Cowl hinge and oil filler tube

I was having trouble getting one of my hinge pins to go all the way in on the top, so I replaced the half on the firewall. I also removed the extension from the oil filler tube and trimmed the dipstick accordingly and put on new marks.

I sat in the plane for a few minutes just fiddling with things, getting the feel of the cockpit. I also went through all of the limit settings in the EIS and made appropriate changes.

I have the new inlet nozzle to install on the carb box which I'll do tonight and I'll probably do a little cleaning on the plane to remove some primer over-spray.


(Time: 2.5 hrs)

Inspection squawks

For a point of reference, the following were the 'issues' found during my FAA inspection.

- Perform static system check
- Perform fuel flow check on right fuel tank
- Lable fuel selector valve with left/right.
- Place OFF labels on switches
- Label throttle/mixture cables
- Placard the elevator trim knob.
- Label all dimmer knobs.
- Label low-level fuel system
- Label fuel tanks with quantity.
- Tighten loose jam nuts.
- Install cotter pin on manual elevator trim connection at trim tab.
- Secure autopilot wires in tail cone and in right wing.
- Label brake fluid resevoir with type of fluid used.
- Place rubber boot on starter cablle wire/contactor
- Secure the scat tubing in engine compartment.
- Adjust the throttle travel so it reachs forward limit.
- Label the accessory power outlet on fuel selector cover.
- Relieve the elevator tips of some material to provide more clearance.
- Drill drain holes in rudder bottom and fuselage as necessary. Inspect
wings, flaps, ailerons for drainage places.

I've corrected all of these items.

(Time: 2 hrs)

Reassembly

After inspection and 4 days in San Diego, I started putting all the covers and such back on the plane. I also worked on fixing the 'squawks' found during inspection.

I had not installed the top cowl since putting in the oil door and as expected, the latch his hitting on the top of the oil dipstick, so I'll have to remove the tube extension and trim the dipstick down. I also have a replacement carb heat inlet to install.

I'm not sure when first flight will take place... I'll be traveling on the next two weekends and the winds have been above my limit. There may be an opening this week.

Mike Schipper did first flight on his RV-9A this past weekend. Congrats!


(Time: 8 hrs)

Airworthy!

It is official... it is an airplane! Airworthiness received on Jan. 24th, 2006. I have a small list of items to correct and then I am released to fly off my 40-hour Phase I testing.

I have a heavy travel schedule the next 3 weeks that are going to prevent me from doing any flying unless I take some time off of work. Stay tuned for first flight info. Possible first flight in a week, or in mid-February.

Baffles / oil door

I tied the front and back baffles together with some safety wire/pop rivets. I didn't get any steel rod in my baffle kit.

I also did a fiberglass layup for a new oil door. The one I cut out of the cowl didn't come out great.

(Time: 3 hrs)

Wing spar bolts

I put in the real wing spar bolts. 4 hours, blood and lots of cussing. Nuff said.

(Time: 4 long hrs)

Cowl, low level sensor, inspection date

Good news first.. my inspection date is set! Next week. Bad news.. I have to go out of town for 4 days right after inspection.

More bad news.. after spending an hour or more on the phone with Rich Meske (while laying upside down in the airplane) trying to troubleshoot my low-level fuel sensor, it still isn't working and he's not sure what is wrong. I'm going to pull the box out and send to him. Hopefully it is the box because if the sensors are bad it will be awhile before I go to the trouble of pulling off the access covers to replace them.

I pulled the cowl halves apart after pouring up a mixture to trap the inlet rings. I poured some epoxy/balloon mix around the rings to get a nice surface on the front edge.

The bowl on the carb for the accelerator pump was leaking a bit, so I pulled that off and cleaned up everything and put it back together. Hopefully that will stop the leak, if not I'll have to use Loctite 515 to fix it.

I dropped the data plate off to get engraved, my 3" N numbers have arrived along with some stickers for the fuel tanks. I have some 3" tubing on order to hook up the filtered air box and James Aircraft is sending me a new warm air feed tube to fix an issue on the first version.

(Time: 2.5 hrs)

Cowl and landing lights

I needed to reinforce the fuel tank connection to the spar at the outboard end to give a couple friends some piece of mind. The only good way of accessing this area meant I needed to make the cut-outs for the landing lights, which would give me good access.

So I made the cutouts for the landing lights and then installed a z-bracket that attached the outboard rib to the spare in the same manner as the rest of the tank. So Bill and Ray can now sleep better at night. :-)

Sandi spent the afternoon installing the interior pieces, afterwards, we sat it in and made airplane noises together. :-)



I worked on installing the aluminum intake rings on the cowl and installed some nutplates around the prop opening. The last thing I need to do is make up an oil door and install it.

I also spent the last 30 minutes cleaning up..

(Time: 8 hrs)

(Pulled the plane out just before sunset and ran it for 4 or 5 minutes and worked on adjusting the mixture.)

Baffles, flight controls, fuel tank

I riveted together all my baffle pieces and sprayed them with some high-temp black paint. Installed the mag wire grommets and screwed on the plenum. I need to install some threaded rod on the curved portions of the cylinder baffles to hold them against the cylinders and I'll be done with baffles!

After removing all the covers on the interior, I went ahead and adjust the flap push rods so the flaps came all the way up. I had some rubbing on the right elevator, so I removed it to figure out what was rubbing. I have my rod-end bearings out to 7/8", which is max they can be and the nose skin of the elevator was rubbing on the rear HS spar. So I 'massaged' the nose skin some, pushing it back away from the spar. The left elevator had the same problem but I was able to fix it withough removing the elevator.

I wanted to get the rigging right on the ailerons as well, so I fussed with those some and then put on all the nuts to secure everything. I also wired up the pilot PTT button.

When I put gas in the plane a couple weeks ago, I noticed the 8gals wasn't registering on the gauges. At first I just thought there wasn't enough gas to register but after more thought, I knew there had to be a problem. After thinking about it a bit, I realized that I didn't have a fuse for the fuel tank gauges... which lead to the discovery that I didn't run any power to the gauges! Doh! So I crawled in and ran a power wire.

With my gauges now working, I filled up the right wing tank as full as I could get it. 27 gallons! I siphoned off 10 gallons and put it in the left wing along with 3 more gallons. I bought unmarked fuel gauges since I have the extra fuel capacity. At the full mark, it is 18gals and above. I think 3/4 mark was 15 gallons, 1/2 mark was 11 gallons, 1/4 mark was 5 gallons and empty was 1 gallon.

The bad news is that my AE Fuel Guardian Low Level fuel sensor isn't working.. it is showing low tanks even when full. I need to check wiring.

(Time: 8 hrs)

Weight and balance

1061 lbs, 77.34 Empty CG

Our local IA and tech counselor brought over some real aircraft scales... big jobs.. they weigh King Airs on them. Took about 10 minutes to setup. No rocket science to this.. just level the plane and read the scales. Nosewheel = 264, Left main = 401, Right main = 396. Total weight = 1061. I measured the arm of the mains at 91.5" and the nose at 34.25".

The empty CG is actually out of range but as soon as you stick a person in the plane, it is in range as long as they weigh 50lbs or more. :-) No problems there! The airplane is nose heavy for some reason.

With this nose heavy setup, it is REAL hard to get the CG out of limits and takes some pretty scary numbers to do it.

Myself + full fuel (54 gallons) = 78.94 = In Range. That is as far forward as I can get unless I start shedding pounds.

Myself + 250lb pass + 137lbs bags + 10 gallons of gas puts me right at aft limit of 84.84 CG. That won't happen.

My 'most typical' setup of myself, Sandi and 50lbs of bags and 36gals of gas puts it at 81.7.

My 'most extreme heavy load' of myself, sandi, full fuel (54gals) and 125lbs of baggage puts us at 83.05" CG... still well within limits.

My 'most extreme heavy load after running tanks dry' of myself, sandi, light fuel (10 gals) and 125lbs of baggage puts us at 84.11" CG... within limits.


I asked Van's about the out of CG empty and the response was "In the air is what counts."
(Time: 1 hrs)

Preparing for W&B

Trying to get ready to weigh the plane. I'm a little behind where I wanted to be so I worked until 12:30am trying to get caught up some. While I was working in the shop, Sandi was working on the interior pieces in the FBO office.

- I did some work on the baffles. My outlet off the back right baffle for the heat muff was right in front of the oil dipstick, so I had to relocate it. I installed the plug wire grommet. and riveted the back walls to the side walls. I riveted the components of the front inlet baffles together.

- Drained the fuel out of the tanks.

- Fussed with the nosewheel pant. Really ticked at Van's. Even after I fixed the positioning of the wheel pant, the nose cone is still rubbing. I'll have to make some bumps for now and probably order a new wheel pant at some point.

- Installed plenum, airbox and the cowl.

(Time: 5 hrs)

Trim systems, pitot, baffle/plenum work

I hooked up the manual trim cable to the trim tab. I also installed the manual aileron trim springs.

I spent a lot of time making up the lower cowl scoop brackets. This provides support to the lower cowl scoop by attaching to the firewall.

I secured the AOA and pitot lines and installed the pitot tube.

My replacement baffle pieces arrived, so I made up the new sidewall pieces.

(Time: 16 hrs)

Spinner gap plates / Canopy

The cutouts I made for the prop in the spinner wouldn't work for the gap plates, so I needed to fabricate some out of aluminum. I really couldn't figure out a nice way to do this. The spinner is pretty thick and trying to stack aluminum to match the thickness would be hard, especially since the whole piece needed to be as thick as the spinner.

I had some aluminum sheet the same thickness (.063?) that I tried to use first but it was too thick to curve/bend. When I couldn't come up with anything else I went back to it. I made some cardboard templates, traced it out, cut the aluminum and then using a vice and a bolt, I made several small bends to get it curbed. By the 3rd one, I had it figured out.





I primed them, riveted them to the bulkhead and mounted the prop for the final time I hope.

I did some final sanding on the canopy fairing along the front edge and brought it out to the airport and put the canpy on. I got Sandi to stay inside the fuse and stick the two pins in the canopy. Gave her an appreciation on how hard it was to buck rivets while laying upside down!



I finished the evening up working on some baffling. I attached the 3" connector to the back left baffle for the oil cooler and the 2" connector on the back right baffle for cabin heat.

(Time: 8 hrs)

Prop spinner / Canopy

Started my day but putting a bunch epoxy/micro on the canopy fairing.

Today was prop spinner day. It took all day to get it made. I made some templates for the cutouts using some cardboard and tape. I made one for each blade. I'd done some blog searching to see how others did it but didn't find a lot of info. I marked 3 lines on the spinner equi-distant from each other and traced out my cutouts. I cut conservativly first and then embarked on the put on, mark, remove, sand/file, put back on, mark, remove, sand/file... ad nauseum.

One of the things I wasn't sure about was how the spinner would fit the two bulkheads. You can't really test this until the cutouts our made. The spinner was to big at the rear bulkhead if you lined up the aft edge of the spinner and aft edge of bulkhead. Sandi saved the day... with the bulkheads removed, I positioned the larger bulkhead as far in as it would go and made sure it was level by measuring from the aft edge. I marked that line. We put the smaller bulkhead in the spinner and also marked the aft edge. Then we put the prop and bulkheads back on the plane and measure the distance between the edges of the bulkheads and compared that with the two lines in the spinner we made. The measurements came out almost right on. The spinner ends up extending past the rear bulkhead by 3/16", which I will cut off.

With the cutouts made, I drilled holes for all the screws in the bulkheads. I didn't look at the plans for the # of screws to use but I remembered something on Mike's site about 18 screws. It looked like 5 per segment would work out, so I used 15... one more than Van's recommends for a 2-blade. For the front bulkhead I did 3 per segment but I think I've decided to juse use 2 for a total of 6 on the front bulkhead. (I'll fill the holes I made for the 3rd screw.)





(Time: 8 hrs)