Dave’s RV-7A Building Log

I just noticed that last night’s session bumped me over the 1700 hour mark. At the beginning of the project, I was estimating it would take 1800 hours. Now I’m thinking it will be more like 1900. We’ll see.

I completed my BFR today. It was crazy at BFI with the Blue Angles in town on top of the usual weekday mayhem. I’d say my landings were some of the worst I’ve done in a while, but the instructor said they were safe and I was good to go. Along with my medical from yesterday (which sadly lasts only 2 years this time), I’m good to fly for another 24 months.

The seats arrived from Classic Aero!! From other builders’ comments, I was expecting them to be great. Well, they are actually better than great. The stitching is as nice as my Audi. I put them together with my harness and of course had to try them out. Very comfy. I know the colors are boring, but I love the mellow scheme.

The side panels and carpets also arrived. These things make the plane look absolutely fantastic. I just set them in place, but you get the idea. I’ve got a minor issue to work out with my ELT placement. I’ll have to peel back the leather and cut a little relief in the aluminum panel. Should be no problem. Everything is fairly light weight, except the seat backs. But they replace the whole seat frame, so that’s why they’re a little heavier. This is going to make for one nice comfy cockpit. The first picture shows the upper side panel which is molded plastic, and the two lower panels that are aluminum and split at the F-704 center section. The second picture shows the baggage compartment side panel which also has aluminum backing (ignore the junk sitting on the baggage compartment floor).

No real work done on the plane today. I was too wiped out after the BFR.

It’s been way too hot around here. Friday was a record temp for Seattle, over 95 degrees. It’s just been too hot to work much in the garage. Today I did go out for a while and finish the segment of the fuel line from the pump to the firewall. A little tweaking here and there and it fits great.

I also started working on fitting stuff in the panel. The cutouts for the CO detector and ELT remote were very tight. I filed them a bit until the fit was better. I was going to drill the mounting holes (not sure why Ross didn’t do this part), but discovered I didn’t have the right site drill bit. I need a #33 drill bit for the #4 screw holes. Then I noticed everything that gets mounted to the panel seems to need a different size screw. I made a complete list of all the hardware I’ll need to mount everything. Looks like I’ll be placing another order with Spruce soon.

I realized a while back that I never finished the fuel lines. There’s still a chunk missing from the the Airflow Performance boost pump to the firewall. It’s a fairly tricky line as it has to do an extended 180 degree turn under the pump and then another 90 up to the firewall fitting. I wish I had done this one when I was doing the others. I’m a bit out of practice. However, at the time I didn’t know exactly where the firewall fitting was going to end up.

I made an initial stab at the line and almost messed it up right off the bat. I’m not sure how, but the 180 degree bend ended up too wide. That mistake actually turned out well as I just tilted the line a bit and it lined up with the firewall fitting even better. My old nemesis eventually bit me in the end. I flared the tube without putting on the nut and sleeve. Dang it. Cutting off the flare left too little left to redo the flare. Luckily I had just enough extra line for a second attempt. I know I bought a bunch of extra 3/8″ aluminum soft tubing a while back, but I’m getting down to the end of it. I started making a replacement. It was just so nice outside that I didn’t get much further. Went on a walk to the store for ice cream with the family and chatted with some neighbors until fairly late.

Riveted the cabin frame support in place. Nothing too tricky about it.

I cleaned up the cabin frame in preparation for painting. While that was drying I installed the custom heat muff that Rick Robbins made for me with the inlet and outlet 60 degrees apart. He turned around my order really quickly and it turned out perfectly. Thanks Rick!

The fit is great. The angle between the inlet and oulet provided the best path for the SCAT tubing. It’s a little tight running the SCAT tubing inside the intake tubes, but there’s enough room. I’ll clamp it in a few spots to keep it from rubbing on anything. Getting the SCAT tubing over the flanges is not fun. Hopefully this is it. These shots are oblique from the front, front shot, and side shot.

The nice part about our recent warm weather is that stuff drys fast. I was able to prime the cabin frame in the same night. Not only that, but I sanded out a few parts, blew off the dust, and did the final coat. The filler isn’t perfect, but it looks much better than without.

Productive night. I wish they could all be that way.

I sanded down the second round of filler on the cabin frame, and it’s looking good. Time for paint.

I sanded down the filler on the cabin frame. There was quite a bit of shrinkage, so I did another round of filling. I think it’ll turn out pretty nice.

I ordered custom throttle/mixture/prop cables from Spruce which should arrive in 4 weeks. I purchased a few other odds and ends from Vans and Spruce as well.

The weather outlook was great, so I prepped the F-704 covers and the upper baggage bulkhead for painting.

Busy night away from the plane tonight. There was an event at Adele’s school and a public hearing about the city leash laws. Both important to attend.

I did spend a little time drilling the F-704 covers for cabin lights. Easy stuff. The covers are now ready for paint and installation.

The angled sniffle valve from Mattituck arrived. It’s a Piper part. It looks like it’ll work great, but I can’t use the standard Vans setup. The outlet of this fitting is 1/4″ rather than 3/8″. I already found some hose I can order to connect the valve to a length of 1/4″ aluminum line. Just one more bump in the road.

I got some good news from Spruce today. They checked with their vendor for the custom length quadrant cables and the diameter is 1/4″. That will fit perfectly in the firewall eyeball fittings. I’ll order those cables soon.

I took the canopy out into the driveway and shot a coat of primer onto the fairing area to see how it looked. It’s amazing how areas that seemed smooth turn out to be really wavy. I have some more work to do still. Part of the problem is the difference in density between the microlight filler and structural filler. They aren’t sanding down at the same rate, which is causing some uneveness.

I continued working on the F-704 covers. I drilled all the holes to full size and deburred everything. It was really fun to do some good ol’ metal working again. It’s been quite a while since I’ve done drilling and deburring. I also pulled out the swivel cockpit lights I bought a while back to fit those to the covers. Looks like I need to drill a couple of 3/4″ holes. But before I do that, I wanted to make sure the lights weren’t going to interfere with the canopy latch keeper. I installed that with the spring. The rod the spring rides on sticks way into the area under the left cover, so the light needs to be below that. The keeper isn’t moving as smoothly as I would like. Hopefully that loosens up over time.