I ordered my seats and interior kit from Classic Aero today. The promised delivery date is in August. I'm hoping to wind up with an interior that looks this nice; we shall see.
Archive for the ‘Fuselage’ Category
Ordered seats and interior
Tuesday, May 9th, 2006
Belt puzzle
Thursday, May 4th, 2006I didn't have much else going on tonight, so I got out the parts for the crotch strap anchor kit. Step one is making cutouts in the seat pans to let the belt pass through, although it turns out that this is already done for you. Unfortunately my Hooker rotary buckles are way too big to fit through there, so I'll have to enlarge these holes once I get a better idea of how everything lines up.
The big surprise was that the metal tab on the end of the crotch strap doesn't seem to be the right length. If you put the bolt where it's supposed to go, the thick part of the webbing where it loops around the metal tab is down between the two anchor brackets. This will push them apart by about 3/8", which will cause the alignment of the upper part to be all out of whack. Hmm.
I sent an email to Hooker to see if they have any suggestions. I suspect they might have a different style of strap with a longer attach tab, which would solve my problems.
P.S. I just realized this site is probably now the top-ranked Google search result for "hooker crotch". Great.
Flap positioning system
Wednesday, May 3rd, 2006Tonight I installed the parts for the flap positioning system. This is an optional cockpit convenience item, and is not absolutely necessary for flight – however, I really wished I had one when I had the last RV, so into this airplane one will go.
The normal flap system involves a toggle switch that you press and hold to move the flaps up and down; you keep holding the switch until the flaps get to where you want them to be. This is the same arrangement as early Cessna 150's and my old Grumman, among others.
Instead of that setup, my airplane will have this sensor thingy attached to the flap motor – a very clever and simple arrangement involving a machined rod sliding between two microswitches – and a control box mounted nearby. Bumping the flap switch briefly down will automatically lower the flaps one notch each time, and flipping the switch to the up position will run them all the way up. Very cool.
I mounted the control box to the inside of the seat back brace with screws and nuts. It's kind of a pain the way the flap motor and control box are permanently wired together – it certainly makes handling these parts problematic. I'll probably cut the wire bundle and splice in a connector so the flap motor can more easily be removed for maintenance.
Tank attach hardware
Sunday, April 30th, 2006This morning I fabricated the parts that strengthen the fuselage where the fuel tank attach bolts come through the side skins. There's a big bracket attached to the nose of each fuel tank root rib, each of which bolts to another big bracket that sticks out of the side of the fuselage about midway between the spar and the firewall, and those brackets bolt to the forward cabin bulkhead through these angles and spacers:
The holes where all this stuff attaches were already dimpled and filled with rivets in my quickbuild kit. Apparently the quickbuilders got a little carried away. I just drilled the rivets out.
Here are the angles and spacers all match drilled to the fuselage skins and each other. You can't really see it in the photo, but I dimpled the thin spacer and machine countersunk the thick one, to let them lay down properly over the top of the already-dimpled skin and bulkhead.
Flap actuator
Sunday, April 23rd, 2006Here's a collection of pieces that had to be fabricated for the flap motor mount:
The flap channel gets fitted thusly. The plans call for the joint plate at the top to be bent to an angle of 151.8°. Yeah, whatever – we're not building the space shuttle here. I just adjusted the bend angle until everything fit and drilled it in place.
Here's a shot of the rear side of the flap channel, where the motor pivot bolt goes through. The angle bracket is a little crooked, but that's how the motor geometry worked out. I've seen this on other builders' sites so I don't think it's a problem.
The motor can run the flaps through the entire range of motion without binding or rubbing anywhere. This is up:
This is down:
I got the side panels mostly fitted before calling it a day. With everything in place the flap motor has a little house to live in. I still need to deburr the side panels.
On the left side, you have to notch the side panel to clear the pivot bolt head. I clamped a piece of scrap aluminum to the edge of the cover and used a unibit, which worked well.
