Getting back into the air.

I have met a guy from my daughter's soccer team. I have two girls and so does he that play on the team. Come to find out he is a commercial pilot and has several airplanes. He alos happens to be an instructor to boot. Real nice guy and is very down to earth. He invited me out to go flying and we took his Citabria up for a spin the other day. He let me fly from the front and I attempted a couple of landings. I have never flown a tandem seat airplane before but I need to since my Dad has the Rocket. One of these days I need to fly that thing and get proficient in it. Anyways, I didn't crash it but I wasn't that great either. I'll need to get the coordination down flying with the right hand/throttle with the left. It will come with more time. I need to get with Mike (the instructor) and build some time in his airplane and then get with Dad and go for spin in the Rocket. Mike wants a Rocket ride real bad as well!

Getting back into the air.

Getting wing ready for the jig

I have been working on the spars and aileron bellcrank rib. The main spar is now all done, with the tank extension plate all bolted down along with the wing tie down installed. I have constructed the rear spar with the aileron reinforcing plates and rear attach point flange strips. The last thing I have completed is the fabrication of the aileron bellcrank rib and all the spacers/angles..ect. I now have to pull everything apart, debur and get it ready for priming. Once all the parts are primed, I will start attaching ribs to each station. I haved pulled the main top skin out and marked the centerline of all the ribs onto the spars. This way I will align the ribs to the skins that are already drilled instead of using dimension from the plans. On the last RV-6 I used the plans and got burned and have to redo some of the rib attach brackets to line everything correctly.

Left wing

Work on the left wing has begun. I have deburred all of the wing ribs. I have also fluted and straightened all of the ribs. A process that is very boring but it has to be done. It takes about two days to do it all. Smashing your thumb with a hammer is more exciting than deburring ribs. I have also started work on the main spar. I had to drill some 3/16 rivets so I can mount the plate extension for the gas tank. That has been done and all the little brackets and pieces have been fabbed up. The wing tie down bracket has been moved to the outboard section of the wing where the spar flange strips end. I used the new AEX tie down from Vans which is all one piece. All of the parts have been acid etched and alodined. I will paint them today once I go and get some paint filters. The primer is DTM (direct to metal) Dupont. It's great stuff but it's epoxy and is nasty stuff to be around. It seals up the metal great and it very durable. It's kind of an overkill to have alcad, etching, alodining and then epoxy primer on top of it all. I could spray it will my Mar-hyde stuff and it would last a 100 years. But I have the primer left over and I need to use it up. I have been epoxy priming all of the structual parts that cannot be replaced if corrosion sets in. Other parts that are outside the airframe like ailerons/flaps- I just use rattle can primer on them. I still etch and alodine the parts to provide extra protection. Hopefully, this plane will live longer than me.
Next I have to rivet the spar pieces on and start making the left rear spar. Then I can start fabbing up ribs and all the little pieces that go along with it all.

Working on the left wing

I have started work on the left wing. Yeah! I forgot how much work it is to get all of the ribs deburred, fluted and straight. I have gotten all of the deburring done and now I have to get the marking pen out and start marking the flutes on the ribs to get them straight. I will have two whole days just in that. I have taken the left spar down out of the garage rafters and I will start attaching ribs shortly. Then it will be time to get the right wing out of the jig and set up for the left wing. I will be glad when the wing is done and I can start on the fuselage. I have put my beloved engine up for sale. It's just sitting there collecting dust. I rotate it every so often to make sure the oil gets sloshed around. I won't be able to use it for at least two more years. So why not sell it and put the money in the bank to make some interest on it? I can alway buy another one and put it together. I like doing that anyways. Building engines is fun and there are so many ways trick them out nowdays. People always ask me if I am scared that I built my own engine. I always answer no. Not that the guys at Aerosport don't know what they are doing, but I know everything I did to that engine. It actually makes me feel safer knowing I put it together. My other two engines I have put together are running smoothly and don't burn any oil. My buddy called me up the other day to tell me he just annualed his RV-6 (the one you see in the pics) and told me I did a good job building his engine. Compression was 79/80 in all cylinders and it doesn't burn a drop of oil in between changes. It also runs like a turbine since I had all of the parts dynamically balanced by ECI. Feels good when you get calls like that!

Working on the tip

I have been working on the wing tip for the past several days. The landing lights/nav/strobe lights are all in the tip. The landing light setup is pretty cool but has lot's of little pieces to make up. Trying to get all the springs, nuts, bolts....ect in place is a chore. I am using small LED nav lights. They are real cool to see at night and it also has a rear position light on the setup as well. The strobe light is integrated into the whole thing and it makes a small tight package. Beats the old style Whelen lights which get real hot and melt you lense cover. The landing lights are two small self contained lights with a adjustable mount. I will have 2 on each wingtip so landing at night will be a hoot. The lense cover is all fitted and I am filling in around the lense so it blends into the tip perfectly. I start out with a coat of JB weld and then I will sand that down a bit. Then I will use bondo to fill up the rest so the lense thickness is evenly matched all the way around the tip so there is no lip. It will look real smooth all painted up. Details, details.

Right wing done

I have gotten all of the bottom skins riveted in place. It was a real pain but I did it mostly by myself. My wife helped in one bay on the outer panel. The tank is back in place after I pulled it off to access the ribs on the inboard side. Since I have 4 ribs that point inward, I did not final rivet them into place. The ribs are about 5 inces apart so you have to rivet one at a time, then install the next one and so on. I learned this the hard way about 10 years ago. The riveting turned out nice except for some oil canning around the inspection cover. I had to add a stiffener to it to get it to not oil can with the cover on.