Well boys and girls, the Factory is officially back in action! I finished off last weekend with a good run of work and this week has been real good so far. I expect some high hour weeks upcoming now that the move is behind me.
My first day working at the hangar went like this. I worked the first half of the day Saturday, walked down to Sean's hangar and we had lunch at the airport diner...came back after lunch and worked the rest of the afternoon. I then showered at the hangar (did I mention we have a shower and two bathrooms?), had quick a beer with my plane to cap off the day. I then drive to dinner followed by the movie theatre to see Top Gun in IMAX 3D with eight others of the RV crowd...(Sean & Diana, Gary & Caroline, Chuck & Brenda, Scott & Deb). The movie was cool...the flying scenes were quite amazing, made you feel like you were in the cockpit. A wonderful aviation day!
The pics I promised of the brake lines on the gear legs. Again, this is 1" 'monster' tape with some polyurethane tubing for added protection. It came out good, I liked this solution.
My strategy now that I am in the hangar was to mount the tailfeathers for flight...and then work my way forward, crossing things off the punchlist. I was somehow thinking...this will only take me an hour or two since I've had the tail on countless times already. Well, I forgot all the little things I still had to do...I see a theme starting already...the "little things".
I needed to add nutplates and tapped holes in the longeron for the empennage fairing. And the biggie...I hadn't addressed the wire routing for the elevator trim tab and the rudder strobe. Both of which are not trivial...not particularly difficult, but it does take some time to think about and then implement. So...I am still working on this as I write this. I have the elevator trim tab wiring done...now moving to the rudder. I have a cool idea for the rudder...
Here I am trying to decided where to punch a hole in the aft bulkhead of the fuse to run the wire into the rudder cap. Sound simple...but its a little tricky if you want a nice setup to easily removed the rudder if needed. Like I said, after expending quite a few brain cells...I think I have a pretty clever idea...wait and see.
Oh, also...I needed to mount my ELT antenna. Although intended to mount on the top of the fuse...most RV builders mount them under the empennage fairing. I plan to go this route as well...hopefully my DAR doesn't give me grief over this as I have heard some do.
As you can see, I took advantage of the swept mounting angle to just enlarge the center tooling hole on the bulkhead. I still need to crawl in there and finalize the nut since I can't reach it from the outside...but that's where it's gonna sit.
This is nice...a five conductor bundled wire for the elevator trim motor. I think this came with my Vertical Power harness? Very handy since it comes from Ray Allen and all the wire colors are exactly the same as on the motor. I thought this was shielded wire from the appearance...but its not, must not be needed?
This is a pretty standard wire routing path for the elevator trim for RV's...the path Van's recommends is problematic because of the jackscrew on the trim motor. It occupies the same space as the wire and would probably rub or even get caught up. I didn't get a picture, but you'll understand what I mean when you get to this part. So you can see, this provides a very nice way to remove the left elevator when needed...just unplug the DB9 connector and an adel clamp.
And a quick fit check to see how it all fits under the empennage fairing...looking good! Next up is the rudder strobe wiring path.
Lastly...moving to the hangar meant I needed more hose. I didn't like my cheap harbor freight air hose...heavy and stiff. Sean showed me his polyurethane hose from Home Depot and I thought...wow, this is much nicer than my old hose. I certainly don't need 100'..but it was only $40 so this was a no brainer. Very lightweight and flexible.
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