Well, once again I’m a bit behind in my videos even while I am still making progress on the project. Picking up where I left off, the weather and my schedule started working together and I was able to get outside and prime a bunch of parts. With the wing spars on the cradle it was time to finish off the other OLE so I can store them out of the way. Read more
Wing Ribs – Part 5
As I had posted earlier this week in the RV-10 facebook page, I finally got bit of motivation from another RV-10 pilot/builder. He was nice enough to provide me with his wing cradle this past weekend. I was able to swing by his hangar and swap some stories, ask a bunch of questions, and take a look at his plane while he was starting to preform his condition inspection. His advice and experience was quite helpful and allowed me to not stress as much over my questions.
Once I got the cradle home, I had to move a few things around and ended up chopping up the spar shipping crate finally so I would have a little more room. (I’ll be doing more “spring cleaning” in the next few weeks trying to make the garage a bit more functional while I continue to Read more
Outer Leading Edge – Part 5
Now that the right outing leading edge is completed I was able to quickly get through the match drilling and assembly of the left outer leading edge. My youngest daughter wanted to spend some time with me as well as try to help out. Poor thing just didn’t have the necessary grip strength to put the clecos in but she did spend some time helping me out.
Outer Leading Edge – Part 4
Another nice day and I finished priming all of the remaining main spar ribs as well as the outer leading edge j-channel that I forgot in the last video. Quickly dimple using my substructure dimple die in the pneumatic squeezer. Quickly insert the J-channel and I’m ready to start riveting everything together. Here is where I started to rivet before I should have. The inner rib with the splice strip was the easy first choice, but for the right side leading edge, you also need to put in rivets to block up the stall warning holes. This is really easy to do with a squeezer if the inner rib isn’t in the way. Oops. In the end it was easy enough to set those rivets with a bucking bar. Read more
Good weather and making progress
Finally feeling energized and ready to make lots of progress. I’m finally caught up with all my videos and have also primed just about everything that needs to be primed at this point. Only items I haven’t touched yet is the pushrod and end-caps for the empennage, but will try to take care of that when I prime the left hand outer leading edge parts.
I’m hoping that tomorrow I’ll be able to start riveting the right side outer leading edge. I’m also trying to decide if I’ll begin the installation of the leading edge light kit or wait until later. I decided to use the Duckworks leading light kit and will install some Baja Designs lights (but not going to buy those until I’m ready to assemble). Honestly I’ll probably cut the hole in the skin and mount everything before I mount the leading edge to the spar.
For future planning, I’m also trying to figure out what conduits I’m going to run in my wings, as well as routing for the Pitot and AOA air lines. Already purchased a Gretz Pitot mount kit and will probably get some 1/4″ Nylon tubing for the air lines vs the aluminum tubing that comes in the kit.
My trip to Sun n Fun last month was great. Spent time talking to more vendors as well as learning more about electronic ignitions and EFII systems. I’m leaning towards a full EFII system, either the System32 by flyefii.com or the announced but not available system from sdsefi.com (EM-6?). Also spend a little time hanging around the HomeBuild Camping area and ran into Brian and Brandy and got to chat with them about their airplane. Also met their adorable daughter!
Sun n Fun got me thinking more seriously about my avionics and why I would go with one system over another. Everyone has their own opinion and plenty of heated discussion on why you would go one way vs another. I absolutely don’t plan to purchase anything yet, but still leaning towards the Garmin ecosystem at the moment.
On the flying front I hate to admin it but just got my monthly e-mail from MyFlightBook reminding me that I have 0 Flight hours for April. 🙁 That just sucks. Honestly I was even at VKX last week to attend our IMC club when it was canceled at the last min. Went to grab a 172 since the weather was beautiful, but alas all the planes were reserved or down for maintenance. Maybe I’ll just head over to the airport one day after work and get some time in.
Also really need to make a decision on my IFR ticket. My written exam expires this fall so I really should just get it done. Time to start putting the call out for Safety pilots so I can get the last 20 hours of simulated time. Also need to verify but think I already met my XC requirement but may need to do another one just to be sure. I’m know I will also need some more CFII time to bring me up to snuff for the practical. In general I just need to start flying. Such is life!
Hopefully I’ll have more regular updates going forward.