June 2000

Traveling to India for business

Traveling to India for business

I am not much good when it comes to being a world traveler so spent most of my time catching up on a bit of sleep

I did do a bit of a circle around the workshop, but mostly I spent time with the family.

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I got out my manual and took a look at all of the little bits and pieces I have not got around to.  A couple of tasks were still needing to be done, I had not made up the seat pans, fitted up the starboard stabilizer or either of the trim tabs.  

I thought I'd tackle making up the seat bases first.  The manual suggests that you use some blue foam, but I suspect that was before the dual filter modification was incorporated into the design.  I thought I might use some expanding foam to make up some foam plugs for the outer areas near the fuselage sides.  I lined the bottom with cling wrap, covered top of some sturdy cardboard, and injected some expanding foam.  What a disaster, I foam and mess every where so I moved to plan B.  I decided to make some covers made out of plywood.  I made up some aluminum angle to support the inner ends, and for the sides next to the fuselage I made up some supports with blue foam and bid.  Note that the end of the aluminum angle does note go all of the way to the back.  This is to allow for the seat belt to bolt to its anchor point 

The result was a nice base that is easy to remove for filter replacement, but It did take most of the weekend to accomplish.

It was a sunny day and I had not been out flying for a couple of weeks.  I did a hop around to a couple of the local airports to put up a for sale sign for my C150.  I am trying to sell so I can buy into a Piper Comanche share that a friend in the EAA chapter has for sale.  I called out to West Bend airport to see my friend Chris Goode.  He has just finished his RV6 after 2 years and 9 months and 2100 hours of build time. He has a grin from ear to ear.  I then dropped out to our EAA chapter and flew some young eagles.

Well its another sunny day, but its really time to do a bit of building.  I trimmed up the starboard stabilizer and got it fitting up with a nice 3mm gap all around.  I probably should put a note in my log to tell people not to spend too much time trimming up the stabilizers at the time of construction because this is a real "fit to shape" operation.

I found the bits for the fork for the trim tabs and assembled it.  I spent the next hour or so getting the trim tabs fitted up and working through there entire range.

The last job for the day was to put on the final lock nuts on the mass balance arm and stabilizer tube.

It was one of those unusual days where I actually got home at a half decent time.  I hadn't quite finished up the trim tab fitting up, but I really wanted to get into something else.  I got the landing gear and engine mounting frame and began to ponder what it all meant.  I got my Dremmel with a 2 mm parallel shank and spotted the corners from the inside of the tunnel through to the outside of firewall.  This then allowed me to then fairly accurately cut the section out from the front.

I checked the manual and it suggested that the bottom of the fuselage be cut out flush with the side of the tunnel and the thigh support back 31" from the firewall.  I started and wished I hadn't.  It looked like a pretty darn big hole to me.  I think I will call Europa and ask.

I called Eurpoa but everyone was out for the air show.  I sent a note to Graham Singleton and fortunately I got an answer within a couple of hours.  Grahams suggestion was not to cut it out until I am ready to fit up the landing gear.  I guess that means I have to get the sticky stuff out and put some of the fiberglass back.

I was going to do an aerial photo shoot for Marty's RV6 but the ceilings were at 600'  I gave Marty the trim tab arm to be riveted and I decided it was definitely a building the Europa kind of day.    

I got the mounting frame out and started to fit it up to the fuselage.  This is one of those tasks where you are always wiser after the event.  The bottom 2 holes are difficult to locate.  I think if I was to do it over again I would try and make a card board template.  Fitting it up was quite time consuming.  I used a sanding drum on my Dremmel and a 20mm drum on my power drill.  I would hate to be doing this by hand.  Some of the difficulty comes from trying to fit it up in the top.  The tubes on the frame are parallel, but the insides of the tunnel are tapered.  Once I realized this and took a bit of resin out it fitted up much easier.

The trickiest part of the whole operation is trying to decide what is the correct alignment.  The firewall has a bow in it, so I ended up using a digital level and using the horizontal scribe line on the fuselage as the reference point.  

I cut up some bid and did the lay up around the firewall to the tunnel.  I also put a couple of strips back along the base of the fuselage and I will trim this back when I am ready to fit up the landing gear.

I cleaned up the layup and trimmed back the glass I put in the tunnel.  I still have more glass there than I need in the tunnel area, but I will trim this more accurately when I fitt up the wheel.

I ground out the excess glass and refitted the frame. I am still not satisfied with the alignment so I spent more time trying to get it aligned in 3 axis.

I have been thinking about selling my share in the C150 and buying into another group that owns a Comanche 180.  Well I met with the group and with some misgivings I did the deal.  I need to get 10 hours of instruction in it to make the insurance company happy.

I did 1.5 hours of instruction in the Comanche tonight.  To be honest I thought that I would be way behind the aircraft, but I didn't have too much trouble with it.  It has a laminar flow wing so you have to think about slowing it up before getting into the pattern, but other than that it seemed pretty well behaved.  I burned 12.7 gallons of AVGAS for my efforts, ouch !! I have to wait for even higher performance and 3~4 gallons per hour out of my Europa.