Friday 1
I have been pondering various schemes for heating and ventilation for the Europa. I exchanged a few emails with Bob Jacobson who built a custom panel with heating and cooling vents. I ended up giving him a call and his comment was, "well if I was to do it over again I would bond the ducts to the firewall instead of trying to accommodate them inside the panel". This has the advantage that the heat box can be mounted on the outside of the wall and blow directly into the ducts on the inside of the firewall. The ducts would exit through the top and bottom of the panel thus providing demisting and floor vents.
To this end I mounted all of the instruments in the panel to get some idea of how much clearance I would have between the back of the instruments and the firewall.
Saturday 2
This weekend I wanted to get all of the last odds and ends done so I could bond the top of the fuselage on next weekend. I glued on the fin cap and secured it with clecos. I tried putting in a few pop rivets, but to be honest I think they are more trouble than they are worth.
The next job was to mount the fuel pump. This seemed like it would be easier to do before the top went on. As things turned out I was to learn how difficult it was to install after the top was bonded on.
I have decided to go with a single strobe on top and to put a tail light in the fin. I haven't quite figured out how I am going to do this, but what ever I do I will need power for it. To this end I Reduxed a terminal block in the tail and ran the wires forward.
The last job for the day was to re-coat the landing gear frame and the tail wheel spring. The polyurethane paint is quite thin and it seems much better when it is misted on in a lot of thin coats.
Sunday 3
I wanted to record the fuselage datum's with the top on, so I leveled the fuselage in both directions and put the top on with cleocos. I then recorded the levels of the door sills which turned out to be only .2 degrees out.
I still had a few odd bits and pieces to do, such as run the wires in for the fuel pump and I wanted to get the pitch upper stop figured before the top went on. I made a up a template of the shape of the fuselage top and then made a stop that I could attach to the vertical pitch weight assembly with a couple of clamps. This then let me shape it until I got the four degrees specified in the manual.
Monday 4
No building
Tuesday 5
Wednesday 6
I spent an hour just finishing off the pitch stop. I will put it in once the top is bonded on, but it should be pretty easy since it is already the correct dimensions.
Thursday 7
I took a look in the manual and it specified that the pump needs to be mounted at 45 degrees. I decided to make some spaces so the inlet lines up correctly with the gascolar outlet. This was really worth the effort as every thing now lines up perfectly.
This is how you mount it in the wrong way, its supposed to point up !!.
Friday 8
The last job was to have the EAA technical councilor come by and take a look. As usual it was really worthwhile. Greg Jacobs is an A&P and has been around home built aircraft for some time. He gave me a clean bill of health and offered a few tips on what I might think about when I glue the top on.
Saturday 9
Well the long awaited day had arrived. I must admit to having been putting this off for a long time, but with all the preparation I had done, it turned out to be a non event. I had Jenny and my daughter Kristy helping me and it was all done in a couple of hours. I mixed Redux while the others spread it out. I bought a couple of notched spreaders from the hardware store and cut them into 20 mm wide strips. These did a nice job of putting just the right amount on.
I popped the top on, and apart from nearly forgetting to thread the communications antenna up it slid on smoothly. I spent the next 40 minutes putting in 97 clecos. I used the Europa supplied clecos around the cockpit module area and they did a much better job of pulling in the sides.
Check list.
The whole job took about two hours and used 280 grams of Redux. There was only one oop's and I discovered it the next day.
Sunday 10
The weather was half decent so we flew to a pancake breakfast in northern Illinois about 100 miles away. It was just a little hazy so I filed for flight following. The destination was Sterling Rock falls and there was quite a turn out. We met up with our friends Marty and Linda and chatted for about an hour. The winds had picked up for our return trip and we were getting around 160 knots ground speed.
In the afternoon I removed all of the clecos and cleaned off the Vaseline with alcohol. The job had turned out pretty nicely with just the right amount of Redux oozing out of the joints. I was looking around the rear stern post and I discovered that the stern post near the fin top cap was bowed in about 6 mm. This was right where the top hinge for the rudder went, so this was quite a problem.
Monday 11
I called Andy at Europa and we decided that
it probably could be straightened
out. Apparently the Redux takes about 2 weeks to fully cure. I had
an aluminum bar that was about the length of the rudder and 20 mm by 40
mm. This is a pretty solid lump and I clamped this on with a couple of G
Clamps and put on the heat lamps.
Tuesday 12
The gap between the top of the baggage bay and the roof is quite large, around 20 mm. The edges were fine, so I decided to close it with 3 strips of bid, two plies around the sides and four across the top. I cut up all the required bid and set it out on the bench ready.
Wednesday 13
For some reason or other my good wife volunteered to climb into the back of the Europa to do this lay up. I really don't know why she would want to do that, but I certainly didn't argue with her. Getting the ply sitting nicely over the gap was obviously a bit difficult, at least from the muffled noises coming from the rear of the Europa !!
I checked the rear fin and it was quite amazing, it had pulled in all but a few millimeters. At Andy's suggestion I took the bar off and took a couple of mm off the top to pull it slightly in the opposite direction and set it up under the heat lamps again.
Friday 15
I didn't get any building done, but I turned off the heat lamps on the fin and left the bar in place for the whole thing to cool down. I plan on leaving the bar in place for many weeks until the Redux has fully cured.
Saturday 16
I did a lay up on the top molding to the firewall. By the time I had cut out enough cloth to do four layers, wet them out lay them up and peel ply them it really accounted for most of the day. Its really quite amazing, I know if Jenny had been helping me it would have gone three times as fast.
Sunday 17
I went flying for a little while just to practice a few instrument approaches but when I got back I decided to tackle the 97 holes left from removing the cleco's.
I cleaned all of the holes with pipe cleaners soaked with alcohol and then gave them a small countersink with the drill. I mixed up a nice thick batch of flox and spent the next few hours filling the holes.
Monday 18 ~ 20
Pulled out all of the assorted bits for the undercarriage. The assembly is
a pretty solid piece of work. I had most of the bits painted so it was
more assembly work than anything. All went together fairly well, but I
have to say that the tolerances were pretty tight !
Friday 22
I wanted to fit the tufnol to the CS/W bell crank brackets To do this I needed to do a bit of rigging. Although it doesn't say so in the manual I assume that the bell cranks on the wings need to be vertical when the ailerons are level. This took quite a bit of fiddling around.
Saturday 23
I slid the wings in, but it was quite apparent that it was pretty difficult to figure out how thick the tufnol spacers had to be. I ended up putting a couple of small blobs of putty on the surface of the brackets and pushing the wings in. The port side was nearly 4 mm. and the starboard side was 2mm. I was a bit surprised at the gap because the bolts seem to line up pretty well. I then made up the spacers and glued them on with Redux and let them set undisturbed.
Marty came by for a while to inspect progress and since he wasn't looking too busy we fitted the tire onto the rim. I decided to go with a 700 by 6 tire and relegate the tire supplied to a golf cart.
Sunday 24
I got up early and it was a really nice day. I checked the weather and the forecast was good for as far as I could fly in one day, which is a fair way in the Comanche ! We decided to venture off to the Apostle Islands on far west coast of Lake Superior. It was 250 nm and a very nice days flying.
Saturday 30
I been giving some thought to cable ducts. I looked at the stick on type I could buy at the local hardware store but they didn't really look big enough. After looking at various types I decided to "roll my own"
I wanted to go with some type of re-enforcing under the window frame and make some nice molded looking ones to run along the side of the cockpit module. To make the ones under the window I got hold of some balsa wood about 50mm wide and covered both sides with bid. I then put the whole sticking mess under the window still running from the front to the middle of the fuel tank.