Author: Brian

Aviation Safety – Emergency at my Airfield

Brian 0 Comment General

Disclaimer: I don’t have a lot of details on this event other than hearing about it shortly after it happened and what is published in the write-up below.

We all have our preferred airplane. For me, I had a specific airplane that I wanted to take my instrument checkride in. This is the one that didn’t have an issue with the DG, I was comfortable with the audio panel and it flew well. This was N52516 and I did the majority of my IR training in it. At the end of September 2018, it was taken off the line for maintenance and it needed an engine overhaul. The school decided to do an engine swap to get it back on the line faster. When I found out it was available and finished being broken in I reserved it for my Checkride on September 28th, 2019. My checkride went fine and I had no indication of any issues with the airplane until the next time I was at the school and heard about the emergency that happened on September 30th.

Emergency Landing: Controller Talks Down Student Pilot After Oil Covers Windshield

Travis was also my IR instructor as well as the instructor for this student pilot. When I heard the story and saw the photos I had that initial pucker factor of “that could have been me” followed by being so happy at how this student handled herself and was able to safely land without incident. I believe I even discussed this with my wife as an example of how we do training on safety and emergency procedures early on in training.

Travis and I chatted briefly about this and what we would have done differently. Granted we could have just treated this as an IFR flight to ensure we were lined up with the runway. Not something a solo student would be expected to do. Kudos to her and how she handled herself in this scary situation.

Bottom Wing Skins – Part 1

Brian 0 Comment Bottom Wing Skins

With the weather and my schedule continuing to prevent me from getting any parts primed, I continue to move forward with other items on my build. I had no intention of attaching my bottom wing skins until just before I was ready to attach the wings to the fuselage, however there is no reason why I can’t get the skins prepped.

Starting off I locate the J-stiffeners that I pre-drilled last year and the bottom wing skins. As I attempt to install the wing skins, I noticed that the skins needed to be filed a bit to fit around the hinge brackets. Just a little filing and the skins fit easily over the brackets.

I then start to cleco everything together and had a moment of panic when I saw that my J-stiffeners were not drilled in a few locations. Took me a few moments to realize that this was correct based on where the access panels are. (They were match drilled based on the spars). I final-drilled and match drilled all the holes on the left wing.

I also started to get some wires for both my pitot and wingtip lights. I started to pull them through my access holes and so far am leaving my conduit empty for future use. Also am using my label maker to print heat-shrink labels for every wire.

Still to do: Mount the Pitot tube mast and Pitot controller box. Currently I am planning to mount in the same place indicated int he plans by vans. Just trying to figure out if I need to twist / run a ground wire back to the wing root or ground the pitot locally.

Outer Leading Edge – Part 9

Brian 0 Comment Outer Leading Edge

With my parents visiting for a few days, I had my father help me out a little. Got the right wing moved out of the cradle and clamped to my workbench and the leading edge clecoed onto the spar. Then got my dad to help me rivet on the leading edge.

As I was getting the rivets set, I identified a few rivets that I wanted to replace for one reason or another. I’m sure the rivets were ok, but it’s easy to replace in it’s current state. Also going back a few days or with a fresh set of eyes is always a good idea.

I finish up and replace the handful of rivets on the top skin, and rivet the leading edge ribs to the spar. We then shuffle the wing back into the cradle. This gets me in a much better place from a space perspective now that I shouldn’t need to remove the wings from the cradle until I get to the airport.

Outer Leading Edge – Part 8

Brian 0 Comment Landing Lights, Outer Leading Edge

Circling back to finish the landing light lens. With the experience on the other lens, I’m ended up cutting this lens to the “proper” dimensions this time. (The directions are correct even if you don’t think they are. Go figure!) Still debating if I will purchase a replacement lens for the right wing or not as the other does work just fine.

With the lens cut and fitted, I go ahead and mount the landing light in the wing (off camera) and struggle to figure out how to actually screw in the landing light lens as I can’t get behind it to apply any pressure. The lightbulb moment was when I realized I needed to use tape on the lens to help provide the outward pressure so I can screw in the lens.

With the lens installed (and protected by additional tape), I then got some assistance from my wife to cleco the leading edge to the wing spar. Getting the ribs clecoed into place I then begin riveting the leading edge to the spar. As a small note on the blind rivets, not sure if it’s just my blind rivet squeezer, but I really don’t like setting blind rivets.

With all the ribs riveted to the spar, I squeeze the skin rivets then ask my wife for assistance to rivet the top of the leading edge. Easy enough and once done I get to stand back and admire my progress. Plan on getting the other wing done shortly as I approach my fuselage crate date.

Wing Top Skin – Part 4

Brian 0 Comment Top Skins

Fairly short update, even if it was a lot of work. After prepping the wing and tops skins, started to rivet everything together. Started working with my wife using my new extended back rivet set. This left the skin looking great, but I kept having some rivets with smeared shop heads.

I even went and purchased a double-offset backrivet set, however I was even having some issues with that. I gave it a good try and it seemed to be somewhat working, but in the end I decided that just having my buddy and wife use the rivet gun and I control the bucking bar was much faster and easier to control. (Even if it did mark up the skins a little).

After each rivet session, I would go back the next day and re-check all the rivets with a fresh set of eyes. I would always find some marginal rivets that needed another hit with the bucking bar, or possibly a few that just needed to be drilled out. No biggie and better to do it now rather than when the wings are on the airplane! (Blue tape marks where I need to touch something up) [inpost_fancy thumb_width=”200″ thumb_height=”200″ post_id=”803″ thumb_margin_left=”0″ thumb_margin_bottom=”0″ thumb_border_radius=”2″ thumb_shadow=”0 1px 4px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2)” id=”” random=”0″ group=”0″ border=”” show_in_popup=”0″ album_cover=”” album_cover_width=”200″ album_cover_height=”200″ popup_width=”800″ popup_max_height=”600″ popup_title=”Gallery” type=”fancy”][/inpost_fancy]

Once all the rivets were in, I then riveted on the nutplates at the wing root, followed by the aileron bracket at the wing tip. Then with a little help from the wife I moved the wing back to the cradle. I’ll need to finish up the leading edge light lens for the left wing, then get some assistance to rivet the leading edges to the wings to make sure I have room for the fuse arrival.