Stjohn's RV-7

5 hours.
Wow! What a day! Started at about 10am doing the final blacksmithing on the VS, making sure all the holes line up, no gaps.. Forgot to dimple a hole on the forward spar, that sucked.. had to uncleco the skin, dimple it (yes it was drilled and deburred), then cleco the skin back on. But I drafted some help in the form of Derek Spears and Steve Galle. I was the shooter, Derek was the cleco puller/rivet inserter, and Steve was the Bucker. It went factory fast. Now, if someone could invent an autoloading rivet gun that pulls out the clecos for you and magicks up a bucking bar against the shank on the backside, that would rock. Not going to happen. But I can dream. Only had 4 or 5 bad rivets in the whole assembly, and it really went together well. One tip: make sure the taped up part of the bucking bar isn’t the surface you’re bucking with.. Tape doesn’t make such a good impact surface and your shop heads will slide around like water on oil. Derek took off early and we grabbed a burrito and talked engines. More and more I’m leaning toward Jan Eggenfellner’s six-cyl Subaru FWF package. No offense to the rotorheads, and much respect, but I hear a lot more engine-out stories from rotary guys than Subaru guys. Most of these issues are builder/operator related rather than the engine itself, but the devil is always in the details, and I’ve been on the rotary list a lot longer than I’ve been on the subaruaircraft or airsoob list. Either way, when somebody comes up with a FWF package for the rotary that costs less than 25k, it might be an option again.. Personally, I don’t mind flying behind an experimental engine, as long as its principles, engineering, and practical application is sound, but I’m well aware of the non-existence of an engine that puts out 300hp, weighs 10 pounds and will run for 900 miles on the smell of an oily rag.
Still no frigging pictures. VPN server at 3jane is not happy, so no ssh for openbar.