Progress towards the panel

This was supposed to be a pretty big week, as the panel and the components were supposed to arrive from the avionics. However, it appears that some of the panel components were lost en-route and now I am trying desperately to see what can be done about it.

Anyway, here is the progress for the last few days. Have been busy pulling wires across the fuselage as well routing the pitot/AOA/static tubing (5 hrs).

 

 

Also, threw the forward top skin on the fuselage to check the fit and get an idea of how things will be.  I ended up drilling the holes and deburring them as well (5 hrs).

 

Finally, also started to fabricate the double plate that would go with the comm antennas. Lots of small details that took fairly long to get right (5 hrs). The plates are now ready to be riveted to the bottom of fuselage. The riveting will happen once the airplane is on the gear.

 

Here is a snapshot of the panel that we received. Its missing switches and what not. I am not too happy with how this turned out. If there is a next time I would definitely choose a different vendor.





Turtle Deck Riveted

The build achieved a big landmark: we got the turtle deck riveted!! A great milestone to end 2012. Riveting the turtledeck is a two person job and Glenn helped quite a bit.

First, I spent a couple of hours fitting and clecoing top-skin to the turtle deck (2 hrs):

Next, Glenn and I got together. Glenn drove the rivet gun while I lay in the fuselage for almost 3 hrs!!! I did suffer with some musucular pain in the arms at night. It was all worth it. Time to rivet 3 hrs.

 

 

Here is a picture that Glenn took of me while I lay in the aft fuselage:

Building on QB Wings

The quickbuilt wings are already fairly complete. The key remaining tasks include: wiring the wings, adding the lights, Autopilot servo and pitot-tube, Plumbing pitot tube line, mounting the ailerons and flaps and finally riveting one of the skin on the wings.

 

The progress on the wings have been slow. While the primary focus has been the fuselage so far, few of the things have been accomplished in past few months.

 

First, mounting the heated pitot was tackled. This is dynon heated pitot with a mount that was bought from SafeAir (5 hrs). The wiring and the plumbing is also done.The mount still needs to be riveted to the bottom of the wing:

 



 

 

 

 

 The AP roll-servo is installed on the right wing (2hrs). One of the aileron pushrods was already fabricated by the previous builder. So it was first simply measured to verify the length:

 

 

One of the dreaded task in mounting the landing and taxi lights on the wings is the cutting out portions of perfectly good wings. Glenn, who is an artist in metal work, did those effortlessly. Taxi and landing lights are installed in left and right wings respectively (10 hrs).

 

 

I also decided to put in flop-tube in the left wing. Did not realize that this would take long. Thanks to Glenn, the flop tube and the fuel sender in the left wing was done (8 hrs).

 

 

 

Meanwhile, the wingtips are also being fitted. Aligning the edges of the wingtips, aileron and the flaps is important and the progress is slow and incremental (5 hrs):

 

 

The previous builder had mounted the aileron and flaps for left wing already. But the right wing needs to be taken care off (5 hrs):

 



The work on the wing will continue in parallel to the fuselage.

Fuselage Misc Items

The goal by end of the year is to get the turtle-deck riveted. So we are slowly making progress to get things done in the aft fuselage.

 

First, took care of the rubbing rudder cables by using adel clamps and plastic tubings (1 hr):

 

 



Note that the wiring for VOR cable is also taken care off (0.5 hrs) and is neatly tucked under and out of the way of rudder cables.

Similarly, the ELT wiring is tied neatly and routed through the fuselage below (1 hr). Once all this was done, we then started to take things apart in order to get ready for the turtle-deck riveting. Below you can see an image with Autopilot and the bell-crank disassembled.

 

Panel

I have been researching and designing the panel over last few weeks. I like flying in IMC (that is besides Aerobatics) and did want to have IFR capable machine. This is quite a challenge if you are on a budget and want to keep things simple. After going back and forthe several times in past few months, here is what I decided on:

- Garmin 650 (GPS WAAS and VOR). This will be primary NAV source (VOR as a backup) as well as primary COMM
- Dynon skyview system with EMS, Autopilots, Transponder and GPS (GPS will be a back up)
- Trutrak Gemini as secondary EFIS
- SL40 as a secondary COMM
- GMA 240 as Audio Panel
- Dynon will also have backup battery (in case of an electrical failure)

Here is the panel layout that is currently being cut:

Update

Wow.. I have'nt updated this blog in months. I promise to myself to keep this updated as much as possible from now on.

So I ended up moving the project from KRNT to a builder assist facility Axsys Air near Lake Stevens, WA. I had to clean out my hangar and rather than keeping the kit in the storage I decided to bite the bullet and keep on building with full force.

The move to KRNT happened in July and since then I have been trying to get around 10hrs every week in the shop. The progress is slower than what I want but still any step forward is progress. One thing I have been trying to do is that to do all my research, studying and ordering while I am not in the shop ... That way I hit the shop running.


The status of the project so far: Empennage is complete except some minor fiber-glass work, Wings are almost complete. We need to add heated-pitot, taxi and landing lights, and Dynon Autopilot roll servo. And finally rivet the bottom skins. Currently, actively working on fuselage.

Here is the summary to what has been accomplished so far:


Mounted Dynon Autopilot Pitch Servo and Master Contactor (5 hrs):

 

 

Installed Strobe Wiring to the wing and the tail and secured it. Grounded the shield near the strobe power supply (2 hrs):

Mounted ELT in the aft fuselage (2 hrs):

 

 

 

Ran wires through aft fuselage (Dynon AP, Co-ax cables, Pitot and Static Lines) (4 hrs total). Also, examined the rudder cable, they need some sort of chafing protection before we rivet the turtle deck:

 

 

The set of wires are growing exponentially in the forward fuse!

 

 

 

Bolted on the Horizontal Stabalizer and mounted the elevators (hooray!) (1 hr). These things are tricky to handle by yourself. Glenn from Axsys Air has been very helpful in showing how to do things properly here. Its beginning to look like and Airplane!

 

 

 

Mounted the VOR antenna (2 hrs). Made a doubler plate and then riveted it to the bottom. Glenn helped me again. He is pretty efficient at riveting and was great to have him help at this 2 person job.

Built and mounted battery mount in aft fuselage (2 hrs):

Starting Out - Part 2

We moved the entire kit from the sellers home/hangar to our hangar at KRNT. My good friend Nikhil Garg helped me and looks like he'll be interested to come along on this journey. Thanks to my friend we could wrap the whole thing up in an afternoon. We celebrated the move with a nice home cooked meal by Ashima. Nothing better than Indian style chaat with Lassi followed by the Chocolate eruption cake.

Next steps for me is to get some shelving units from home-depot, organize the hangar and start collecting tools!

Finally, I have been reading the RVator and seems that there is a lot of emphasis on building the aircraft light. And its by co-incidence that I found this quote on the daily Aviation eBrief email.

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."

--Antoine de Saint-Exupery,
French writer

Our attempt will be to build as light as possible RV-8.