Good and bad

Another day at the airport.

Got my registration marks painted under the wing, this would have been so much easier to do before the wings was mounted to the airplane!

Getting the washers in place when attaching the elevator controls was difficult, should have done this before mounting the vertical stabilizer. Then the molex connector on the trim wires broke, after reading about others problems with these connectors it was probably for the best that I had to hard wire them instead.

I finished off with testing my nav and strobe lights. All nav lights worked, the strobe worked in the tail and on the left wingtip but not on the right wingtip, to be investigated.

More work on the tail fairings

Sorry for the lack of updates. My almost on the day 10 year old NAS-computer who first served me as a gaming PC for three years and then as a NAS for seven years (the last four in a dusty airplane factory) finally gave up, the motherboard died.

No information was lost but I have been unable to offload pictures from my cameras. I still cannot transfer many of the pictures since I forgot my GoPro in the aircraft after this Sundays flying. I performed several steps of the "first flight preparation training" on that flight.

Here are some pictures from today, my controler visited and we did a first review of the upcoming paperwork including having a detailed review of my building documentation.

Elevator fairing installed

Had to remove the lead weight to get access to dimple but apart from that hassle it was a simple task.
Nest is the vertical stabilizer fairing (I have already started) I also laid out the big back fairing, it sits on very well even before doing any adjustments!

Deja vu

Same same but very different, the stabilizers and the rudder are back on the empennage. This time on a complete airframe, now it looks like an airplane without wings :)

It is really crowded in the shop now but it looks like I do not have to remove the back wall that leads into the smaller storage area!

Starting from the beginning

First I wired up some switches for the MGL ECB.

Then I started from chapter 6 and verified that all tasks have been done. I am now at chapter 9, so far it has only been some clearly marked "final torque" task to do.

The third picture is just for me as it popped out to me, clearly showing that I have lost 6,6Kg (14.5 pounds) in January by a rather strict LCHF diet. Another month of this and I will be back in reasonable shape again :)

Together

Sorry for the lousy quality, only had my phone available. With help, I put on the elevators.

First screw up, nothing to worry about or something in between?

So, this weekend I mounted the elevators to the spar. Measured many times, marked it, drilled the hole in one of the elevator horns... Made a good drill block guide, remeasured, clamped and drilled the second rudder horn.

Somehow the pieces managed to move and the holes, while perfectly square are not in perfect alignment. The last two pictures show how the left is aligned when the right side is flush. A disaster that needs to be fixed, nothing to worry about??? I will ask in the forums first and then probably to VANs.

Doing something on the RV again

Got some tools from Avery yesterday, was supposed to fly tonight but that was cancelled due to weather. I decided to bring out the elevators and match drill the elevator horns with my new 1/4 reamer.

A small job but it felt great to be back at it again. I guess I will continue with the elevator pushrod bolt holes but I hesitate a little as I do not want to make it difficult to quickly get everything away for when the wing-kit arrives.

 

Elevator fairings

Trimmed and match drilled the elevator fairings.

More fairing trimming

More trimming and some match drilling. I need a vacuum cleaner in the shop!

Started on the fairings

Forgot to reposition the camera so not much to show today. Started on the fairings, drilled the draining hole in the rudder fairing and some more. Fixed some wiring on the trim motor.

First holes in the elevator horns drilled

First holes in the elevator horns drilled. Lots of measuring before I committed. Ended up drilling to get a good mark first and to then drill without having it mounted. I have not made them 1/4 yet as I have a reamer on order that I want to use.

Measure twice, cut...

Just marked the planned drill point and then disassembled and re-measured. And I was off by almost 5mm. Probably measured between the wrong places yesterday. Redone and reassembled and now I got 29 degrees and 25 degrees. I should probably back the bearings out 1/2 lap. I'll sleep on it!

Annoyed

For the first time I´m feeling annoyed at Vans.

First I must be honest and start with letting you know that my feelings might be affected by having spent 30 minutes searching before finding the E-bushing that I knew I placed in some smart location. ;)

The reason I´m annoyed is because of the many errors on page 11-03:
- The spacer is marked as being 2inch high, that is 50.8mm not 5.8
- The spacer is shown as being significantly wider that deep... not what the numbers tell you
- The HS-911 & VA-146A is not riveted together in the picture, is is done in chapter 8 (Should I drill them out now to get a better surface for the spacer?)
- In the latest revision it tells you to match drill using a #30 drill and the E-bushing is marked as having a .120 3mm hole. My E-bushing has a 4.5-4.6mm hole and the older revision has you drill with a #17 drill. (The older version makes much more sense) The purist in me is also annoyed by the fact that they change things without mentioning it in the revision history (maybe there has been a revision in between with it listed)

The only thing I got done today was making the E-bushing get a perfect fit into the VA-146A. I did not drill.... the main reason is that I have just about exactly the 13/16 space as described for the bearings on page 11-02 but for me this means that I have significantly more that the 1 5/8 space that is listed as a minimum on page 11-03. My question is, should I turn the bearing in a half, one on more turns to get a closer spacing (checking the travel of course) or should I just move on as I have more than a listed minimum spacing? My elevators looks just like the spacing in Figure 5 on page 11-03.

I´ll sleep on it and read up on forum and builders sites.

  

Elevator travel OK

I have actually been flying a lot in the past days, that and some "honeydos" have kept me away from the RV.

Today I had a short session where I checked the elevator travel 25/30 needed, I could do 30/30 so no need to remember in what direction more was needed. I also checked the space between the elevator and spar, minimum is 3.2mm, I got 3.3, perfect!

Horizontal spar, tail, elevator

Things are coming together.
Match drilled the horizontal spar to the tail, installed the left elevator to the spar. When putting in the bearings I was smart and measured and screwed in the nut before installing the bearing into the elevator.

Elevators finished

Chapter 9 is finished. I did not connect the trim pushrod in both ends as the forums claim that there is a flaw in the design and it needs to be replaced by a redesigned one.

Broke the beld to the bandsaw so I had to buy a new one, while at the store I also got a grinding belt for the grinding machine that made adjusting the elevator weights easy.

Left elevator, edges rolled

Did the left elevator today. Had to drill out my first pulled rivet today. I was careful and managed to do it without damaging the skin.

Starting to roll the elevator leading edges

Finished one elevator today, the other one needs some more love with the edge roller before I can close that one.

First electrical work

I have some faint memory of crimping connectors around 24-25 years ago... It is not pretty but the wires for the trim connector are firmly connected. Work sessions are so different, yesterday I put in 2.3 hours and there is very little to show for it, not like when you attach large skins, easy but looks like a lot.