Baffling Turbo time

So on goes the Engine. A happy feeling, but I still know how far I have to go, so I'm not jumping for joy just yet. 

Had a bit of a play with the baffle kit. The first kit I fitted to my other plane had the cb heads and had a standard exhaust in which they fit so well.  I seriously think its time Sonex considered a revision of what is a 'precision fit baffle kit'.  This kit is NOT 100% designed for those new heads they supply and the turbo exhaust. No doubt it would be a pain in the bum to offer 3 types of Aerovee baffle kits but those small points regarding attention to detail around the front of the engine are what define a top notch product to a run of the mill generalized 'one size fits all' kit. I do have them on and they will work, but like I said before, not as easy as the first lot I fitted. I know kit planes aren't just a simple bolt together piece of cake, but Sonex pride themselves on their easy assembly with matched hole technology and so forth, shouldn't it all just fit together a bit more easily?  Perhaps I'm getting picky?

I was soooo pumped pulling this out of it's bag :)   get it pumped? Turbo? air pump? compressor ? ok i'll give up. 

Bolted that Bad Boy onto the engine exhaust. Looks good. A fine fit and I think will be a real deal breaker regarding performance. I just can't wait to do some high altitude testing at 8000ft + . This is the main reason I bought a Sonex and Aerovee. Just trusted in the company to release them after I bought my plane, and they have :)  Well done ..... and Thanks :)  

Fuel filler

I was a bit shocked when reading through the Sonex builders site when someone mentioned about sealing off the tank and vent area from the cabin.  I had not given it a second thought before and was a little disturbed I hadn't. The possibility of fuel to spill straight onto my feet, so as to speak, during refuelling was a mission I had to set about to fix. Needless to say, I adopted a fix that someone else had already thought of that seemed quite simple and elegant. I perhaps made a bit of a dogs breakfast of it regarding the sealant used, but it is sealed and fuel proof, so that's all that matters.

I still need to add a drain to the cavity of some sorts but I will get to that when I see about my real estate options on my firewall further down the walking trail.  

Aerovee Build

With the tail now all fitted and some weight on the back end I thought maybe it's time to add a motor. The crank was the first mission as most builders of the Aerovee probably know. This prop hub fitment has generated so much discussion over the years, I find it fascinating. I have now done two of them and found it to be very easy IF you follow the manual. 12 hours in the freezer and 1 hour for the other parts in the oven and hey Presto, All done.

The case needs a good clean up and special care needs to be taken to remove all the metal flakes from the machining. 

Crank assembled with the rods on and case prepaired. 

The correct camshaft was fitted,,,, grr,,snarl,,

Odds and sods going on, crankshaft end float shimmed and so on. Compression ratio set to 8-1. Mofoco heads installed, that I am yet to warm to but I am giving them the benefit of the doubt at this stage. 

 Comes with the oil filter underneath and the multi tasking oil pump for the Turbo installation. The oil pump has a piggy back scavenge pump on the front of it for the turbo return. As usual always wearing my best clothes on photo day :)

And the end result and awaiting fitting. No paint going on this one at this stage. I will see if the cylinders show any signs of corrosion after I have run it first. 

Tail is on and Aeropup ongoing saga's.

So to be completely honest, I was getting so sick of seeing my tail sitting on the bench all the time that I had to make the time to fit it to the Aeroplane. I had been holding off for a number of reasons, mainly paintwork and so on. Anyway, the tail is now on. The elevator was a straight forward affair to fit and the placement was critical for the up and down travel required... also not to mention critical for where the bolts go through the intended ally angle. This was a factor I found out thankfully before I drilled the holes in the wrong spot, as I was about to. Luckily fate saved me from an awful mistake and I picked it up before I drilled the wrong spot. I thought I had the plans read correctly, but I guess not. Anyway it was a happy ending and fit well. The Vertical stab was another mission. I must have had that on and off for trimming and so on more times than I can remember. Finally, when I was happy with it, I secured it permanently. I had found also that the plans for bolting the spars together bottomed out on the threads, so shorter bolts were needed. These bolts were the ones I had to wait for in the previous post some time back. 

Fitting the tail wheel was another nice milestone. That all came out well. The rudder cables are now installed and attached to the pedals. I followed the Sonex plans to the letter regarding the rudder cables but I can't help but feel the gap of 3/8 inch between full deflection of the rudder and the gap between the firewall and the pedal just doesn't seem enough. It does work okay and it's not hitting the firewall but it certainly doesn't allow for any potential stretch of the cable. Perhaps this may not happen. Who knows. I guess Sonex just want you to be able to stretch your legs out as much as possible. If I do need to change it, it is no big deal really, as I will just need to make new cable attach brackets on the pedals.

So anyway as per the picture below I thought I would give my other plane one last Hurrah to try to get it flying and reliable. So for the 6th time ,,,,, out came the Aerovee ( 58 hours total time) .  I am getting very experienced at working on these Aerovees and to be honest I am not happy about it. I pulled it out this time to repair an oil leak and freshen it up. The oil was really making a big mess of the cowling after each flight and it was just getting beyond a joke. 

I pulled the complete engine down and found a hair line crack in the engine crank case. Besides this really pissing me off, at least I had found the reason for my oil leaking. I had priced up a new case and Sonex offered me a reasonable deal on one but I am never going to change this case until the engine is reliable. I know this makes no sense as clearly I should have replaced the case but I was just about to carry out a Rotax engine conversion and I am done spending money on this engine. So a Field repair was done on the case and it has been re assembled.  

On a massively bright note though, and this is not to be understated, is how happy I am to have found that the bloody Camshaft for my engine was incorrect since day one. I have now swapped it out with a correct cam. 

The camshaft I had in my engine that was supplied by Sonex was a Scat C-45 

http://vwparts.aircooled.net/SCAT-C45-Type-1-Camshaft-1-1-or-1-25-Rockers-20006-p/20006.htm

You can read the specs on this page if you want, but needless to say it certainly isn't anything you remotely want in an Aeroplane engine. 

So anyway with the new cam my engine will now idle, operate smoothly and even has a fair few more ponies, enabling me to a somewhat modest, but healthy climb rate that I should have had since day one. If Sonex weren't so good to deal with and understanding about it all I would be very shitty.

I need to get some time now to go flying and enjoy this plane of mine before I sell it. I certainly can't keep both at the rate I'm going ,,,ummmmm....

Windscreen

So here is a photo of the windscreen, as it is when it arrives from Sonex. They are nice and give you the basic cutout and shape and all you need to do is trim the screen as required and fit it. Easier said than done however.  After 4 days and a few complaints from the wife, it was all fitted and looks great. I started by trimming the routered out section Sonex mark for you. I assume they do not cut the shape as it could possibly damage the edges in travel,  but who knows. 

Offering the screen untrimmed up to the fuselage, I had to work out how much to cut and shape. I ended up needing to trim around 15mm total (7.5mm each side) from the front and none from the rear, and it came out well. This shape tapers off so extra care is needed to be taken for trimming. 

After the screen was trimmed for what turned out to be around the 5th time, I felt I had quite a nice snug fit and this was confirmed when I used a strap to keep the profile of the screen on the nose. The rear of the screen is determined by where you trim the screen bow at the rear. I needed the bow to be as high as possible to match up to where the factory installed canopy was. I still need to replace the Canopy due to the transport damage it sustained during the trip to Perth, however I feel a lot more confident now I have worked on the screen, to attempt the canopy. I have much more to do yet so will put that on the back burner for a while and concentrate on some other areas first. 

Unbeknown to me I still needed to dimple the side of the screen mounts so the tapered screws that hold the screen in would fit. It made me cry to see my nice paint cracked around the dimples, however I will just touch them up later. 

End result after 4 days of work. It was a nice feeling to tick another feel good item off the list. It looks good now the screen is in and the transition to the canopy looks nice. There are some photos I have seen of some not so streamlined screen to canopy angles, and i'm glad mine turned out well. 

Painting and so on,,,,,,,

Well when it came to painting first thing I had to do was make some room. So with the wife's approval, into the house came the wings to free up space in the shed. This is nothing new really as basically my last plane I built was in the house with the wings attached for well over a year while I sorted out struts,angle of incidence, dihedral and so on. Thankfully with the quick build Sonex kit this has all been done for me and when the time comes to fitting the wings, I will give it a check to make sure it's correct and that should be that.  

So I went and made the rudder cable supports for the 2 piece bushes. I was going really well with them until I went and drilled a 1" hole through the centre, then realized that I needed to drill a 3/4 hole. I really have to admit that didn't make my day one little bit. I was just really thankful that I had ordered extra phenolic block after the first mishap I had, when making the rudder bracket mounts :)  I had to order more for them so got a bit extra again in case I had another 'oops' moment.

So anyway they went into the plane okay, after I made them the correct size, and the bushes fit well. I fed the cable through and riveted them in place. I have also fitted the 1 piece push-in bushes that don't really support much but are just there, it seems, to eliminate the potential for the cable to run on a sharp edge. 

This is just a blurry view of the block from the back end fitted in situ. 

I have also fitted the elevator control rod now and joined the two halves together. I have fixed in place the guide brackets made from the ally sheet and the guide bushes. It all fit together quite nicely. 

I couldn't help myself. I had to have a big smile when I saw the elevator operating from the control stick :)    I should be ready soon to refit the floor. 

 So the painting begins on the tail.

As with all painting, it takes a long time to prep anything, and the painting only takes a few mins. The red stripe has come out really well and I'm absolutely pumped so far. The spray gun I bought to replace the other 4 or so I already had is just a class in its own compared to what I have used in the past. I'm glad I spent some extra cash and bought a good one this time. 

Taping the plane up a few days later to paint the silver stripe. I am starting to get better at all this and another good thing to do is buy the really good spray painter's masking tape so the edges come out really sharp with minimum leakage through.  After you have done the final coat, rip the tape off before it dries so that a nice edge is obtained rather than a hard edge when it dries. 

The picture below shows how it is looking now. I still have to spray the clear over it all. I have never sprayed clear before so I am hoping I don't make any screw ups now as I am really happy with the results so far. I have been holding off a little as the back end near the tail wheel leg still needs to be riveted in and I don't want to have to repaint that small area. Long story short, I have had some bolts and so on apparently on order from an Australian company for over 7 weeks now. They had forgotten to order my stuff and only picked up they hadn't ordered it when I rang after 4 weeks asking where it was. Oh but don't worry, the day I placed the order they didn't forget to charge my credit card... just forgot to order the actual parts. 

Just in case anyone was wondering, I really have basically no spray painting experience apart from painting a fabric plane which is completely different. I have watched some you tube videos and been absolutely peppering my mate with questions like "can I do this?" and "can I do that?" . It has helped out enormously and it was that help, I think, that has made it turn out so well from someone inexperienced at this type of work.  I just hope it hasn't made it too heavy :)  I sure am glad that Sonex give you the extra 50 lbs for the MTOW when using the turbo aerovee engine. I think I will be needing it .


Bye for now :)

Delays

Well it's been quite some time since some progress has been made on the Sonex. I have essentially been working on issues with my Aerovee in my other plane. Really starting to have doubts about the  sanity of buying another one. I can only say at least this engine is tried and tested in the Sonex airframe. For my current airframe, I believe my engine choice could have been better. Why, for the life of me, Sonex don't have a Rotax 912 as an engine option is beyond me. It's not like it isn't a clear leader in terms of reliability and performance.
Anyway finishing on a positive note, I'm sure there will be some good progress in the near future.