Year: 2011

Well, it runs.  Lessons learned:

• Use a checklist.  For some reason, I decided that because I wasn’t going flying, I didn’t need to use a checklist.  Well, after twice trying to get the engine to start, I realized I should

We’re using nonstandard door seals–they’re foam seals that stick to the inside face of the door.  Here’s Kelly installing them, making sure the foam is the right thickness all around the door (it varies).

…

We’re getting close to starting the engine, so now’s the time to find out if there are any fuel system leaks.  We’d already pressure tested the fuel tanks with air, but we wanted to get some real fuel in there …

We had a “project visit” today from my EAA chapter–I invited anyone who wanted to come to check out the project and point out anything that could be a problem.  We had 6 people show up, which was great.  …

We’d planned on using the Tosten grips, but ended up with the Infinity grips, mostly because the Tosten grips are tilted so far forward, even with bending the control stick a pretty good amount.  The Infinity grips feel nicer, too, …

The final stage of the long elevator trim tab journey ended when we actually rigged the trim tabs. The motor is in the tailcone and attaches to the trim tabs via two cables routed through the horizontal stabilizer.

We then …

We did most of the work for the wing root fairings earlier, but we needed to finish drilling holes and installing nutplates on the front side of the wings.  This should (thankfully) be the last set of nutplates we need …

The last fuel lines we needed to make go between the fuselage and the wings.  In doing that, we noticed our flaring tool was putting gouges in the backside of the flare.  Here’s one of the worst ones.

After taking …

Sorry for the lack of updates.  We’ve been doing a lot of “miscellaneous” work to finish up, some of which we’ll talk about in the next few posts.…

I put the fiberglass wingtips on the other day, at least with a few screws.  All the lights are connected, too, so it was a great opportunity to test everything out.  I wish I’d taken video, but I verified that …