Composite Materials HOBBS 127.5 hrs

After taking my composites class, I am well versed in exactly what I will need to do my fiberglass empennage tips. I've done plenty of research also, to see what others have used. My instructor suggested 'West System' resin and hardener as have many others. It is pretty sweet because you dont have to do any scale measurements...the West System comes with a very convenient pump system. One pump of resin, one pump of hardener and voila...away you go! Of course Aircraft Spruce carries this, but I try to avoid paying HAZMAT fees when buying chemicals. All shipping companies will charge you a fee to transport this type of stuff, $17 for this particular product. I contacted West System directly, they sent me some great literature and a 'User Guide'. I was also able to find a local distributor, West Marine, that carries their product line. Took a spin down there this weekend and $175 later and I have all the resin and hardener I should need for all the fiberglass work on the RV7 (empennage tips, wingtips, cowling, canopy skirt, etc). A little pricy, but by now you're probably getting the idea that aviation isnt cheap! :) I still plan to add a few composite accessories from Spruce...Flox, Glass microbeads, peel ply, fiberglass tape and a few other odds and ends. When I attended the SportAir class I recieved a special coupon for free shipping and 10% off from Spruce...not much of a coupon but every little bit helps!

Bryan Raley Visit HOBBS 127.5 hrs

Last week my friend and fellow RV8 builder Bryan Raley stopped by for a visit. http://bryansrv8project.blogspot.com/ He attended the "Sheet Metal Assembly" EAA SportAir class the same weekend I did the composites class. So, he is raring to get started on his RV8 empennage. I suggested he stop by my shop for a tour. When I told Samira, she kind of chuckled, "oh so now you're the expert huh?" I laughed and said, "far from it, but its amazing how much I have learned already in just 125 hrs of experience." Can you imagine what it'll be like when this thing flies? Maybe, just maybe, I will be some kind of expert by then! :)

So anyway I wanted to point out some things that tripped me up in my building...show him my mistakes so hopefully he can avoid them in his build. Go over some confusing parts on the prints, etc. I also wanted to show him how I had my shop set up, my tools, my painting/etching/alodining process and other misc process stuff. It was a good visit, we spent a couple hrs talking RV's and tossing back a couple brewski's in the process. Does it get any better than that??!

Trim Tab Continued HOBBS 127.5 hrs

After my short pause, I am back at it. The left elevator and trim tab are right where I left them. :) I've explained the trim tab flange bending process in previous posts, here are some pics to illustrate what I was talking about....

I cut bending blocks to help with the process. I used double stick tape to keep the blocks from moving...or at least I tried, they still had a tendency to move around which was kind of a pain. My bends werent the best, but they were certainly not too bad. I think if you did this a couple of times you could get better at this skill.

Here is a pic of the flanges on the trim tab after they were bent. I started the bend with a soft mallet and a block of wood. Once I got the bend started, I switched to using my rivet gun on a low setting and flush rivet set. That worked pretty slick.

Here is the other side of the trim tab after doing the same process. You can see the pre-punched holes on this side. These will be used to match drill the other flange before using blind rivets to close it up.

This is the same process on the left elevator. So, there are three total places you have to do this.

And here you can see how it fits within the elevator assembly. The trim tab will attach with a piano (continuous) hinge, which is not shown.

This is the important part, in my opinion...how does the gap look? Not horrible...but not great either. You can see that the bend lines are not crisp and a little inconsistent. I think 7 out of 10 builders would be fine with this and just move on. It is just cosmetic after all. I have been thinking about redoing the trim tab...stay tuned on what I decided.

Here is another view illustrating the inconsistency in the two parts.

Unrelated to the left elevator...I am getting close to attaching control surfaces. So, here is a shot of my vertical stabilizer with the rudder attached. Looking like an airplane!! Is that a beer in the shot?? How did that get there?!! hmm...

SportAir Composites Class HOBBS: 125.5 hrs

I'm on a slight pause right now with my building activity. This weekend I spent two full days learning how to do basic composites and repairs in a class put on by EAA SportAir http://www.sportair.com/. We spent most of our hands on training building a composite canard (small wing). This is my second such class put on by SportAir and have been pleased with the instruction. The first being "RV Assembly" out in Watsonville, CA, which taught basic sheet metal skills for the RV. I really enjoyed learning how to make plastic 'toys'! Not sure if building a composite airplane is in my future but I do think I will enjoy doing small projects for the RV.

I know, I know...you might say, wait a minute, you're building an aluminum airplane why are you learning composites?? And that is a legitimate question to be sure. First, I have always enjoyed the concept of composites. I took a Mechanical Engineering elective during my undergrad degree called "Composite Laminate Analysis". The class essentially consisted of writing a Fortran program to analyze stresses on composite laminate structures. On top of the fact, my first homebuilt love was the Glasair III, which is a sexy composite airplane and more recently admired the Lancair Legacy. It really is hard to argue with the clean airframe and strength that a composite airplane offers.


Lancair Legacy racing at Reno, pretty plane indeed!

A practice 'fillet' excercise.

This was our canard (small wing) that we built in class.
So that was part of my inspiration to take this class, but the bigger reason was the fiberglass included on my RV. The empennage tips, the wingtips, wheelpants, the cowling and skirt around the canopy all are fiberglass. Since I really had no practical experience with this, I wanted to add another 'tool' to my arsenal. And I gotta say, mission accomplished, I now feel very comfortable working with composites. Bottom line is, its not rocket science and all of the above mentioned parts are not 'structural' and mostly cosmetic so my layups dont have to be perfect to achieve my desired results. I'm not doing a wing spar here. I am actually quite excited to use my new found skills, all kinds of custom mods for the plane are bouncing around in my head!! :)

On a seperate note, RIP Patrick Swayze, who died Sept. 14th from pancreatic cancer. I very much admired his work. Shamelessly I have to admit I really enjoyed 'Dirty Dancing' and 'Ghost'...but also the less popular movies 'Point Break', 'Red Dawn' and the 'Outsiders' (pictured).

Come to find out that Patrick also had an aviation tie, he and his wife were both licensed pilots and owned a Beechcraft. They used this aircraft to fly into California for his chemo treatments.

None of us know how long we have in this world and Patrick, at the relatively young age of 57, was certainly taken early--the only thing we can control is how we live it. Make your days count. Blue skies and tailwinds brother...

New Aerosport Engine HOBBS: 125.5 hrs

Originally when I started the build process I wanted to install a 210hp IO-390 in my plane. At the time, the price was about $32,000, which was steep. But I really wanted the extra power and I felt like if I can afford it, I may as well have what I want. Well, not long ago, for reasons I am not fully aware of, the price of the 390's shot up to $37 or $38K. Thats when I kinda said enough is enough, aircraft engines are already way overpriced in my humble opinion...but thats just crazy!

So Aerosport Power has started to market a 'new' (actually the owner Bart says its been around about 5 yrs) engine, the IO-375. Here is some info on it,

http://www.aerosportpower.com/docs/o-%20io-375-%20engine.pdf

It is essentially a 360 with a longer stroke producing between 195 and 205hp depending on compression. There are quite a few things that excite me about this engine. First, it is the same price and size of the 180hp IO-360 but with 15-25 more hp, gotta love that! Second, I have the option of running 'mogas' if I go with the lower compression 195hp version...still debating this but its a nice option to have. Lastly, its the same weight as the 360, which is about 30 lbs lighter than the IO-390. In the land of aircraft design, power-to-weight ratio is golden! My friend Pete Vinton is putting one of these in his RV8 in a few months, cant wait to get some feedback to see how he likes it. For now, I am a little ways off from engine selection time, so I am just keeping an eye on this engine.

Tougher Than it Looks! HOBBS 124.0 hrs

Well, I have been working on bending my trim tab and left elevator. For the uninitiated, this involves bending two opposing flanges to close up both ends of the trim tab and also one end of the elevator. This part of the design, in my opinion is kind of a sloppy way to do it, even if you are skilled at this the appearance wont be great. It looks pretty straightforward but once you get into it, it is very difficult to get a nice clean, straight bend line with blocks of wood that dont seem to want to stay in place.

Once you are done bending the flanges into place, you used pop rivets to secure the assembly together and these rivets in a worst case scenario could rub on each other which is a small concern. It'll be more clear what I am talking about when I post some pics of this. I have seen other builders actually build a very small homemade rib to rivet in place and just cut the flanges off, which gives a nice clean edge. I thought about doing this, but decided against it since it would not be quite as aerodynamic.

I've already done the trim tab and last night I tackled the left elevator version and it really didnt come out too well. So I decided that was a good stopping point and all night and today I was contemplating my options, trying to fix it, or maybe manufacture some kind of rib to accomplish the task and still be aerodynamic. After getting home from work, I finally decided to try and make a go of it one more time and if I screwed it up worse, I would just order a new part. I was mostly successful at getting it come out good, but I still really am not happy with it. I just dont like the bend lines, I may use some SuperFil from Spruce

http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/cmpages/superfil.php

to doctor the appearance of this up later and hide the rivets. It is essentially a lightweight aircraft bondo. I will probably use this same stuff when I blend in the empennage tips as well. I am considering just ordering a new trim tab and redoing this part since it should be cheap and I will have plenty of time to tackle it in the coming months....but we'll see.