Little bit of work on the Firewall shims - 2 hours

 It's impossible to get started on the project, I've been so very busy that I am just drained. I managed to get in the garage to fit some of the upper pieces of the Firewall. I cleaned up the top of the F-601N angles, the F-601C gussets and also cut the F-601P spacers. I must admit I never enjoyed cutting strips. I have to use the band saw and then try to make everything straight on the sanding station. It's time consuming and a pain. I really wish I have a small metal shear.

Continued work on the Firewall - 5 hours

Today was filled with a lot of reading and research. Basically at this point you need to have a fairly good idea of what systems you will be using. Fuel Injected, or Carbureted – This dictates the Aux fuel firewall doubler. I’ve read suggestions if you are using the Vans gascolator (or perhaps the Andair gascolator) you would be wise to install the VA-161 Gascolator Bracket now rather than later as it becomes fairly tricky to do it later. I have my eye on the Aerolab flush Gascolator from flyboys, but I am reading all of the opinions on it and they are generally favorable. I do like the advantages of the design (easy to access, good filter, behind fire wall). I will have to think more on this.

I also did some research on the brake reservoir. I do have 2 sets of Grove brake master cylinders, so it would be nice to have the Grove reservoir. I see that people have different methods to mount this to the firewall but I will have to be careful of the engine mount so that it is not in the way. I read up on the Reservoir Dog attachment for the Vans unit that will allow aerobatic maneuvers. Lots of decisions. 

Other than the VA-161 Gascolator Bracket, I don't have to worry too much about what systems I am going to use at this moment in time. 

I started with setting up the bulkhead to place the F-601J angles. I found that using the scotch tape for the shims like everyone else uses works really well.

Next I clamped the angle to the bulkhead and used the 3/32" drill-bit spacer at the bottom that everyone uses. I borrowed a dice from the kids as a small spacer to allow me to clamp the angle flange.


One thing that I've learned early on, is chances of success are far better if you drill thick material on a drill press rather than by hand. drilling thick material by a palm drill will always have a slightly crooked hole. This can create edge distance issues, and a crooked hole, means crooked rivet, which often results in poor slumped rivet. Always try to use a drill press if you can!

So I flipped the bulkhead over and back drilled all holes a slight amount - not all the way through. This makes a nice pilot hole in the thick material for completing drilling on the press. The results are always perfect!

Started working on the Firewall - 2.5 hours

I've been putting in some crazy hours at work these last few weeks. ~95 hour weeks for the last 5 weeks to hit the deadline on Friday. So now I actually have a little time to work on the RV. In one sense I'm eager to start in on the build....but after the amount of stress and pressure I was recently under. I'm not exactly keen on jumping into the next project full bore.

I basically putz'd around in the garage. I grabbed all the pieces needed for the fire wall and laid them out. Took me a while to find the AA6-063x3/4x3/4 angle needed to make the F-601E-1 stiffener. I then looked at Mike Bullocks build log and noticed he had the same issue too and when he mentions to use the 6' piece. Ahhh, there it was. In the corner of the spare bedroom away from all the other RV parts. Man my brain is in a fog.



Still sort of motivated...I decided to cut out the F-601J angles and the F-601P spacers. Here's a funny thing. I'm not into the fuse an hour and I've already made a mistake. I tried cutting the F-601P spaces out of the small strip of AS3-063x1/2x18 not realizing that the width is not right. Ugh. Not a big deal as the part is really cheap and shipping will be easy. But I sure don't have my head in the game.


After I cut the parts, I went in to start researching everything I need to know about the bulkhead and penetrations to the bulkhead.  

The fuselage has arrived - 10 hours

The fuselage has arrived. I ordered it Sept 6th and came just a few days after the original "Crate Date".  Its not light, and it wasn't easy to move. But with four guys we managed to get it into the garage. Ahhh, so exciting. Lots of parts I recognize and a huge bag of hardware!
Oh, did I mention how well packed everything is? Top notch Vans...Top notch! I took a couple of hours in the evenings to work on the inventory. About 10 hours in all to sort it all out.
 



 

Private Pilots License is Completed!

Well, admittedly I've been very quiet on the blog.  I've had my nose buried in books and in studying to complete my license. So rather than bore you withe the everyday particulars here is the summary of my experience:

I managed to complete my private pilots license at the end of May 2018. It’s been quite a journey, trying to fill my head with all that knowledge is not an easy task anymore now that I’m older. I can definitely tell I had to work much harder to memorize things.

I started the license back in about July 2016. I was finishing up the wing build and I was trying to figure out if I order the fuselage, or do I work on my license. I was coming up on a long weekend that was going to take me out of town and i knew that I would have lots of time on my hands. So i decided to sign up for online ground school and they provided me with a copy of the Aviation Textbook, “From the Ground Up”.
Fortunate for me the text book arrived just in time for me to leave. So i spend the entire long weekend reading. After that I dabbled in the ground school but never really gave it 100% effort. Soon winter was approaching and I know I needed buckle down. And that’s exactly what I did. By January I was halfway complete in the course (Helped by two full weeks holidays over Christmas). By May I was 80% complete.

At that point I figured it was a good time to start actually flying. At first I was booking two days a week for flying. Wednesday mornings and Saturday Mornings. Things went really well through the summer as the weather was often good. August 1, 2017 I wrote and passed my written PPL exam. August 29, 2017 was my first solo. It went by so quick that I barely remember it. The take off was nice, so was the circuit and final approach. But I bounced it a little on the landing. Not bad, but not perfect. After that I continued at that pace into fall but as soon as November hit, the weather was awful. Too poor visibility, too cold, wind shear, there was always something that made it not safe for flying. At one point over the Christmas holidays I had 20 bookings in a row that were cancelled. Finally February brought more favorable weather which allowed me to finally get back in the air and by March 7, I completed my short solo cross country. I took 4 weeks in there to go on a family vacation so it was a perfect time to study for the flight test.

May 7th I took my private pilot flight test and passed. All went pretty well, there’s a few things that I could have done better. The examiner hit me with a few tough questions. In the end I did ok, although my spiral dive recovery was a bit abrupt. I should have separated the recovery into three separate maneuvers (Power off, roll wings level, ease out of the dive) as I kind of blended the last two. I know this....when you screw up on something on your flight exam.....you will never forget it and never do it again.

Unfortunately I just had a few flights that I needed to complete in order to finish and get my license. The long cross country solo and I have 0.8 hours under the hood to finish. So after one particularly great weather weekend, I had knocked off the solo. And couple days later I had the 0.8 under the hood complete. May 25th I was a pilot!!

The Timberhawk kids plane

One idea that I have bounced around for a while was the idea of a kids plane at the Airshow. A good majority of planes in Canada is look, but don't touch. I wanted something really fun for them. I met Dina Jammaz from Elevate Aviation and she thought it was an awesome idea and really encouraged me to build the plane. She has some contacts with Volvo of Edmonton and they were more than happy to fund the project. So spent the Christmas break in 2017 designing approximately half-scale replica of a P-40 Warhawk.

Most important aspect of the design was to ensure that kids fit into the plane. The only way I can ensure that happens is to get a profile view of the target audience. Fortunately my two kids are ages 6 and 9 so this works perfect. I had them pose in a sitting position and then took pictures. I was then able to transfer their outlines into AutoCAD and then I can begin the task of drawings the aircraft around them.



Now that I had the right profile, I could then work out the scale and geometry of the aircraft

Now came the very long and difficult process to turn the 2D sketches into a 3D design. After about 3 weeks of work the design began to take shape. I design the pieces similar to how the wood dinosaur puzzles go together. Just an assortment of 2D shapes that fit together to make a 3D piece.


























Once I was satisfied with the design, I had to ensure that it was actually going to work. Often when designing in 2 dimensions its hard to determine how things will fit together until you actually begin to build. The easiest way I could verify the design was to digitally build the aircraft. It only took about a weeks worth of time to transform the design into 3D. With a few modifications to the design, I could prove that it will work and look great.



My father used to paint signs when I was young. I remember the technique he used, drawing the designs in pencil, and then tracing them onto the boards and hand painting everything. I still have some of his tools. In particular the pounce wheel. This was a common tool/method used to transfer designs from large pieces of paper onto virtually any media.

The pounce wheel has small spikes on it that perforate the paper. Once all of the lines are traced out with the perforations, chalk is tapped over the paper and the outline is left behind. I printed an outline of each piece on the plotter and then spent the time tracing it all with the wheel.

Using black carpenters chalk, I transferred the pieces to the plywood.

I now have a perfect outline to work from.

The first two pieces are cut and ready for final shaping. Fortunately I had lots of help from everyone at the Edmonton Homebuilt Aircraft Association and EAA Chapter 30. Lots and lots of hours when into cutting all of the pieces and shaping them. 
 


After a couple of weeks we managed to have nearly all the pieces rough-cut and ready for assembly.

I soon realized that working only Monday evenings with the group, we would never reach the deadline. So I took the project home and began assembling. One of the items that I really wanted was a cool bolstered seat. I wanted the cockpit to be like a race car. So it would really stick out in their minds. I began working away on a wood seat. Mostly because I couldn't seem to find a kids wood seat to buy.



 Assembly took an incredible amount of work. Its funny how things just slap together in your mind, but in real life. Not the case. Lots of painstaking work and measurements and router jigs were put into good use.

Once I was happy with the geometry I could advance into the more complicated pieces of fabrication.

At this point the EHAA/EAA club found some landing gear off an old homebuilt aircraft that I could use. I can tell you how much work went into getting the gear to work. I even had to consult with a structural engineer to deal with the torsional stresses that the raked gear presented.



The best part of the whole project is when folks would donate their expertise and materials. We had so many parts and labor donated - Welders, a nose cone, and the part kids really like, the instruments.

Picked up some AeroLED's

Managed to pick up some AeroLED’s Navigation/Anti-collision Strobe/Position lights. Pulsar NS and the Suntail. I hooked them up to a 12V battery to test them out and they work perfect. Wow are they bright.