Go to this link to see my daughter Rebeca who auditioned for 'The Voice'. Together with 19 other people who auditioned they recorded a track which will be released in June proceeds to a very worthy cause.  http://www.fullcircleofficial.co.uk/

What did I say about clouds with silver linings.

I was on my way to the Gym when I got a call to say that the wind had damaged the roof  of my hangar. This is what I found when I got there. Yes, half the roof had gone!!  The good news was that the into wind side was intact so was protecting the aeroplane from the storm.  The bad news was that the storm was not du to clear for six hours and we had a set of Auster J1N wings, and one of my RV 4 wings in there which we needed to move.

The wind was from the North East, but was due to swing in the next few days to Southly, so the wings would be at risk of being damaged by this, so we had to move them all. Also what was left of the hangar roof would become a big sail when the wind came from the south so it needed to be removed.  So this is the hangar now...   Just when I thought I had plenty of time to finish my 4 I have to re-cover my hangar......Aggghhhh!

New...New Tank

Those of you who view this blog regularly will know I damaged my tank during the painting process when the wing fell off my stand, and that I received an incorrectly cut tank skin from Vans for my new tank. Well, I tried to build the defect out of the part but failed, so am in the process of building a third tank. This time I have built it on the wing, rather than in a jig, which is difficult as the wing is leading edge down in wing stands.

Vans supplied me with a new tank skin FOC ( they really are a good company), and as I took the risk in trying to sort out the incorrectly cut skin, I paid for new ribs, etc. Vans paid for the shipping in the US so it all worked out well. So, I am at the stage where the tank is almost ready to glue together.

All clouds have silver linings!

1652 grammes

The good news on my crank is the ID is 1.85 so it can be ground, hopefully enough to get rid of the pitting. Its at the Engineering Shop now. If its OK I will get it PID which means the internal diameter is painted and this will prevent further pitting. However, I won't know finally until they set to work.

But, as a result of stripping out the engine I found another problem which could have been fatal!  I had asked the people who rebuilt the engine to fit high compression pistons 8.5 to 1 to upgrade it to 160 HP. Its an E2A which normally runs 7 to 1 pistons. Shops in the UK rarely modify and upgrade engines even though there are STC's for this in the states. So, when they did this they just used the thin walled gudgeon pins (wrist pins for US viewers). In fact they were the thinnest walled pins in existence, which means I could have lost a piston!!!

So, all in all I am pleased I had to strip it now, it found this problem and potentially saved my life. The other good news is that despite being pickled for such a long time everything else is in great shape, and I have decided to balance the engine before rebuild. So far I have got all the pistons bang on the same weight.

The con rods are within 1 gram of each other, by tomorrow they will all be the same weight

Crankshaft Pitting

Those of you who follow this blog regularly might just have seen a post where I was elated because on checking my crankshaft for pitting I found none. Then when I blew up the photo I took what did I spot......... pitting!!!!!  So, the elated post was quickly withdrawn.  I had already re plugged the crank so the new plug was removed and the crank rechecked, now I am depressed, the crank is indeed pitted just by the crank plug....Ahhhhhhhh!! I want to scream.

I bought this engine a long time ago at the PFA rally, it had been shock loaded so I had it professionally rebuilt. Consequently it has been pickled for a long time, the company that rebuilt it no longer exists, so now I have  problem.  However, a check of the service bulletin reveals that the crank can be cleaned (honed) provided the ID does not exceed 1.91 inches if the pitting is cleared its OK. If there is still pitting, it requires further testing to see if there are any cracks. This has to be repeated every 100 hours.

Now, please check this for yourself as I am not giving a full explanation so if you have this problem the good news is that the crank is not necessarily scrap........ it can be salvaged...... but you should read the SB.

Who's been walking on my rudder? As you can guess I have been flatting  paint again. Now Charlie my cat is putting yellow paw prints everywhere!

Finished rudder painting today.

Its minus 8 outside so I have been getting jobs done in the house rather than freezing in the workshop. While watching England play Italy in Rome, I have masked up the spinner. The bits that appear grey will be painted black, hopefully tomorrow, the masked bits will then be painted yellow.

 Today, is a gym day......... well I go to the gym every other day, but I wanted to post photos of what she looks like painted. I still have to touch up a couple of areas, cut the paint back and polish it. I am pretty pleased with the results.

Then she even got the Chinese TaiTai's seal of approval.   More importantly,  Harley my Springer Spaniel loves her.

Posted for WSBuilder, Vans Air Force

Bill, I think this is the area you are concerned about. I am  considering cutting the rear part of the fiberglass fairing off and fixing it directly onto the fuselage transition fairing.

Fuselage top coat done. Its said to be going down to minus 10c tonight ,So I have a fan heater sitting in the fuselage keeping everything warm allowing the paint to go off. Now, just the cowl, elevators and right wing to paint.

The top photo gives the best idea of the true colour or the aeroplane.

Elevators re-primed

I have spent a couple of days flatting back things and have come to the conclusion that fiberglass is evil. I think everyone who paints this stuff just hates it. One thing is for sure I will never build a plastic aeroplane!!

But today several things got painted..........the elevators got some more primer, and as you can see in the back ground the top of the fuselage  is now painted.

The bottom of the fuselage gets its paint!

Yesterday was spent doing masking and rubbing down so no posts, but today I did some fabrication wotk to close off the wiring inside the cockpit in front of the rear seat. The eagle eyed among you will notice 4 connectors. Two jack plugs for normal headsets, plug for my bose headsets which supplies power for noice cancelling, and a power plug for a Garmin 396 in the rear cockpit.

Lower fuselage fairings posted for info of VAF member.

Here is my Tailwind probably 4 years after I rebuilt her. Its a pity she has been written off. I made a bid on her and would have rebuilt her again but she has gone to a dealer. I hope he rebuilds her.

Kitfox

Here is the Kitfox I rebuilt. It was originally built in Ireland and was supposed to have wind accident damage when I bought it. Strangely enough the damage was consistent with a ground loop. A couple of bent tubes in the lower floor by the main gear, bent gear that side, a twisted wing and broken prop.  I don't think it had a permit to test at the time  so probably that's why it was put down to the wind......... maybe it was the wind.

So, it was completely stripped to check for other damage, long range fuel tanks were fitted, I did a mod taking the under camber out of the wing, shortened the wing by one bay and put a Mk 4 leading edge on it. The engine was stripped and rebuilt and of course a new prop.

It got off the ground real quick about 150 feet, the trouble was it didn't go anywhere when you got up there if you had any sort of a headwind......... compared to an RV.  So, while I enjoyed repairing it I soon got fed up flying it and only did about 35 hours in it before I sold it.

Chinese RV Grin

My mother and father in law are on a visit from China...Private flying is almost completely unknown over there. A visit to the airfield was the highlight of their holiday in the UK.

After watching me do five circuits, mum had the courage to ask for a flight. So, she is only the second person from Qidong to have flown in the light aircraft, my wife being the first.

She is a lovely lady with lots of spirit and that beautiful RV Grin was a pleasure to see!

Today I have been painting the seat backs, fuselage floor and a few other parts. They are now in a box waiting to go to the airfield.

These foot wells make a real difference for the passenger comfort. Yesterday, I fabricated  and riveted on stiffeners on the front floor where the rear seat pedals are located......... it was another job that I had not really completed  but I am pleased to have spotted needed doing.

Aeroplanes and Bikes

I have been a biker for 42 years. My dad bought me my first bike when I was 15. It all started with 2 Kerry Kapitano mopeds. Then he bought me a Velocette 350 MAC, a Velocette 500 Thruxton, and a brand new Suzuki B120P which I got my Licence on. Since then I have had over 50 bikes.

Before you all think I was spoiled as a kid I should tell you that for 2 years I never got any birthday or xmas presents from him, even though I spent hours working with him on his allotment. Dad was a bit eccentric after coming back wounded from  El Alamein, a good man but damaged like so many others by war.

Anyway, the reason for this bit of history, and a divergence from  the normal thread is because a lot of aviators are also bikers. I have long believed that many bikers are frustrated pilots!!!!!!   I currently have two bikes an FJR 1300, which I bought new in 2003 to slow me down from my previous R1. But in the last few years I was not enjoying my biking as much and couldn't understand why........ then it dawned on me I needed to go back in time, so I bought a Harley and love it!!

Its raw biking compered with R1's and FJR's, no chance of doing a wheelie at 100mph, in fact no chance of doing a wheelie, but it sounds and looks great and I love that primitive feel to it!

Even better when you can get a pretty lady on it, and that pretty lady is you wife!!!!!

I  don't know how good the current builder instructions are for a 4, but mine being old leave a lot for the builder to work out. So, in closing the horizontals stab I copied ho this was done on the 9 I built...... it works.

Forward Floor

Forward floor screw holes drilled to final size and ready for painting. Cut out is for the passenger rudder pedals.

Rear Seat rudder pedals.

I will have to do some transition training when I start to sell shares in this aeroplane so decided early on to fit rear seat rudder pedals. Again is a finishing job which required me to secure the wiring for the fuel sender, etc out of the way of the pedals. Its really nice that things are being finally assembled!!

Firewall Gussets

One of the week areas on RV-4s is the lower engine mount/firewall. I spotted this mod on Vansairforce, which is often use on RV 3s as well. Its a bit of a pig to do on an already built airframe though. I had part finished this but completed them yesterday. It took several hours to put the rivets in the vertical angle on the firewall. I wanted to put all Cherrymax, but despite filing away some of the lower weldment I was unable to pull Cherrymax in the lower two rivets at the bottom of the brace so reverted to stainless steel. I am now well into the finishing off bits.

Flap lever.

Following the bad day yesterday I tried to get a bit ahead of the game today so I decided to bolt up the flap idler arm and take a photo of the nylock nut to save my Inspector some grief. Its quite difficult to see this and he  is not as sprightly as he once was  so this will help the final inspection process. Look what the photo revealed!! I can see at least two problems, so I am glad I did this now!

One step forward two back!!

Those of you who have been following this blog will know that I have been building a new starboard fuel tank after the original was badly dented when it fell off the jig when painting the wing. I messed up on my first attempt and had to order a third skin. It was apparent right from the start that there was something wrong with the skin as the rear baffle T-402 dis not sit parallel  to the edges of the skin. On measuring it it had been cut just over 1/8th inch out of square, and the bend in it was possibly out of square too.
I contacted Vans and to be fair I made the decision to build on hoping to be able to sort this out with some filing to square the tank up. When I test fitted it with clecos it looked like it would work as you can see from previous photos posted, so I sealed it all up.

However,when I test fitted after sealing all did not look well, I was unable to get the T-402 to sit correctly on the mounting flange at the root end when the outboard edge of the tank was sitting on the wing joint. I tried pushing it round buts this made the wing attach point  not sit correctly.

So, I put the wing on the aeroplane yesterday and this photo shows the gap between the tank skin and the leading edge when everything is pulled up tight. This of course means that on the root section of the T 402 there would not be enough edge clearance on the  screws which hold the tank.

Being out just over 1/8th here means that the root mounting bracket sits low  by almost 1/2 an inch and the holed in it will not line up. So, the result is I need to build another new tank!!

I am sure Vans would have sent me a new skin had I asked as they have had first class customer relations but I took the decision to build on. The moral here though is that if you do find something mis-measured, dont build on, you can wast a lot of time.

Rudder Re-masking.

I have continued working on the rudder paint job today. Finished flatting it back and re-masked the yellow.  This took 5 hours so be warned how long this process takes. I put on much better quality fine line masking tape this time to prevent bleeding onto the yellow, this stuff works much better than the previous type I used.

RV9A Video

Here is a link to  Tony my co owner ding a short flight in our RV9A. Please excuse the state of the cowl, it has been cut and hacked about to get the cooling right. I will be making a new cowl this year.

https://picasaweb.google.com/114746777583063929495/AeroVideosShared?feat=email#5659287310922417410

Rudder

I didn't want to work in the workshop today as its below freezing again and I think I am getting a cold. So, I confined myself to working on the rudder. I had painted this in solid yellow  and need to add chequers, so I have rubbed it down to primer where the black will go. 

Painted forward Fuselage

Todays mission was to paint the forward fuselage. Actually I did a lot more than this and finished a few loose ends.

Oregon Aero Seats

This is the Oregon Aero front seat. Pricey by very comfortable and when you are getting old like me thats very important!!  The rear one is in the RV which is masked up at the moment.

A mixture of parts

OK  so what we have here are the RV9 main gear nose section of the wheel fairings having been repaired and painted in blue. The upper cowl in two pack primer, An RV 4 main wheel fairing and two gear leg fairings for the 4.

I took a mold off the RV 9 gear leg fairings and laid up some new ones rather than using the aluminium ones for the 4. These apparently give better pressure recovery. What I might do in the long run is replace the old style wheel fairings with either Sam James or Vans new fairings and see  i there really is any speed increase.

New A type nose gear.

 I still have to decide whether to run this new nose gear design on our 9A, or just go with the  Antisplat nose job.