Did my BFR at Proteus yesterday. Dang, am I rusty. N400JW is a Piper Archer with a threadbare crushed-velour interior and a fading paint job that I have been flying, off and on, since 1998. It fits like a comfortable old sweater or a favorite pair of jeans. But it took me two tries to hack a basic 45 degree 360. This is what I get for not flying in over a year. But the instructor signed me off, which he did after the skillz came back. I’m a good pilot, but I need a hell of a lot more practice before I feel as safe as I did when I was flying all the time. But renting that ship for an hour a week for a year is about what one of the major kit parts of the RV costs. Slow build. So I’m in a quandary.. I don’t like being this out of practice.. it’s not safe. But I need to get on a regular skills maintenance program of some sort.. And I need to sort out tailwheel/aerobatic training somehow.
Stiffeners. Again.
3 hours.
Deburred, primed stiffeners, deburred skin edges, primed inside where stiffeners go.
I hate paint days. Paint sucks. I’m constantly struggling with the question of whether or not to prime something, because the process is a space and time-consuming one. A wife gardening and a dog running around outside really don’t go well with paint fumes and overspray. But that part’s done, now I have to do the spars and ribs. I really need to be done with the empennage soon, because the long, dark winter of Saving for the Kit is approaching. It’s not really worth posting pictures, because this step was kind of lame and should have happened a long time ago. I’ll put some up when it’s time to do the trim tab, because that should prove as challenging as any game of tetris.
Elevators – Stiff competition.
2 hours.
fabbed stiffeners. Since I havent’ been at it in a while, it took a second to get back into the plans and realize just what I was cutting. You always have to be on the ball, you just can’t blindly trust that the plans are right, that you got all the metal you were supposed to get, etc. Cutting the little short pieces mystified me for a second until i realized that they went near the trim tab on the left elevator. No prob, moving on.
rudder, she is done.
1 hour.
Yeah, I know, i’m being a complete and utter slackbastard. But the HS/Rudder are done (except for the fiberglass), bolts are tight, last bad rivet in the trailing edge was fixed, and now it’s sitting in the rafters along with the VS. So on to the elevators.. I got as far as cleaning up the shop. In the last few weeks/months, there have been many things that have interrupted the build flow, but I’m trying to carve out an hour or so each night. Or a couple of nights a week. I’m also not ready to order the qb kit yet, since I have no idea where i’m going to actually build it.. I still have a tenant and my wife is less than thrilled about having the guest house be an aircraft factory for an indefinite amount of time. Especially since there is plenty of landscape/contractor wrangling to be done.
One more server move.
Hopefully we won’t have to move again.. With godaddy now, and hopefully this will be easy.. Mostly just a test.
for new entries in the AIRPLANE BLOG.
BTW, there’s been a significant bit of progress, so stay tuned.
yeesh.. I’m a slacker.. Big time.
1 hour.
Wow.. So that took a while, eh? Too freaking long. I suppose I should explain a few things.. Well, one thing in particular. Since we got this dog, it’s been all about thejoys of walking the dog, feeding the dog, taking the dog to the vet, buying stuff for the dog, you get the picture..
Violated my own founding principle. Bad builder. Bad.
Let’s get through today.. Today was actually the day I got back on the horse. Rolled the leading edge and clecoed it into place.
Looks round, and straight.. If that makes any sense.. Piece of copper pipe did wonders. lighter than the recommended steel, too.
This turned out a lot better than the trailing edge. But I havent’ actually drilled and riveted yet, so maybe I’m celebrating before the battle is won.
Starting to look rudderish.
6 hours.
OK, six hours all totaled, most of which was setting up the most ergonomic and process-friendly way to rivet the skin onto the skeleton. But once set up, it flowed nicely.
Skin riveted on. AEX wedge is just sitting there, not stuck on yet.
This is to show the stiffeners. There were a couple of them that interfered with their counterparts on the opposite skin, so I had to mill them clear of each other. No biggie.
Same here, but the opposite skin. . the red light is my finger over the flash so it doesn’t blow out the
picture.
The lower rib. You can see where the fluting happened, and also the fluting i had to do to the bottom attach strip for the rudder bottom.. IMHO, this is a hack.. Why the rudder bottom can’t be attached like all the other fiberglas pieces is beyond me. Maybe the thin rudder skin can’t be expected to hold it all on its own.
What happened to the site.
5 hours.
This being the first entry since the crash, or the hack, I figured I’d give you a little background on what happened. We got hacked by what we suspect is a group of Brazilian neo-Nazis who used our machine as a way in to attack somebody else on the network. We were taken offline, but I was able to save the data, since I brought the machine home and backed up all the db and domain stuff. Now I’m back on a virtual private server, but getting the blogware to work has been like pulling teeth.. finally got it, but for some reason the main menu page just hangs.. something the webserver doesn’t like to execute. or something. But I’m back up now, and it’s not like there was nothing going on between Christmas and now. I’ll explain.
Testing upgrade and new site
OK, now this is for all the marbles.
Got the new site going, still a couple of problems, but at least I can update. I think.. if you can read this entry,
then we’re sorted. if not.. hm. anyway, here goes.
Some pics of the rudder fun.
Some pics of the rudder skeleton riveting process.
Riveting the control horn, rib, horn brace and spar together.. Interlocking puzzle. Generating an exploded
view in your head is kind of fun. Until your head explodes.
Riveting the horn on.. They say you can use pop rivets for some of this. I’m going to.
Looky at all this primed crap. Pay no attention to the claw-hammer in the foreground.
Here you can see the fluted 904 rib and one of the rudder-hinge platenuts.
Okay, okay, I wanted to see the rudder skeleton hanging off the VS. Just because
Apparently I wanted to see it more than once.