Ron's RV7 Aircraft Factory


Welcome to my personal blog. This site was created as an informal description of my build progress in the construction of a Van's RV7 aircraft. A place where family/friends/builders/curiosity seekers can follow along. It is not intended to be a detailed description of every step in the building process as that would be much too time consuming. There are plenty of sites that do a great job in that arena, that is not my intention with this site. My intention is for this to be a philisophical/motivational/inspirational account of the emotional ups and downs of the life changing journey...and it will change your life. I hope this will give you an idea, through my eyes, of what its like to make this transformation. A note to other builders, I am not an expert so do not put your safety at risk by attempting anything you see on this site until you have done your own research, or send me an email so we can discuss it. Any deviations from the plans are not approved, nor endorsed by Van's Aircraft or myself. Thanks for visiting.



Thursday, April 19, 2012

The Good "Crack" HOBBS 1204.0 hrs


After 2 1/2 days of letting the SikaFlex set up, I finally removed the straps and "cracked" open the canopy as a fully intact unit. It was an exciting moment filled with anticipation. Well, I tried to crack it open I should say! When I first removed the straps and tried to lift the canopy on the co-pilot side it didn't budge!

Whoopsy, apparently I had inadvertently glued my canopy shut! Sean, John and I had discussed this possible scenario but I assured them it would be ok...hmm, maybe I was wrong?? ;) I moved over to the pilot side and tried again and it easily lifted a few inches, so I stopped to think it through before proceeding. I figured I would give it a little bit of extra force on that side and see if it broke loose...sure enough it did, whew! It turned out that some of the Sika had oozed out onto the tape protecting the roll bar. When I cracked it open it actually pulled the tape off the roll bar.

I was pretty impressed with how sturdy it already felt, even without the side skirts. This was pretty exciting to open and close it (even without the struts re-installed)...I kinda felt like a kid in a candy store...again. :) Check out the video...

No comments:

Post a Comment