Saturday 6
I had a go at fitting the wing fairing on the port wing. I have the pre molded fairing and it does not fit very well at all. The flange that fits against the side was not quite flat so I trimmed it back about 7 mm. I put some 1 mm thick cardboard along the side of the fuselage to act as a spacer but it was quite evident the the fairing wasn't going to fit up with an even gap.
It was time for some radical surgery so I cut slots in the fairing to allow it to flex. The top didn't need any, but the underneath needed quite a bit of work. I used some small screws to hold it temporarily in place as I worked around the whole fairing.
The whole assembly took about 90 grams of Redux mixed with flox to bond it. I wetted both surfaces and screwed it in place, but it was quite apparent that there wasn't a good surface joint. After pondering this for a while I decided that I would pull the wing off, inject Redux between the wing and faring and the put it back. This meant that I had to drill the hole in the back to get the rear pin out, and fortunately my marking out was exact. Despite injecting a good amount of Redux into the flange / wing joint from the inside, I still had to drill some small holes to inject Redux on the flange that mounts on to the wing.
All in all, it took all day to achieve this, and to be honest I wonder if it would have been quicker just to make my own flanges with 4~6 plies of bid. I guess the upside is that at a first glance the starboard side looks like a good fit straight out of the box.
Sunday 7
After the ordeal yesterday I wasn't really looking forward to putting on the port side, but it turned out to be pretty easy. I put on the cardboard spacer and the flange was a near perfect fit. I had to put in a couple of cuts at the back to get it to fit, but other than that it just about sat where it was supposed to. Most of the time was taken up with preparation. I used a fairly stiff mix of redux and flox due to some of the gaps between the wing surface and the flange, and once I put it in place I put in a few self tapping screws. For the spots that looked a bit dry I used a syringe to inject a bit of Redux.
I departed from the manual a little bit. I proceeded to open up the hole for the pip pin and then slid the wing off a little way. This allowed me to put a nice bead of Redux between the edge of the wing surface and the flange. I then slid the wing back in place and put in all of the pins.
Wednesday 10
I wanted to fit the gear retraction latch plate on the weekend so I gave it
a couple of coats of paint. I use a paint called "Appliance
paint" and it seems to be much tougher and chip resistant than enamel
paint, although it is much more difficult to apply.
Saturday 13
I don't think I have reached the 90% done, 90% to go stage yet, but today was taken up with all of those little jobs. I am trying to get every thing I can think of done before I take the fuselage out of the dolly and move it down into my nicely heated workshop.....
I fitted the strut onto the gear retraction lever as recommended in the Europa Tech Tips, and then bolted up the retraction lever with the final locking nuts. Its nice when you can put on the locking nuts with some degree of confidence that they won't be coming off again (hopefully).
I put the wings on again so I could have a go at setting the range of movement for the flaps. To set the range the plate on FL19 needs to be set. I fooled around with this for some time and got it "sort of okay", but I think I will send a note off to Europa just to make sure.
Sunday 14
A few more of "those little jobs" today. I put on the bungee cord and secured it in place. I am not sure if I have the tension too tight or not, its hard to tell. After I put it in I noticed that the manual shows 8 loops around the top bar, I have 9. I spent a little time marking out the cord evenly so I could get the tension of each loop the same. For 9 loops I needed a 63 cm spacing, with an extra 28 cm for each end to allow for the knots. With the wings on it seemed fairly well balanced when locking the gear in each position. I don't know if the air loads on the wheel will make it more difficult to get the gear down or not.
The last job for the day was to install the latch that prevents and accidental gear retraction while on the ground. This task would have gone much faster if I could have found the FL10 spacers. I ended up going to the hardware store and finding some stainless steel tubing, but with all the fiddling around it took several hours to get it installed and working properly. I had painted the retraction gate with polyurethane paint, but it is getting scratched even with a few operations so I might have to get it powder coated.
Friday 19 ~ Monday 22
The weather looked like it was going to open up for a nice stretch of calm predictable conditions for 3 ~ 4 days so we decided to take the Comanche out to Colorado Springs for a few days. The trip is about 850 nm. which is about as far as I want to fly in one day. The weather ultimately unfolded as predicted and we had a nice trip.
Friday 26
I spoke to Neville at Europa about my flap retraction concerns and he told me that my problem was not uncommon. He suggested that I make a new horn out of plywood and once I have the dimensions correct manufacture it out of aluminum.
Saturday 27
I fitted up my plywood flap retraction horn. It gave the correct amount of flap movement so I made a new one out of aluminum. Trying to fit things in the tunnel is starting to get a bit tricky now that the bungee cords and all of the bits are in place.
The next job was to fix my basement workshop up. Earlier this year I had a water leak and I had to pull up the wall cladding to fix it. Needless to say I hadn’t got around to putting up the new stuff. By the time I had fitted up the new walls, found all of my tools and cleaned up the workshop I had pretty well accounted for the whole day.
Sunday 28
Went flying in the morning and purchased my usual $100.00 breakfast. We met up with a few friends and persuaded them to stop by my house to help move the Europa down stairs. We took it out of its cradle for the last time and wheeled it down on its own undercarriage. I suspect from this point onwards the project is going to get a lot heavier.