I finally have a Plane !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, As the title goes I am at that point now where I fully believe I have a reliable, functional, trustworthy and dead set awesome aircraft.

I have sort of slowly come to this conclusion over the last few weeks as I now have quite a few hours on the clock where I have done nothing more than put fuel in the plane and look at things. The cooling system is going better than I could have imagined and the 3d printed engine mounts are working so well I almost can't believe it. The plane is running like a Singer sewing machine so I have nothing at all to complain about. Go figure that from me.

I have been doing Aeros, Formation, Circuits, Nav's , Pfl's you name it and the plane has just been going great. I have been flight testing using blends of Avgas and Premium Unleaded 98 octane with results that are looking promising. In my last plane with the Aerovee I had major cooling issues and the Premium fuel was not really viable as the temps were a little higher. I am glad to say though with this engine and unleaded fuel the temps have so far shown no noticeable increase and the engine runs exactly the same as with straight avgas.

I'm really positive about how the plane is going now that I actually am starting to trust it a little. I'm not quite ready to go over tiger country just yet or down our coastal corridor but those days won't be far away at this rate. My next wish list is to carry out a dynamic prop balance to hopefully make it run that extra bit smooth. I will report how that goes when or if I can make that happen in the not too distant future.  

So signing off now with a big Double Thumbs Up.

 Sonex 1645 

VH-VWS

Engine mounts

So I got to that point once more where the prop flange was rubbing on the cowling again. This time though I was ready for it. 

 I had gone out on a limb following some info from the Sonex builders' site, bought a 3d printer, assembled it, went through hours of testing, learning and experimenting to a point where it would actually print stuff. Then came the next steep learning curve of making a good engine mount design in a 3d Cad software modelling program. Luckily I was aided in that little fast track education process by my 16 yr old daughter busting one out in about 10 mins on the computer with myself giving her the measurements via a set of verniers. 

Next challenge printing in flexible filament. Actually that part wasn't too bad really. Once the basics were sorted out with the printer in general the flexible filament part was manageable. I quickly learn't at certain  times, like temp changes or layer height speed changes, not to be too far away as usually only on those few moments during the 3x hour each print, the filament may jam. One needed to be ready just in case.   

I probably spent more hours learning how to get this all sorted than I care to actually recognize but it was definitely worth every second. 

So this was the cowling before I changed the mounts, I think I set an all time record for how long these ones lasted at about 8 x hours. I had done quite a few aeros and so on so that's probably why they were eaten out so quickly. Hopefully this will be the last time I post pics like this. 

So here are my newly fitted engine mounts and these pics were probably at about the 2 x hour mark. I have to admit the washers were not sized very well as i made the bushes 42mm over all up from the standard Sonex bushes at 32mm. I also made the smaller inner section 1 mm longer so they have a bit more squish factor where the accessory case sits on the bush. I have had the skeptics place their opinions and I have also had plenty of support for the choice I made in regard to using a 3d printed part on the plane. We will see how it turns out no doubt and I will report honestly either way how they go. 

I have to admit though I was really secretly chuffed about the colour choice I made for blue filament. I just think they look great. lol..... The red anodized material and the blue just do it for me :)