November 2000

Wednesday 1 ~  Sunday 12

I had a business trip to China, and while I was away I seemed to pick up a local virus that slowed me up a bit.  That pretty well accounted for the first half of the month.

Friday 17

I went out to the garage to do some work but it was just too darn cold.  It seemed like it was time to move my project to the warmth of the downstairs workshop.  There were two jobs I really wanted to get done before the winter set in, I wanted to finish off the flap fairings, and do a final shim of the aileron coupling brackets.

I did manage to finish the foam blanks for the flap extensions, so with a bit of luck I can probably get that done inside. 

Saturday 18

I am hoping to get the engine fitted up this winter, so I decided that I needed more room in the workshop.  This really meant moving the workbench and shelves into the room next door.  By the time I had done that it accounted for most of the Saturday.  We got our first decent snow shower today, so that really settled the fact that I was going to have to move the project downstairs.

Sunday 19

Marty and his wife Linda called in, and unfortunately for them they got stuck with a "while you are here" task.  Everyone grabbed a corner of the fuselage jig and we made our way thought the snow down to the basement.

One of the tasks that I had been meaning to do was to get both control columns exactly vertical.  This mean that I had to undo the linkage inside the fuselage and I managed to stab myself on every bit of fiberglass in there.  I really wish I had applied peel ply to the whole CS14/15 bracket area when I was bonding it in.

The other problem I had to correct was that when the control sticks were vertical then the CS15P/CS14S brackets were not vertical.  Although I could adjust one to be correct,  the short push rod for the other had to be reduced in length.  I assumed that I would not be able to salvage the push rod, but in actual fact I was able to remove the rod end, cut 5 mm off it and re-insert it.

Monday 20

When I was at Oshkosh this year I noticed a few Europa's had inspection ports in the cockpit modules on the passengers side.  This would have been pretty easy to do before the cockpit module was bonded in, but doing it after the fact was going to be a bit tricky.  What I decided to do was to make up the flange out of aluminum instead of bid.  I cut a flange about 150 mm in diameter and drilled a lot of small holes around the periphery.  I cut a hole in the cockpit module  125 mm in diameter and scuffed the inside edge.  I then scuffed the plate and bonded it in with a good amount of Redux.  The Redux oozed through all the small holes in the plate quite nicely, effectively giving an additional bond.

Tuesday 21

This evening I made the cover for the inspection port.  I found some scrap aluminum which was the same thickness as the cockpit module so the plate came level with the surface. All in all it looked quite good.

Thursday 23

The next thing I wanted to do was to finish the fabrication of the flap/landing gear push rod.  The first step was to remount the flap cross tube into the fuselage.  I did a test mount of the push rod and I found even with the rod ends shortened as far as possible the push rod was still too long.  I cut 4 mm off each end and that seemed to be about right. I drilled the tube and the rod ends using a V jig that I purchased from Aircraft spruce.  It does a nice job of getting the drill in the middle of the tube.  Last job for the day was to put a finish coat of white enamel on the whole assembly.

Friday 25

After looking at several Europa's at Sun n' Fun this year I have decided against putting the sight gauge on the front firewall.  The general opinion is that it does not work particularly well.  This means that I have a cut out in the instrument panel I don't need any more, so I decided to fill it with some ply and bid.  The resultant area is now big enough to accept a 57mm round instrument.

While that was drying I fitted up the flap/pushrod  linkage.  The adjustments look about right but I wont know until I can move the aircraft outside after winter is over.

Saturday 25

It was a sunny day which is becoming a rare occurrence this time of year so I decided to pull the Comanche out and go flying.  My wife and number one daughter decided that we needed to go and have some lunch somewhere so we headed down to Schaumburg in Illinois where there is a really nice restaurant on field.  The airport is quite close to Chicago O'Hare airport so the class B airspace restrictions are pretty tight in this area, but it was a nice day's flying and I logged a couple of hours of flight time.

Sunday 26

I fitted up the rudder pedals and the cables temporarily so I could figure out the best place for the pivot block which is part of Graham Singleton's tail wheel mod.  This actually took a little longer than I thought it would because I had not mounted up the springs that tension the rudder pedals, so I got that job out of the way.  This revealed that the fuel hoses which pass through the seat pan area were going to rub on the cables and would need to be moved.

Monday 27 

I made up a couple of small blocks of wood and glued them under the pulley's to prevent the cable falling off the pulley.  I gave the blocks a coat of epoxy  resin to protect them.

Tuesday 28

Having decided that the fuel hoses were in the way of the rudder cables I had to fill the holes where the hoses went through the cockpit module into the tunnel and drill new ones..  One thing I really like about working with glass and epoxy is that it's pretty easy to do repairs. One small modification I have decided to make is to put the rudder cables inside Nylon tubing to prevent all possibility of them rubbing or getting caught up on something they shouldn't.

Wednesday 29

I have decided to do away with the 2 fuel filters under the seat pan and use a single Gascolator. This meant that I would need some new fuel hose.  I drilled some more holes in the cockpit module and fitted up the hoses to the fuel valve.  This job is quite easy now that I have put an inspection port in the passenger side of the module.  I really wish I had thought of doing this before I had bonded in the module because putting it in after was much more difficult.

While I was poking around in the general area I decided to move the aluminum angle that supports the seat base forward a little bit to allow better access to the seatbelt securing location. 

Thursday 30