Ready For Inspection

All the covers had to come off again. Some more spiral wrapping and cable tying around wires and some cleanup was necessary. Then it looked like this again:

The engine also needed some touch-ups, mainly to secure some wires that could chafe.

I also completed the safety wiring on the gascolator. Do not ask me how I liked it!

I also completed a lot of additional torque sealing and retorquing. I found the AN3 bolts on the nose wheel bracket to have had a few loose ones. I torqued them and marked them to check again after more taxi testing.

The second day of the weekend was more of the same. Torquing, torque sealing and bending cotter pins. Too boring to take a photo of. I also found one missing placard on the rear window and fixed it by applying it.

The last step was spent on removing more blue from the lower left wing - for a few hours .... and you can hardly see it. I removed 1.5 fields and there are 8 more to go.

The plane is ready for inspection now. If the FSDO is cooperating, it might happen next Thursday. If not, it will have to wait until after the 22nd. Cross your fingers that we can make it happen this Thursday!

Taxi Test Completed

Saturday morning we went to the airport very early to get the prep work and the taxi tests done. Except for adding a couple of gallons of fuel and installing the GoPro camera I was pretty much ready to go.

After half an hour I was ready to fully open the doors of the hangar for the first time.

I pulled her out using the tow bar and got her in position for the engine start and hopped in.

The thread you see coming out the tail is a left over of a string used to pull the control cables through the tail cone and needs to yet get removed.

Here's the event from the pilot's perspective:

and here from the bystander:

Overall result: Great control of the nose wheel (to my honest surprise) and no weirdness with anything. Everything worked as it should and even a data analysis after the event showed no problems.

The only noticeable event happened a second after turning the engine off when I heard what appeared to be a backfire from the exhaust. You can hear it in the bystander video at 3:57. 

I took the cowls off after the test and inspected everything but I could not find anything wrong or even remotely concerning.

We did not wait to let it cool off but came back the next day to remove the cowls and inspect the engine and also complete the rocker test on the right side (as part of the purge procedure).

After taking the lower cowl off I found one issue that I had somewhat anticipated back in the day. The oil cooler frame sits a bit too close to the engine and a what looks like a small eye for a screw or bolt right behind the oil pump. That protrusion had vibrated a recess out of the fiberglass of the lower cowl. 

I will file that eye back a bit as it a solid part and a couple of millimeters will be enough to give it enough clearance.

I also found a wire that travels dangerously close to a metal sleeve and might eventually get chafed.

It is on the right side when you follow the fuel supply up from the gascolator. This will need a dab of RTV.

Other than that there was nothing wrong, so I went ahead and installed safety wire on the nuts and bolts.

The rest of the day I spent some desperately needed time on organizing the hangar by putting together my first rack.

And by using it right away...

Ready for Taxi Tests

I put the Avionics cover back on and removed the final layers of protective coating from the glass. I also wiped down the top of the wing skins and the fuselage to get rid of some dust. Not sure if you can see a difference in the photos.

I still have to install the onboard camera before I can fill her up again and go for a stroll. The cowling has been fully screwed on and is rock solid. After the taxi tests I have to take the lower cowl off and see if the rockers are ok and then check the fuel bowl followed by safety wiring the screws.

Plane Weighed

After a great day at Copperstate Fly-In, for which I had taken a day off from work, I riveted on the piano hinge to the top cowl.

Today then I arrived a bit late at the hangar this morning at 11am. The first task was to check if the freshly finished top cowl would fit on nicely. I knew that there was still some minor sanding to do to allow a bit of clearance.
And with a bit of this sanding I accomplished quite a nice fit.

I finally can say that this repair is now completed. Less some minor filling and sanding to optimize the lateral fit and to smoothen the fit along the edge.

The next task was to complete the installation of the rear window. It took some time but I did not run into any problems.

The it was time check out the ramps I had built the day before as well. I used a circular saw and cut 2x4s to shape, followed by using the band saw to make some more surgical cuts to adjust the height to 2 3/4" for the mains and 1 3/4" for the nose wheel.
With a bit of inertia and persistence I was able to pull the plane onto the ramps and secure it there.

In this position I added all the panels, covers, cushions and fairings to come up with a completely equipped RV-12.
The scales were put in place and leveled up by an 1" for the mains. This turned out to be a perfect in-flight attitude for the plane.

This looked nice but unfortunately the sun heated up the LCD displays of the control panels so much that I could not read anything on two of them. I set up a sun shade and provided for a cooling stream from a fan and then rolled the plane onto the scales.

This sums up to 737.7 lbs with no wheel pants and full priming and interior paint, lighting kit. I think this is a great weight!

It was time to put everything away and get out of the heat of the hangar. Not before one final shot though.

I'm not quite sure what next to do. I definitely finished the last step according to the instructions (rear window) and it might just be time to schedule the inspection now...

Ready to Weigh

The plan for Saturday was to see that we get the plane onto some blocks (2" was suggested by Van's) and do the measurements for the Weight & Balance Worksheet once the plane had reached in-flight attitude.

While I was still fresh I put the top cowl on to see if I had reduced the build-up area enough to get a flush fit once the piano hinge would be in place.

The clearance to the lower cowl was good enough but the thickness still needed a bit of reduction in the center area. You can actually see some leftover from the build-up on the original fiberglass if you take a closer look.
So the cowl went off and back into the trunk to come back home.

Now, back to weighing preparations. To get the plane onto blocks without help, was a bit of a challenge which I tackled with some scrap wedges from building the loading ramps (which I never used).

The blocks are 2x4s which are not 2" thick but a tad less than 1.5". This was still too tall to get the canopy decks leveled. I needed to reduce the tire pressure of the main wheels down to 5 psi and increase the nose wheel pressure to 25psi to get it leveled. I will therefore use 1" blocks for the weighing.
Once it was leveled on the blocks the rest was fairly simple.
I dropped the plumb bobs and stretched some thread to mark the line between the points the bobs were indicating.

The rest was measuring and educated guessing (to find the center of the axles).

I used the angle to drop the center of the axle down to the tape measure.

Here are my values (which might differ from yours!):
D1: 24",  D2: 39 7/8",  D3: 23 15/16"

The plane came off the ramps and I made some notes about what ramps I will need to get the plane rolled onto the scales assuming I won't have a helper again.

Sunday morning I sanded down the thickness of the top cowl before heading out to the hangar.
Once out there I threw the top cowl back on and saw that the fit was good enough to now sand the patch down to allow for enough clearance to match drill into the piano hinge.
With the reduced thickness this want fairly quick and I set up the cowl for the drilling session.

Tape was applied to hold the cowl down as good as possible during the drilling.

I put all hinge pins in and also all screws to ensure proper alignment before starting to drill. I was afraid that getting the first hole in would possibly push back the hinge but it stayed in place well.

I took the cowl off and put it back in the trunk with the hinge still clecoed on. I will do the riveting in my shop at home, including the counter sinking.

The next big task was to install the rear window and check the clearance with the canopy. The latter turned out to be almost perfect. The right side of the canopy needed some sanding to be satisfactory and allow the canopy to latch.
Getting the screws through the rear window and into the roll bar turned out to be a rather lengthy task. I wanted to allow for enough clearance to the screw and opened up the holes a bit. Almost all the holes needed some work done and so I was not able to finish the task. Also, because of the fact that the #6 screws would not clear the pre-punched holes in the turtle deck skins. I will have to open them up a bit before I can install the screws with the nuts.

Next steps will be to finish the rear window installation and to check that the top cowl is finally back in operating condition. Then we will do another engine run and a taxi test and take the cowl off to check if the lifters are all happy. If so, that would then trigger me to schedule an appointment for inspection.

Unfortunately, the Copperstate Fly-In is going to interfere with my weekend working plans... We'll see how that works out.

Flaperon Trimmed

First task of today was to trim back the inboard flaperon skin where it interfered with the fuselage. I used a Dremel sander, files and the deburring wheel to clean it all up.

The next task was one I had tried to push out as far as possible as it was not at all pleasant to do, particularly in the heat. Now that it had cooled off a bit I was willing to crawl into the back of the fuselage and fix this long bolt problem on the left flaperon torque arm.

I just could not tell if the nut was seating on the shaft of the bolt or if the torque pressed onto the parts. I thought it was safer to put two additional washers under the bolt.

While at cleaning up the tunnel, I applied torque seal to all the nuts and bolts that had been torqued and also wrapped some spiral wrap about the cable bundles to stiffen them a bit.

Last time I had promised to take some more pictures of the tool that helped me pull the wings in. Here they are:

The last official task to close the build manual was to close up the seat pan and tension the stabilator cables.

It is really no joy working though those maintenance holes. My hand hardly fits through there only to find a very confined space inside anyway. It took me about 2 hours to get this done and find a good balance between the two stops and an even tension between the two cables.

Getting those locks into the turnbuckles was a part of its own!

Before I left for the day, I took some measurements of the rudder tab and also checked a possible location for installation.

What's left now? Trimming the top cowl patch and reinstalling the piano hinge and then some taxi tests.