A New Year HOBBS 1025.0 hrs

Even with all the depressing crap that has been going on in the world with the economy, 2011 was a pretty darn good year for me. As you know I made a lot of progress on the project and feel like 2012 is going to be even better as I close in on completing this project. Hopefully your year was also a good one. Happy holidays and here's to looking forward to another great year. We are truly fortunate. My friends Scott and Gary loaded up their wives and planes and headed to Las Vegas for the weekend...always inspiring to me to finish....oh, how I cant wait for the day I can take flight with them on their RV adventures. In honor of their flight to Vegas...I included a photo of ol' sin city...a place I once called home.

On a seperate note, happy birthday to my deal ol' Dad! Yep, a new years eve baby...I wont mention his age or he'd probably kill me...happy birthday just the same pop!

Empennage Fairing HOBBS 1025.0 hrs

I decided to go with an after market empennage fairing from Fairings-etc. Although I am happy with the product, a valid argument could be made to just stick with the Van's version. In the old days, the Van's version was notorious for not fitting well...I think that has improved? I also wanted to wrap my empannage fairing around the bottom side for a more professional clean look. My version cost about $250 plus $60 in shipping...versus about $105 for the Van's version if I remember right? Anyhow...its your call. Here are some pics of the fairing as I get it fit to my fuse and emp.

What it looks like out of the box...pretty nice fit, but you have to do some trim to fit exercises.

I attached some box tape and then drew some 1"x1" squares for reference...with these I can get a symmetrical trim job. The tape will also help when I do the fill work to get a nice fit.

It comes in three pieces but I chose to bond the two lower pieces to the top so its all one piece.

Here you can see a flox and cloth layup in the transition attachment area. I will continue with trim work as well as adding filler so that it seals up all the gaps...its gonna be a tight fit so I don't have to use many fasteners. Stay tuned as I work this puppy into shape.

ELT Strategy HOBBS 1025.0 hrs

In my effort to get the details of the rear fuselage tied up so I can start riveting on the top skins, one of the items I needed to cross off was the ELT. I knew I was going to need to ramp up on some wiring supplies in the near future. Stein has a wiring kit that I was considering purchasing as I knew it would satisfy pretty much everything I would need. Since I had already purchased some electrical tools and knew that because I plan to install a Vertical Power system I wouldn't need as much wiring. So I pared down the kit somewhat to tailor it to what I thought I would need. While I was at it, I figured I would browse through Stein's web store for other items. I ended up getting his Ameri-King ELT along with some LED cockpit lighting.

I saw the ELT for $200 and thought, wow, that's a really good price so I jumped on it. Well, after it showed up and I was halfway through the install it dawned on me that I had unwittingly bought an "older" style 121.5MHz ELT! Since 2009, satellites no longer monitor 121.5, only ground based systems. Dang, that was not my intention...I wanted the newer 406MHz. So I was faced with a dilemma...send it back for a refund or install it anyway, its still legal after all.

Sending things back is a pain because you get whacked with shipping costs AGAIN! At this point in the build, I am getting worn out by shipping costs. And I had already started the install which included filing a couple sharp edges on the mounting bracket and up sizing the mounting holes. I wouldn't feel comfortable sending it back to Stein with mods like that.

So, of course, I turned to VAF to do some research to see what others have done. I found quite a few instances where the strategy was to install the cheapest 121.5 MHz ELT to be legal and then supplement it with a PLB and/or a tracking device like SPoT or APRS device. Quite a few pilots share my philosophy that I don't trust these ELT's with my life...very few accident reports I read ever have them working as planned. They either don't activate in a crash or are not effective. Since I had planned on a PLB and a tracker anyway, this made sense to me.

I have installed the 121.5MHz (I'm sure my friend Bryan Raley, a SAR pilot for CAP, is going to chastise me for this decision!! haha). If I had it do over again I would buy the 406MHz, but since I have this in hand I'll install it...knowing full well, that I will probably have to swap it out later and lose my $200 and have an orange paper weight. Maybe the new ones will come down in price by then?...I couldn't find one less than $700!! Tell me, why in the world those are so much more expensive?? Are the electronics much different? Ever feel like you get gouged in this aviation world?? PITA!

Solo Mt Flight HOBBS 1025.0 hrs

If you read my blog regularly, you'll know that I did a Mountain Flying checkout (flying and ground school) this summer. My flying consisted of two trips with my instructor, one to Granby and then another to Leadville. I had wanted to get a third one in before summer ended, but finances prevented that...airplane parts to buy. ;) So, last weekend, it was one of those glorious Colorado mornings that I love...fresh snow, crisp air, skies of baby blue, not a cloud in the sky and no wind. Winds aloft were favorable...12 kts from the west, so I figured for my monthly flight...why not cruise up to Granby and back? Its a short flight, about 35 mins in the old Citabria, pretty simple...and only one pass to cross, Rollins. It would be a good flight for my first solo mountain flight.

My backyard...the Rocky Mountains. If you look close you will see Winter Park ski resort in the center of this photo.

Coming over Rollins pass, the altimeter was reading about 13,500 ft MSL at this point. Our "hills" are big out here.

If you click on this photo to enlarge it and look closely, you will see a hot air balloon that had just launched. Pretty cool.

And this was on the return trip over the pass. All in all, it was a great flight. I was admittedly a little nervous being my first solo over the rocks, but except for a few pockets of light turbulence, it was nice and smooth.

I always do a personal debrief of my flights and think about the mistakes I made (there are always some...yet to have a perfect flight) and try to learn something from every flight. On this flight I want to share something...I realize it will make me look like a bonehead, but that's ok if you learn from it.

As I was climbing up to Rollins pass I made a little mistake...let me elaborate. Boulder airport sits at just about 5300 MSL and I needed claw my way over the Flatirons to 13,500 MSL to clear the pass in short order. With the westerly winds that are common, you are almost always climbing into the wind which doesn't help. As I was approaching the pass I noticed the plane wasn't climbing like I thought it should...being solo, light headwind and nice chilly air the ol' Citabria should be biting into the air quite well...but it wasn't? I leaned my mixture to make sure I was getting maximum HP but the climb was still agonizingly slow. Slow enough that I started to formulate a turn back plan if I needed it. I finally got to my target altitude for a safe crossing, but none too soon, and didnt think much more about it as I descended into the Granby valley.

After I landed in Granby...taxied back (recommended one way in, one way out for inexperienced mt pilots...which I certainly am!), I then closed my flight plan on my cell phone. As I prepared for takeoff and did my pre takeoff checklist I noticed that my carb heat had been on the whole flight...since I left Boulder!! Shoot! No wonder the ol' girl couldn't climb worth a hoot!? Somehow I missed that when I did my pre takeoff checklist in Boulder. Grr, aggravating...

And one last parting shot..not related to the flight. About a month ago we had some huge winds, 90 mph gusts were recorded if I remember right. Boulder has wind events like this a handful of times every year so its not that uncommon as the winds swoop down over the Rockies onto the plains. Well, I guess this is what happens when you don't tie down your airplane properly!!! I have seen this old Cessna 150 out at the airport since I started flying here...not sure how much it was flown, but as you can see...its flying life may be over? D'oh!

Flaps & Ailerons 1008.5 hrs

Finally getting around to mounting my ailerons and flaps, not sure I had a good reason for not doing this earlier? For some reason I just skipped over it when I built the wings? I think I was just excited to get started on the fuse?? ;)

Anyhow, easy enough to do it now as I get ready to mount my wings on the fuse. These kinds of tasks in the project are really fun and satisfying for me. Deburring, match drilling, edge prep, primer, etc, I could really do without, but attaching control surfaces is a hoot. And as simple as this was, it took me about 8 hours to do...kinda slow I realize, but I was being very careful to not make a  mistake.

The instructions say to lay the wing on a table to do this, not only do I think that isn't necessary, I think it may actually work better doing it while they are in the wing cradle...which is how I did it.

You will soon learn that attaching control surfaces is a tight quarters exercise. I HIGHLY recommend you get a telescoping magnet (shown in picture) and some washer wrenches. I couldn't have done this without either of those. I found that the only way to attach the connecting rod to the bell crank was to do that one first...as shown, its just too tight to get in there after the fact.

You have to fabricate some spacers for these, that coupled with washers and nuts, completes the assembly. I want to add, there was a recent posting on VAF about the proper way to attach rod end bearings. I didn't realize that some builders are confused by this. There is a bearing inside the rod-end...so make sure you torque your nuts down, they should not be left loose. They do not need to be loose to rotate freely...the bearing will take care of that. Always, always, always torque your nuts. I haven't finalize these yet because I know I will have to remove them later.

Aileron attached...looking good!

Don't forget this handy little piece of alum, its a jig to use so that you can get the bell crank in a "neutral" position.

Here it is in place, this is where having the wing in this orientation helps. The weight (gravity) put the aileron bell crank in its proper position. Keep in mind, this bracket only gets the proper position for the bell crank...not the aileron, I'll explain in a minute.

Once I got the aileron attached, the flap was next...you have to match drill the continuous hinge to the wing. So, here you can see I used a straight edge (yard stick) to get a nice fit before drilling. You also need to have 1/4" gap between the two...and keep it square. Check...and double check before committing to drilling.

There are two approaches for your hinge pins on the flaps. Use one full length piece and drill an access hole (in the aileron I think?) or cut the pin basically in half so you can remove them from the center. Van's has endorsed the split version and I think its the way most builders do it now. In this pic you can see how I fastened the two halves...once again, not my idea, but really clever. Just cut two eyelets off some scrap hinge...add a nutplate and some through holes. I will probably trim the ends a little shorter later...they don't need to be that long. I was really happy with the way this came out...kudo's to the guy who came up with it...unfortunately I cant remember his name off the top of my head.

I mentioned getting the bell crank in its neutral position earlier...to get the aileron in its neutral position (they are not automatically the same) you need to make a jig...I think it was in the plans on the wing jig page? Its just a straight line between tooling holes in the end rib and the aileron. To get the aileron and the bell crank synced up...you need to adjust your rod-end bearings on the connecting rod. Once I got his right, I torqued the lock nuts and finalized it...I don't think that should move again now that its set? So, in conclusion...not too difficult to do and a fun project to tackle.

Aileron Trim & Crotch Strap HOBBS 1008.5 hrs

I decided to tackle my aileron trim install (or most of it) while I still had reasonable access. Its a Ray Allen servo motor much like (maybe the same one?) as the elevator trim. So, since I was familiar with that install, this one was pretty simple.

You get a nice drawing and instructions included with the kit. You can also see the pile of parts you start with...lets have some fun eh?!

Here you can see it taking shape...cotter pins are just holding things in place for now. I will disassemble it and prime it before setting those.

This is where it mounts to the seat ribs. I wont be able to complete the install until later when I put the sticks in and finish up the details with that. For now, I will just set it off to the side. You can see in this pic that you have to drill out some nutplates...if you read this beforehand...don't install those two. Save ya some effort later.

On to the seat belts...or more specifically the crotch straps. These don't have the right diameter hole for the AN4 bolt that attaches them. Some guys press a couple washers into that hole to create a 1/2" through hole. I don't have an arbor press and trying to do that with pliers or a vice is dang near impossible...I tried! So, the other option is just drill a new 1/4" dia hole. Not only was this much easier, it fits nicer in the bracket as well. I like the way this came out.

You can see how it resides in the brackets. I really find this whole design kind of weak...you have this heavy duty steel bracket attached to a double-stitched seat belt harness, and all of that is attached to two thin pieces of alum sheet metal. What do you think is the weak link here? That alum will go before any of the other components in a crash scenario. The only justifications I can think of are #1, its a crotch strap, a 'nice to have'..not a 'must have'...a four point harness is plenty sufficient I think. Second, maybe its specifically designed for this to break loose at a certain 'G' threshold...maybe just slow you down? Think about it...maybe that thing remaining intact is not the most desirable thing, at least not for us male pilots/passengers?? ;) Anyhow, that's the design and I didn't feel like altering it...so there ya go.

Finalizing my static routing...took out some of the adel clamps, moved the junction above the seat belt attach brackets so it doesn't interfere. I added two adel clamps where the 'keeper' rivets reside...that was kind of a pain but works well. I then added some protection (shrink tube and wire protector) where the static line crosses over the longeron. This line vibrating against the longeron during flight could cause some wear and failure. Not sure about this solution though...I could also just add an adel clamp there, but I would like to avoid drilling into the structural longeron if possible. Or maybe I am just worrying about nothing?? Still pondering....

Broke out my Andair fuel pump for some test fitting. This seems to be a nice piece of hardware (ignoring my earlier statement about not doing business with Andair in the future...I would just buy directly from ACS. They have some good products, I just don't care for their customer service.) Its more pricy than the AFP version that Van's sells, but I think it is also smaller, which is nice.

Nice install instructions are available on the Andair website...when you order this from ACS, be sure to order the fuel filter and maybe a gascolator at the same time. ACS has package deals to include all of these...I didnt get either out of pure ignorance of what I needed. Still learning... At the very least get the fuel filter.

And the start of my center console ideas...just using some cardboard to do some preliminary layout right now. Still plenty of thought that needs to be done ahead of time...I will tell you I plan to mostly copy Jon Clement's center console since he did such a great job with his.

Finishing Kit HOBBS 1008.5 hrs

Ah, behold, the wonderful canary 'yellow letter'...if you're building one of these along with me, you know the joy you get when you see one of these babies come in the mail from Van's. Second only to the day the crate actually arrives. Only builders of aircraft get to have 'Christmas' multiple times on days other than December 25th. :) As you can see, my delivery week has arrived, although I haven't been contacted by the shipping company yet for a delivery 'day'...I'm pretty excited to get this thing in my hands.

My personal goal was to cross the 1000 hr mark and be done, or almost done, with the fuse by the time this arrived. I am tracking pretty close to my goals....1000 hrs? check...wow, 1000 hrs...that looks nice, I remember when I finished the empennage how far away 1000 hrs seemed but here I am...great feeling. Fuse done? not quite, but really all I have left is mounting the wings, top skins and some odds and ends so I'm fairly close. It takes some doing to plan the arrival of these kits so you are ready for them but they also aren't sitting in the corner taking up valuable shop space before you need them. Or worse yet, you have to stop working to wait for delivery...so arriving sooner is better than later.

Let me add, I naively thought, hey, this is my finish kit...my LAST sub-kit in the procession...woohoo! Hmm, wrong...I recently realized I need to also purchase a firewall forward (FWF) kit as well. I don't really know why Van's kind of glosses over this when they publish kit prices...marketing maybe? The FWF kit is $3500...its not trivial and absolutely necessary for a flying airplane so don't be like me...factor it in from the start. Yes, I realize Van's does mention that their kit prices don't include this...but it just seems like it should clearly be listed in the kit list...no? Oh well, complaining about spending more money...isn't that a builders second (or third) favorite hobby?? Anyhow, getting there...things are progressing nicely!

Antenna Install HOBBS 995.5 hrs

Last week I made some good progress with several different tasks. Once again, as I mentioned in previous posts, having fun...

I noticed in my drawing set a print showing the mounting of the Odyssey battery box on the firewall...well, after checking the inventory I also noticed that this wasn't part of my fuselage kit. It is an "extra" kit that you have to order from Van's. So, in a knee jerk reaction, I ordered one. Later I realized that it is part of the FWF kit that Van's sells...I could've saved some shipping costs...oh well. Its a pretty easy install...cut some lightening holes in it and drill some holes in the firewall...easy peasy.

Back to my master cylinders...I had to install the NPT fittings in them. I actually had to do research on exactly what NPT fittings are and how they work....more education. I started thinking I could just use my fuel lube on the threads. After some research on VAF, I found out...don't use that, it will leak. Using teflon tape on fuel lines is a definite "no no", but some builders use it on the brake lines. If you do, just be very careful for the same reasons as for the fuel lines...it can get lodged in the line if not careful. A better process is using a thread sealant especially designed for the job. I used Permatex, bought it at the local auto part store. You can order a more expensive Loctite version but I couldn't find any locally...and I'm frankly getting a little tired of shipping costs.

I bought my antenna's from Delta Pop Aviation on a recommendation from my friend Sean Blair. Good product, good price and excellent customer service. Owner Don Pansier sent me a very informative email explaining where and how to mount the antenna's as he also has a -7.

I watched the "Hints for Homebuilders" video about installing antenna's, really cant say enough good things about these videos...such a great resource that we have at our disposal for free. Well done EAA! Really not much to this...you will notice my doublers are a little more substantial than they show but otherwise, nothing to it. I bought two Comm antenna's and one transponder...this pic shows the blade type transponder antenna.

I  chose to mount my Comm antenna's behind the main spar...Don recommended just in front or behind the spar. I read somewhere that you should have 36" between the transponder and Comm...but not sure if that is a hard fast rule? I did achieve the 36" spacing however....just in case. You can see that I also riveted my doubler in place for added strength, I used CS pop rivets just for ease of installation.

Here is shot of the two Comm antenna's mounted on the bottom side of the fuse. I removed them after fitting so that I can keep them protected...I will re-install and seal them later.

Speaking of sealing them...this is what I will use...a paintable silicone as recommended on the hints for homebuilders video. ProSeal will also work.

I mounted the transponder just behind the firewall in the center. It will be a nice short run of Coax straight up the firewall.

Access hole cut in the center panel.

While I was down there installing the transponder antenna I decided to also install my fuel tank vents I got from JD Air. I used the same silicone to seal these. The red index line gives me a reference for a square installation so I am parallel to the wind stream. I like these...they look nice.