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, January 31, 2013

Time to Move! HOBBS 1719.0 hrs


Well, the day is almost here...my Dad is flying in tomorrow and the big move should happen Saturday. I am beyond excited about this milestone and the next chapter in the build. Getting to this point has been quite a journey. For 3 1/2 yrs, my garage has been full of airplane parts and a partially completed airframe. Come Saturday, that era will be over...its exciting and bittersweet all at once. I'll talk more about his when the move is complete.

My new hangar mate, Bill Shook (notice the moving truck graphic), who owns a general contracting firm has volunteered the use of an enclosed trailer to haul the fuse. I also have my pickup truck to haul misc items as needed. We should be well prepared. Several people have offered to help or just stop by and say hi so it should be quite a day.

 
Just a couple pics from the week's progress. I finished up my brake lines routing down the gear legs. Van's says to attach these with electrical tape...which just rubs me wrong. I suppose it would work, but not what I would call "professional" looking. So, my first thought was to use Adel clamps like this pic. Nope...they are too big to fit under the leg fairing, which is why Van's says to tape them.

 
I reluctantly gave in to the idea of tape...it did have some merit. But it wasn't going to be electrical tape. Have you seen how electrical tape handles extreme temperature cycling and aging?? Not on my airplane.
 
I've used Gorilla tape before and liked it...it resembles a high end duct tape. I found a 1" roll and I decided to use this...we'll see how it holds up? If it doesn't do well, easy enough to remove it and try something else later. I will post some pics of the final product later.

 
So, last weekend I stopped by the hangar to say hi to the boys and drop off a few misc items. Bob Markert, Sean Thomas and Jim Gray were all working away on Bob (RV8) and Sean's (RV7A) projects. All of this is being done in Jim's hangar, just a few doors down from my new hangar, since its really set up nicer than ours at the moment. It was good to see and talk with everyone, even cooler to know that soon I will be among the crowd out at the airport...its really a great group of guys! I feel like a little kid that gets to hang out with the cool guys. ;)


And of course, when I arrived I seen four of the Renegades parked outside. They had been doing some formation practice and had stopped in to use the briefing room that Jim has in his hangar. How cool is that?....here they are getting ready to depart.

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