With the tank assembly behind me, I’m more than ready to get this wing finished up. I continued working on the right leading edge. I shot and bucked the rivets that I could do solo, but the rivets way in the nose need a helper. Julied helped me with those. We got all of the rivets in the right leading edge done. Awesome. I just set the leading edge on the spar for now. It’s so cool to have the workbench cleared off again.
Last big ProSeal session on the tanks putting on the right rear baffle and access cover. The rear baffle is such a monster session–lots of rivets. It took about an hour to set up. Even though everything was set out and ready to go, I still had to MEK the rivets, get out the tools, and clean all of the surfaces one last time. There was about two hours of riveting with Julie helping for one hour and then an hour and a half of clean up. I took an hour longer to do this baffle than the other baffle. I guess I was just being extra careful.
I started out by thinning a little bit of ProSeal with some MEK and applying it to the troublesome leaking rivet on the left tank. I used lung power to create a small vaccuum in the tank. I could see the skin between the ribs pucker in. It looked like there was one spot that pulled in the ProSeal. Hopefully that stops the leak.
This time around, I spread a thin layer of ProSeal on the baffle flange and put a bead ON the rivet holes of the skin. I also paid close attention to the corners, making sure the ProSeal was on all 3 surfaces, and squeezed out nicely when I put the baffle in place. Looking in through the access cover, the corners looked great. Just to be sure, I stuck the gun in the corner from the outside and shot a little more in there.
In all of my careful ProSeal application, I forgot to dab ProSeal on the last few spots of the capactive sender wire. I could reach the inboard most bay through the access hole, but the next bay over isn’t secure. I decided it wasn’t a big deal and moved on.
The blind rivets were fairly uneventful, except that a few mandrels didn’t break right at the rivet head. I had to use a vise grip wrench to bend them back and forth. Otherwise, I couldn’t get the squeezer on the skin rivet next to the blind rivet. I blame the cheap rivet puller that I have.
On the skin to baffle rivets, Julie helped place rivets while I moved clecos and did the squeezing. There are a ton of rivets there, but we chugged through them. I squeezed the outboard Z bracket rivets and Julie helped rivet and buck the inboard bracket. I had just enough ProSeal left to put on the access cover with some hex cap stainless screws.
Lots of clean up ensued. The ProSeal was getting pretty set, so it took quite a while to clean up the tank.
Fingers are super crossed that the left tank is now sealed and that this tank turns out well. Even if there are some leaks, I’m happy to have these puppies done. I set the tank leading edge up to cure. This should help the ProSeal ooze down into the seam versus out of the seam.
Julie is so cool. She said the next time, we’re doing QuickBuild. First, she recognizes that I’ll probably build another plane some day, and she’s already bought into the QuickBuild. I certainly wouldn’t mind having someone else do the nasty tanks and the monotonous wings next time.
Squeezed the rivets at the rear of the right leading edge. I could reach two rivets on each side of each rib. The rest will have to be done with the rivet gun.
Countersunk half of the skin to main spar holes on the right wing. Clecoed together the right leading edge.
I took the day off from work and went up to the Northwest Fly-In at Arlington, WA. My friend Jeff and I decided to go up on a weekday when it would be less busy. It was certainly quiet. It gave us a good opportunity to talk to the vendors. Unfortunately, not all of the vendors were there. I particularly wanted to talk to Aircraft Finishing Systems, but they weren’t there. Maybe they are showing up just for the weekend.
Cleaveland Tools had a big bus there with lots of tools. I saw a few things that I wanted, but didn’t need them right away.
We talked with Aero Sport Power for a while. A nice lady there (can’t remember her name) was very knowledgeable and answered lots of our questions. She said Bart was off at a forum, so we didn’t meet him. I asked about FADEC, and she said they aren’t able to install FADEC on the engine, but can make the engine “FADEC ready.” They basically test the engine with a carb and magnetos, and then take them off before shipping. You put on the FADEC yourself.
The first stop was really the Van’s display. Cleaveland and Aero Sport just happened to be on the way. Van’s brought up the RV-7A, RV-9A, and RV-10. We sat in the RV-7A and already had the RV grin going. I am pumped to hammer some rivets now. It is just such a cool plane. I didn’t have much headroom under the canopy, but enough. It’s definitely a little tighter than in a Cessna 172, but comfortable. Jeff and I looked all over the plane close up. We felt much better about our workmanship. For example, I have some pillowing around the fuel tank screws. The same thing is evident on the RV-7A and RV-9A.
We took a quick look in the Lancair that was there. Not bad for plastic. Two more Lancairs were supposed to show up before the weekend, including their jet.
At that point, we went to listen to Van talk about the side-by-side models. But Van was apparently at a soaring event. Scott gave the talk instead. There wasn’t really much info about the planes, which I didn’t mind. I know enough about them already, I think. Instead he had a slide show that walked through the factory. It was quite entertaining. We learned lots of trivia like why the Van’s Aircraft sign on the building is painted yellow and how they made the sign on the CNC machine.
We talked to lots of other vendors: Garmin was there. We watched a demo of their GPS. Looks complicated. It still seems strange that Garmin bought out UPS. I hope they make a new model in the near future with the best of both lines. It seems unlikely since they have much less competition now.
Clear Air Tools had a nice tent set up with lots of tools and some parts. Nothing I absolutely needed.
ECI looked pretty busy. We grabbed a booklet on their Titan cylinders, but didn’t stick around.
Trio had their auto pilot on display. We learned that it uses a teeny tiny mechanical gyro made by Analog Devices. There is info on the device on Analog Device’s web site. It’s strange that it’s a mechanical gyro device. I thought other manufacturers were using some sort of flux thingy. Their unit was very responsive. The new display looked cool, at least in the dim light of the tent. He said a GPS input was required, but the gyro would keep the auto pilot tracking a straight line for quite a while with some slight drift after 20 or so minutes. They use NavAid servos.
Dynon was there with their EFIS and engine monitoring unit. I’ve seen at least the EFIS before, and their units still look cool. They said the heated pitot tubes are way back ordered.
A guy from Lycoming looked up from his book briefly to ask if we had any questions. Nobody was gathered around that booth.
A guy from Eagle Engines was there representing Superior, but also pumping his own clone engines. He said an O-320 engine would be announced at Osh Kosh and an angle valve IO-360 would be available at the beginning of the year. Not sure if he was talking about his engines or Superior. He also said that only he and Mattituck were able to install FADEC on an engine. Not sure if that’s true, but not many companies advertise FADEC as an option. He also had a prop govenor available that was smaller than what everybody is currently using. He said the recess in the firewall was unnecessary with his unit, which is FAA/PMA approved. He was also saying something about the fact that the unit could be overhauled versus thrown away. It was hard to keep track of what he was saying–too much info.
A guy from AeroCraft Avionics was very friendly. They are apparently a spin off from Lancair, and are very interested in working with the RV market. They do panels from design through wiring, or any step in between. He was also talking about making a wiring “kit” that included a DVD stepping you through the process of wiring. He was just exploring the idea for now. He had on display a very cool panel (apparently made for a guy at TruTrak) that had a Chelton Sport system in it. He said something about the “Sport” model being only $20k. Ouch.
Spoke to Washington State Department of Transportation. Apparently all Washington pilots are supposed to register with them for $15 per year. The money goes strictly toward airport maintenance, so I’ll sign up for that. Just for promising to sign up, she gave me a very cool “Pilot’s Guide to Washington Airports”.
We were also able to watch the formation flying of the BlackJack Squadron. That’s the first time I got to watch fun. The coolest part was their landing. They flew over the runway at pattern altitude and split off one by one and swooped in for a landing.
On the way out, we looked through the RV parking area. There were a few dozen RVs there, and I’m sure there will be more this weekend.
I took one other picture (too busy gawking to take pictures) of this WWII vintage airplane. It was incredibly huge. I can’t imagine flying such a thing, let alone landing it on a carrier. The really freaky thing was we looked over a few minutes later and the wings were folded up. Incredible.
That’s pretty much the highlights–pretty good show overall. It’s not huge, but we learned a lot. It was very worthwhile to see some of the vendors in person, especially the engine folks.
While the left wing was out of the stand, I removed the fuel tank for further testing to see if my touch-up of ProSeal on the rivet by the fuel filler fixed things. Unfortunately, it didn’t. I’ll have to try the trick of sucking thinned ProSeal around the rivet.
Touched up the right rear spar dimples with the deburring bit per the instructions.
I also removed the left wing from the wing stand. I fixed the wing stand a bit. It was too tight a fit at the outboard end, and the root end was sticking up in the air too much. It looked lop-sided.
I put the left wing back in the stand without the tank. The way the stands work, it’s supported in there fine without the tank on.
Since Julie liked the flight on Friday, we went for another today–a cross country up to Friday Harbor, San Juan Island. By car and ferry, it’s about a 4 hour trip one way. By Cessna, it’s less than an hour. We flew up, had some ice cream, poked around in a few galleries, and flew back. Julie loved it, which is great!!
Taking off from Boeing Field, right by downtown. The Space Needle and Lake Union are in the second shot.
The happy passenger.
Kingston ferry dock and the Hood Canal Bridge.
It was kind of hazy today, but this picture basically frames the entire San Juan Islands.
Friday Harbor Airport, the town of Friday Harbor which is just a short walk away, and short final for runway 16.
Mount Rainier and downtwon Seattle on the way back.
Flying into Boeing Field from the north is very cool. You go right by downtown Seattle. The pointy white building in the second picture is the Smith Tower. It used to be the tallest building west of the Mississippi River–it’s obviously not anymore.
The B-17 and B-24 are in town for a few days. The B-17 happened to be taking off in the opposite direction from the parallel.
Overall a very fun flight.
Deburred the rest of the right wing skeleton and dimpled the entire structure. Just a few more steps on this puppy.
Prepped for the final ProSeal session. It’s amazing how I think I’m ready to ProSeal, and then an hour or so later I’m actually ready. I installed the inboard capacitive plate (a PITA) and screwed down the vent line fitting. I scuffed up the mating surfaces on the rear baffle, cleaned out the tank real well, and MEKed down all of the mating surfaces.
Here’s the tank from inboard to outboard:
And a shot of the inboard and outboard ends and a close up of the tank attach angle:
So after all of the prep work I decided there really wasn’t time to do the baffle. Bummer.