Stalled just a little turning onto Final

Well it's been quite some time since any significant work has been carried out. My new job seems to be impeding my progress significantly.  But really, without a much needed final TC visit, I couldn't have done that much more in realistic terms anyway.  This weekend I am scheduled for a visit from the SAAA guys so I am looking forward to seeing what they think.

I have been busy again with maintenance on the Aeropup. This continuous oil leak has been driving me up the wall. The engine runs so well now but the leak has just been driving me nuts. I hope it is fixed this time.

I have also been doing some final work on the cowlings and been trying to tidy up those small bits and bobs. I am sure once the cowls are done and repainted it will look great. 

The Sensenich Cruise prop has also arrived in the mail. Oh what a sweet piece of work this prop is. I am really keen to bolt it on but I will hang off until the aircraft is at the airfield. I would hate to damage it or compromise it in any way just for the benefit of seeing it on the nose. I am getting really excited about how it's all turning out. I feel it will be such a great aircraft with the turbo'd engine. 

So with essentially nothing else to report, I guess that is it. 

Stay tuned :) 

Turning Base

So I feel this build is drawing to a close. I'm not ready to say turning final yet, but certainly further down the track than downwind. There is really not that much left to do. Painting is all but complete apart from the front section as mentioned before on the fuselage, but that will happen this week. I have run out of paint again and need to buy my last 500 ml, I hope. I don't need that much for the floor but I need also to paint my old plane's cowling and wheel spats so the extra will be required there.
I have painted the red wing tips this week and the Ailerons.

The red paint really sprays on so well. It seems to cover so much better than the white that I am sure if I painted the whole plane red, it would weigh a heck of a lot less compared to white. To cover all the primer with white, seemed to require around 1/4 more paint, I think, as an estimate.  If I was to paint again, I would research the paints in more depth,rather than relying on the local paint shop guy for advice, who, I think, doesn't give two hoots. Maybe the paint I used was the best who knows. Either way, it's done now. It looks ok so lets see what the scales say when I weigh it in.

I balanced the Ailerons tonight as a last, end of light job, before the sun went down. The stand they were sitting on looks, and was, crude I guess.  But it was perfectly adjusted by height and at the end measured up the same. I temporarily fitted the control surfaces to see if I 'measured twice' and painted once I worked it out in regard to mating up the red stripes. They came out well, so I was stoked. I will leave the wing tips off now for my next, and hopefully last, pre finalization inspection. I will see what the inspector says I guess then go from there.

I have lost quite a few days building lately as I needed to go to Perth to carry out my MPC for the ongoing maintenance, once completed. The course was good and opened my eyes to the administration side of maintaining through the SAAA. I just need to sit the exam now so will do that in the next few days. I am very quickly running out of time before I have to go back to work.  I lost a day today, and probably the next 3 to come as well doing maintenance on my old plane. I have been fixing a niggling oil leak today and replacing some fuel level indicator fuel lines. I need to do some cowling fibreglass work tomorrow and paint the spats then I really must put it up for sale. The plane flew again so well on Sunday it really breaks my heart to sell it. I had a quick flight around the block doing 5 circuits and a trip over my house and the river.Landings included 3 x wheelers and 2 x three pointers. There was a nice 10 knot crosswind to make life interesting. A low level circuit and a PFL for the last landing. All in all close to 1 hour in the air. The Aerovee seems to just run nicely now it has run in. Around 50 hours on the rebuilt engine. I have heard people mention it before, but I am experiencing it for myself now.  I think the new engine in the Sonex will be just as nice, and if not nicer, due to the turbo, and the cooling should be ok from the first flight.

I guess the next move for the Sonex will be to take it out to the airport for the final wing install and the weighing and final adjustments. I am very confident that it will be a straightforward affair.

BTW...I have a UPS shipping notice about a Sensenich Prop in the mail. Due to arrive in the next day or so...excited ? ...Oh yes.

Whiting out

With junk everywhere I had a really big task of cleaning up the shed in preparation for spraying the last main components. I gave the spray gun a good clean out as well before trying to paint. It had sat there for a while so, just in case, it was stripped and cleaned. I still need to paint the floor of the front fuselage, but will get to that in a few days.

 My free time, as it turns out, has come to an abrupt end. I will be starting work again soon and basically only have one more week off to work on the project. From then on, I will have to be like the majority of mankind, and finish the building while juggling a full time job as well. It has been good while it lasted but I needed to get a job so I have something to pay for the AVGAS I will be using :)  

I have noticed with the overspray in the shed, nothing is safe under waist level. The wheel spats up high on the shelves have been a fun little experiment. I guess gravity plays its part well there. After spraying the wings today I still don't have one speck of white paint on the spats. The fans I have been using for added ventilation, not shown in the pics, tend to draw it out pretty quickly anyway so really it's just the floor that suffers. 

Just thought I'd throw this one in. It was a beautiful day flying last Sunday. Barely a bump in the sky. 

I still have some red paint to go on the tips of the Ailerons so not quite finished here. The flaps are done however. I will wait a day or so before taping up the white for the red strips. I would hate to mark the soft paint in some way. They have come out great.

I have been quite miserable with the paint on the aft floor. I have covered it ok but I haven't really laid it on to bring out that nice 2 pack shine. In an attempt to save paint/weight and the fact that no one really will see underneath it, except for when I'm flying.

 Painting a few odds and sods. In an absolute brain fade I painted the fuel door white :)    It is supposed to be red. Oh well... can fix that :)

Painting the wings took so much paint that I just about fell over. Both wings there took a full litre and I have missed the tips due to them being planned to be red. I had done a light coat again on the undersides of the wings for the same reason as above but I think, end count, I had 4 coats on the top and I can bet you, in a good light, there will be spots that seem thin. I am not sure if I have been laying it on thick enough or what but it just seemed to keep needing more. I ended up with more runs than the Australian cricket team so I have another task fixing them as well.  The paint has come out well though and all n all I shouldn't complain.

I am off to Perth tomorrow to attend my Maintenance Procedures Course for the SAAA. Having this course done will be a huge weight off my mind. One very big hurdle, I now won't have to worry about again... maybe.

When I get back I will seriously need to do something about selling my other plane. I just haven't had the heart to sell it as it is now going so bloody well it makes me cry to have to move it along. I have had to fight tooth and nail to get it to this point. I guess though the next owner will enjoy the fruits of my labour. If I had the money, and could keep both, there would be no way I'd sell it. 

Perhaps after I paint the Wheel spats :)

Wing'ing it at the end

Seeing at the fuselage was almost complete, my last task was to finalize the wing side of things. Both flaps and Ailerons still had to be built and fitted so I got started on them.  I began with the ailerons as there was a lot more work involved. The first task was to make the counter weights. Drilling the lead was fun but I got there in the end. I found starting at 1/8' was a more workable size and moving up from there to the final snug fit of 3/16'. There actually was a lot more work involved in making the brackets up for the weights including fill in spacers and so on.

The next job was to make one of the flaps. These took half the amount of time and came out really well too. 

This was the end result for both items. I still need to paint and balance the Ailerons as per the manual but they are only sitting on two clecos anyway until my rivets arrive from Sonex. I was short a huge amount of rivets and ordered another 800. This will see me through I think/hope. 

So here they are now all made and temp fitted. I will need to paint the wings now and do a final balance then permanently rivet on the control surfaces. These were the last big ticket items I had to make. From now on there is only really final fitment of components and making things just right. 

Tomorrow's operation may be to fit the wing ends and trim down the control surfaces for a nice finish. An early start in the morning may see this done in a day. 

Cowling revisited again

So of course I managed to get the cowling fitting quite nicely after trimming the snout. I used some filler, sanded it back to a nice smooth finish and set to priming and prep for paint.

 The next little issue was to see if the hole I cut in the cowling for the exhaust actually lined up nice and snug. The hole in this pic needed to be opened up just slightly for a little more comfortable clearance but it was placed in the right spot so that did bring a big smile to my face.

A nice little red colour was applied as per the picture below. I managed to paint the wheel spats at the same time while I had some red in the gun. I actually had to paint one of the cowling sides twice as just after I had sprayed it, I stumbled on the air line and brushed up against the nice wet paint of the cowling. To say I was disappointed was an understatement. This fix involved rubbing it all back and applying more red. The second coat as well didn't come out anywhere near as nice as the first and this compounded the disappointment. I am just going to leave it for now with a nice orange peel look to it and worry later when I feel like repainting it.  Probably a few years down the track. 

I still need to final fit the wheel spats but I will do that after it is at the airport so I have something to tie the plane down to during transport. It is literally just a five minute job to take them on and off anyway. 

Long time no post

Well things have been ticking along in the background, just not on this blog. It has still been a very busy time for me in regard to building and flying, and things seem to be coming a little closer. After the first start of the engine I realized it wasn't that far away before I would finish the plane really, so I had to get into gear regarding all the other things I have been putting off.

On the Agenda firstly was a RPL and controlled airspace endorsement.

This proved to be a lot harder than I had initially anticipated. I have been doing my RPL conversion training with Kelmac Aviation in Geraldton and can't rate them high enough.

The training has been A1. Jandakot operations have been a real eye opener for me and I look forward to the challenges ahead.  I still have yet to finalize a few things however the majority of the work is done. In doing all this I can travel down the path of registering the plane in the VH category... Something I have had my heart set on from the beginning, but was just unsure if I was able to accomplish. My biggest hurdle to date has been the MPC maintenance course that is required to be completed before finalization. Thankfully the SAAA have helped me out and this seems to be coming to a positive outcome as well. All the stars are aligning as they say.  

Just on another non build related topic, the guys have been doing a fair amount of formation work in Geraldton lately. I just can't wait until I can get the Sonex all sorted and be part of the team :)

First engine start up.

So here it is...... The first start up.  Those mag switches really make a huge difference when they are switched on.  The secondary ignition sounds too far advanced I think as well. I had just done a rough setting during the engine build. I actually have it set to the normal setting for the aerovee and plan to change it, however I figured that just running it up wouldn't be an issue. I am waiting also to see what the factory releases in terms of information or if it will stick to the 10 btdc setting that is in the manual. Either way I can reset the timing when closer to final tuning and test flying. Just as a guess the tuning can't be too far off anyway. I had it pretty well ok when I removed it from the Aeropup and it seemed to run ok on first start up so it will probably just need a minor adjustment or so.

 I did notice the engine had a fair bit of vibration to it on this run. I expect that it is the prop as I have never flown with this prop and it has sat on the shelf for around 4 yrs. It could just be way out of balance. I can't wait till the correct prop arrives and I can fit that permanently.