After I spent yesterday trying to understand the first steps and getting an overview of the upcoming activities and also trying to figure out where to store what and where to keep the crates for the fuse kit that is arriving soon, I got back into action today.
It felt like a deja-vu as the activities were well-known and consisted of separating parts, breaking edges and deburring. Now call me crazy but it felt real good doing this again. Sure this feeling will be replaced by fatigue and desperation soon but for now it felt real good to be back in the shop working on the plane and deburring those edges.
Because of that seemingly overwhelming number of similar pieces that have to be smoothened and groomed, I was briefly considering not priming all of this but the German in me won again. Maybe I have another fight tomorrow when I'm actually planing to do the prep and prime work but today he won.
Sorry, no photos of this step.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Inventory on Wing Kit Done
I'm getting really professional at unpacking subkits or there just weren't that many parts in this kit. Anyway, I finished the inventory in just two hours (at 100 degF) and I came out one screw short. It's pretty amazing that they do such a great job, although it also proves my point of why they not just add one screw of each kind to make sure they wouldn't have to spend $3 on shipping a screw that's worth about a cent or two. It would also be a kindness to the builder who sometimes drops a screw and has a hard time locating it in the mess he calls his workshop.
Oh well, I guess Oregon had a lot of Scotsmen coming over at some point in time...
Here are pictures of the two boxes before I started unpacking:
The long box is a bit more than 15ft long and with a little bit of creativity I might be able to get it into my workshop for the last hot days. I'm sure though that I will have to move the spar outside to put the ribs on ...
Oh well, I guess Oregon had a lot of Scotsmen coming over at some point in time...
Here are pictures of the two boxes before I started unpacking:
The long box is a bit more than 15ft long and with a little bit of creativity I might be able to get it into my workshop for the last hot days. I'm sure though that I will have to move the spar outside to put the ribs on ...
Wing Kit Arrived
Ah, the fabulous Fedex Freight man came by this afternoon and brought gifts. He even helped me maneuver those heavy crates to places on the patio where they wouldn't be in the way while I'm putting its contents together.
What a wonderful feeling to be back on track, studying the Oregonian plans and playing with shiny aluminum parts!
Well, back to the inventory ....
What a wonderful feeling to be back on track, studying the Oregonian plans and playing with shiny aluminum parts!
Well, back to the inventory ....
Monday, September 13, 2010
Wing Kit almost here
I just received the call from the freight company, they'll be delivering the Wing Kit tomorrow afternoon. Fortunately, I can do almost all my work remotely from home, so I'll be leaving work in the afternoon to be around.
Finally, I can continue building. I'm really excited!!!
Finally, I can continue building. I'm really excited!!!
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Considering an Alternative Engine
The wing kit is about to get delivered and so Van's charged my credit card with the outstanding amount. This black hole that was blown into my account made me open up my little spreadsheet to see again what else I will have to spend to finalize the RV-12 under LSA certification.
I'm not sure if I mentioned it here before, I certainly did in the Van's Aircraft Forum, but I'm not really happy with the avionics package that Van's chose for the -12. It might have been a nice set of electronics when they first developed it but this stuff is developing almost as quickly as computers (which they essentially are) and so by now there are much more capable alternatives on the market. I.e. a Dynon Skyview is much more attractive to me than the D180 Flightdek. Then I have the Garmin aera500 GPS that I use in my Rans S-12S and it is such a better unit than the dated Garmin 495 that I can not imagine why I should go back to it.
I'd also love to add essential backup gauges to the instrumentation in case of a complete electric failure and so on and so on.
Regardless of what these changes are that I am considering the unfortunate constraint with building to LSA certification is that any deviation from the plans and the certified SLSA prototype would require a written approval by Van's in order to be accepted by a DAR during inspection. Van's would have to certify (and be liable for) that a change you've made doesn't adversely affect the airworthiness of the airplane in comparison to the SLSA prototype. For smaller changes I could image that they do that, for a complete change in avionics they certainly wouldn't.
So the options you have as a builder at this point are pretty limited. It comes down to a digital decision. You either build to LSA standard, get the certification done and do all your changes after the certification which then are completely legal and do not change the LSA certification (isn't that kind of hard to understand?). Or you choose to deviate from the plans and even leave out complete sub kits and brew your own. In that case you cannot certify the plane as an ELSA but as an Experimental - Amateur Build or E-AB.
The difference is that you will have to prove to the FAA that you built the airplane according to the 51% rule, the majority of the plane must be amateur-built. So you need a detailed builder log and photos proving that you built the different stages. You also will be required to fly off significantly more hours before you're allowed to leave the test area and before you can bring a passenger with you. The standard for E-AB is 40 hours for Phase 1.
This all stands against the option to save a lot of money and/or to get a much better airplane.
So while I was considering these avionics options I now also see the option for saving a large amount of money which essentially means that I could get airborne with the -12 a whole lot sooner.
When I was researching airplanes to build and looking at my budget I was coming across Jan Eggenfellner's new LSA engine project called the Viking HF-110 engine. Back then when I was considering the Rans S-19 he was in the earlier development stages flying this engine on his Zodiac and making a lot of progress. This engine is a Honda engine as it is used in the Fit and Jazz models and produces 110hp continuous and has weight and size parameters that make it compatible to the Rotax 912S.
What makes this engine really interesting is that appears to run fine and reliable for quite a while now (yes, with Jan's prototype) and the price tag is about half of the 912S while the weight is in the area of 25lbs heavier than the 912S. Fuel consumption appears to be 5 gal./hr.
Well, back then I dropped the idea as the prototype was about 50lbs heavier than the Rotax and the S-19 already had (and still has) a weight problem so you were exceeding gross weight with two 190lbs humans and full tanks for traveling on board. And that was with the Rotax! So, I forgot about the engine a bit as I wanted to go LSA with the -12, but the money issue came back and so I checked on the status of the project and Jan seems to be coming along very quickly with this new engine. He showed it at Sun'n'Fun 2010 and also at this year's Oshkosh.
I've heard from Jan that two RV-12 builders are currently working with him to put the engine in and will soon be flying. The official delivery of the engine starts in December this year which means that by summer next year there should be some realistic feedback about the qualities of this engine available. And that is when I could make the decision to go for E-AB, do my own avionics and with an alternative engine.
So, I'm pretty excited about this possible new option while I am trying to sip the KoolAid very slowly and see if this engine can fulfill my reliability requirements.
I'm not sure if I mentioned it here before, I certainly did in the Van's Aircraft Forum, but I'm not really happy with the avionics package that Van's chose for the -12. It might have been a nice set of electronics when they first developed it but this stuff is developing almost as quickly as computers (which they essentially are) and so by now there are much more capable alternatives on the market. I.e. a Dynon Skyview is much more attractive to me than the D180 Flightdek. Then I have the Garmin aera500 GPS that I use in my Rans S-12S and it is such a better unit than the dated Garmin 495 that I can not imagine why I should go back to it.
I'd also love to add essential backup gauges to the instrumentation in case of a complete electric failure and so on and so on.
Regardless of what these changes are that I am considering the unfortunate constraint with building to LSA certification is that any deviation from the plans and the certified SLSA prototype would require a written approval by Van's in order to be accepted by a DAR during inspection. Van's would have to certify (and be liable for) that a change you've made doesn't adversely affect the airworthiness of the airplane in comparison to the SLSA prototype. For smaller changes I could image that they do that, for a complete change in avionics they certainly wouldn't.
So the options you have as a builder at this point are pretty limited. It comes down to a digital decision. You either build to LSA standard, get the certification done and do all your changes after the certification which then are completely legal and do not change the LSA certification (isn't that kind of hard to understand?). Or you choose to deviate from the plans and even leave out complete sub kits and brew your own. In that case you cannot certify the plane as an ELSA but as an Experimental - Amateur Build or E-AB.
The difference is that you will have to prove to the FAA that you built the airplane according to the 51% rule, the majority of the plane must be amateur-built. So you need a detailed builder log and photos proving that you built the different stages. You also will be required to fly off significantly more hours before you're allowed to leave the test area and before you can bring a passenger with you. The standard for E-AB is 40 hours for Phase 1.
This all stands against the option to save a lot of money and/or to get a much better airplane.
So while I was considering these avionics options I now also see the option for saving a large amount of money which essentially means that I could get airborne with the -12 a whole lot sooner.
When I was researching airplanes to build and looking at my budget I was coming across Jan Eggenfellner's new LSA engine project called the Viking HF-110 engine. Back then when I was considering the Rans S-19 he was in the earlier development stages flying this engine on his Zodiac and making a lot of progress. This engine is a Honda engine as it is used in the Fit and Jazz models and produces 110hp continuous and has weight and size parameters that make it compatible to the Rotax 912S.
What makes this engine really interesting is that appears to run fine and reliable for quite a while now (yes, with Jan's prototype) and the price tag is about half of the 912S while the weight is in the area of 25lbs heavier than the 912S. Fuel consumption appears to be 5 gal./hr.
Well, back then I dropped the idea as the prototype was about 50lbs heavier than the Rotax and the S-19 already had (and still has) a weight problem so you were exceeding gross weight with two 190lbs humans and full tanks for traveling on board. And that was with the Rotax! So, I forgot about the engine a bit as I wanted to go LSA with the -12, but the money issue came back and so I checked on the status of the project and Jan seems to be coming along very quickly with this new engine. He showed it at Sun'n'Fun 2010 and also at this year's Oshkosh.
I've heard from Jan that two RV-12 builders are currently working with him to put the engine in and will soon be flying. The official delivery of the engine starts in December this year which means that by summer next year there should be some realistic feedback about the qualities of this engine available. And that is when I could make the decision to go for E-AB, do my own avionics and with an alternative engine.
So, I'm pretty excited about this possible new option while I am trying to sip the KoolAid very slowly and see if this engine can fulfill my reliability requirements.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Fuse Kit Scheduled
The written order confirmation and delivery estimate arrived yesterday. The Fuse Kit is now scheduled to ship on 10/4, hopefully it's going to make it here by the end of that week.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Withdrawal Pains
Well, it's about 2 weeks into receiving the wing kit and I honestly tried to distract myself with all the other things I used to do on weekends and in the evenings (before I started building the -12) but I can no longer pretend that I am not affected by this leisure period.
I guess it's because it is an undesired break, kind of like a forced vacation, and I start suffering from serious withdrawal pains. It is getting so bad that I am looking into fun airplanes to build once I am done with the RV-12... Seriously!
Take a look at the Fokker D-VII from Airdromes Airplanes. I think this might be something fun to fly down here in AZ were an open cockpit is fine to fly about 10 months a year.
Let's see if the dreaming about flying a dawn patrol along the fence at Nogales can make the 2 weeks appear to be shorter....
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