't seem to be very well matched. I paid dearly for that little oversight latter on.
Wednesday 5
Thursday 6
I put the floors in and mounted up the rudders to the tufnol blocks. I then spot glued the floor panels in place with some 5 minute epoxy and let it set. I found that the pedals would not turn at all. This is when I discovered that the blocks came in pairs. After much fooling around I decided that I was never going to discover what went with what. It seems like I am going to have to lap them in.
Friday 7
I went flying in the Comanche to keep working up my 10 hours of instruction. I did a few ILS approaches, hopped around a few of the local airports and collected a fair few bugs.
Saturday 8
We flew down to St Louis to finish off my 10 hours
of instruction. It turned out to be a busy day, quite a bit of IMC and a
few approaches for real. All in all I have decided that after my C150, the
Comanche is a "gentleman's aircraft".
Sunday 9
I fooled around with trying to get the rudder pedals to turn properly with out a lot of luck. I did discover that one of the port rudder pedals didn't line up properly. It seemed to be welded incorrectly.
Monday 10
I called Andy at Europa and sure enough they had a few pedals that had been incorrectly manufactured a couple of years back.. Andy promised to send out a new one in the mail.
Tuesday 11
Wednesday 12
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Thursday 13
Friday 14
Saturday 15
I did a bit more "hand lapping" of the tufnol blocks for the rudder pedals. They are almost swinging freely but not quite. In the evening we dragged the Comanche out and flew out to Reedsburg to watch a movie. I guess that it's an interesting variation on the $100 hamburger!
Sunday 16
Today I departed for China on business.
Monday 17
Tuesday 18
Wednesday 19
Thursday 20
Friday 21
Saturday 22
Well I sort of wandered around half asleep after my return from China, but I did do a bit more on trying to get the rudder pedals to swing freely. A package had arrived from Europa, but unfortunately it contained the wrong pedal.
Sunday 23
Today was one of those nice sunny days that you expect this time of year. I sure wasn't going to spend it in the basement building airplanes. We got the Comanche out and took it up to Beaver Island. This is a small island at the top of lake Michigan. Its quite a nice place with a small local population that is not too tourist orientated. Its nice flying in a faster airplane. At 130 knots the country side starts to roll away underneath you pretty quickly. I sure am looking forward to being able to do cross country trips in the Europa like this.
Monday 24
Tuesday 25
I took today off as a vacation and spent the day as a judge for the EAA air race from Kittyhawk to Oshkosh. I had the job of clocking aircraft around the turn point at Aurora. I got to spend the day in the FAA control tower which was interesting in itself.
Wednesday 26
Thursday 27
Saturday 29
This weekend has the perfect excuse for not building, its the EAA Air venture week. I was going to fly but it was really a marginal VFR day and I was not about to get into the air with a whole bunch of other people all trying to converge on the same spot.
Sunday 30
EAA Air venture.