Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

I swore that once the mini-heat wave broke, Co-pilot Egg's graduation party was over and done, and I got caught up on the not insignificant job of moving into my new computer*, I'd get back to working on the RV-12. And I would have, had it not been for such perfect weather for a little bit of RV-6 flying. Light winds out of the east and air that was so clear that it almost sparkled? Yeah, gotta fly in that!

I snagged a quick camera shot of my neighborhood as I was left base for runway 4 at KTZR:

While it has been dry enough that the grass is showing a few brown spots in the thin soil areas over the propane tank and some of the drainage lines, the overall mood in Central Ohio is "Green."

I haven't completely ignored the Call of the Builder, though. Pete and I got out to the hangar a couple of nights ago to continue on our respective tasks. For Pete, that means work on the tail cone. The tail cone was intended to be completed a long, long time ago; a time when there was no big horizontal stabilator in the way. Which means, of course, that we had to get that big Slab O' Flight Control out of the way, a job the we had hoped to avoid.  It's typical of this whole project, though: what has been installed will soon be removed.  Two steps forward, one (or more, occasionally) step back.

Naturally, remove the stab would require the disconnection of the control cables. One thing we really don't want to have to do is try to fish those cables out of the fuselage if they somehow manage to fall back inside there, so we restrained them with some twine.

Pete has endured hours of the traditional parts on - parts off - parts sanded - parts on - parts off - parts sanded mating dance that is required to convince two fiberglass parts that were actually made for each other to fit as nicely together as if they were, well... made for each other. I think the fit is great, but Pete is apparently not quite ready to publicly celebrate the fruits of his labor; note the way he skulks around hiding when the camera comes out:

My job was far more mundane, but somewhat complicated by another case of doing a long deferred job that would have been much easier to do before a large chunk of metal was inconveniently installed. In this case, I'm talking about the engine, and there is no way that we're removing that! I was supposed to match drill through this part and into the cowl, but given its location on the belly of the plane, there was no way to get a drill on it with the engine in the way. I had to try to mark the location with a Sharpie, then remove the cowl to drill it on the bench.  Two forward, one back.

 Once drilled, it requires the installation of some nutplates. That part was easy.

As long as the cowl bottom was off, I also knocked out another job that I've been putting off, this one having been deferred due to my strong distaste for the job of cutting fiberglass to the scribe line. It's noisy, dusty, and smelly. And there is always the risk of damaging a very expensive part. The scribe lines are weak and the Dremel is strong. A recipe for disaster, that!

This should be the last big cut on the cowls - it is the removal of a little bit of fiberglass around the inlet for the oil cooler:

* Processor: Intel Core i7-3770K 3.5 GHz, 64 bit Quad-Core Processor, 8MB L3 Cache per Processor 
  Memory: 8GB DDR3 1600 Memory 
  Storage: 2TB SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 7200RPM Hard Drive 
  Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 7850 2GB Graphics 
  Unbelievably Geeky Cooling: 240mm Liquid Cooling System. Seriously, this thing actually has a radiator and cooling hoses leading to the main CPU chip. 

The Graduate

You must be tiring of the constant excuses I come up with for not making more progress on the airplane, but rest assured that I squeeze in a few hours whenever competing demands on my time allow it. The weekends are, of course, the best opportunities, but they often fill up quickly with things that need to be done, ought to be done, or are simply more desirable to do.

The latest three day weekend was a good example. Saturday was taken up for the most part with Co-pilot Egg's graduation from high school. It was, naturally, a momentous event in her life, as it is for most everyone that has gone before her. There are only a handful of life events that so clearly delineate the various segments of our allotted time, and the transition from high school to either work or higher education is probably the first. It was a long, hot day, the highlight of which was not the actual ceremony.

I confess to being at times nostalgic for a society I never knew, a period when people could gather together in large numbers for a distinguished recognition of achievement without acting like, well, undisciplined children. I think the starkest example of the many contenders for the Gauchest Oaf award was the knucklehead that brought an air horn to draw attention to himself rather than whatever friend or family member that was being awarded a diploma. But, we inhabit the world we live in, and it was worth the noise and distractions to see my child cross the stage to collect her diploma. It was equally moving to see her Prom date, the local boy-almost-next-door, do the same. His name is Travis, and he is the bravest person I know.



The graduation ceremony over, we had to face the horrible downtown traffic. It so happens that the entire area was awash with groups of inebriated revelers participating in something called the Crawl for a Cure, or something like that. Apparently since biking, walking, and running in a plethora of sanctioned events has yet to cure cancer, or anything else that I'm aware of, we're going to give drinking its turn at the plate. It just feels a little.... off, somehow.

There finally came a time, somewhere about 45 minutes into the lengthy ordeal of trying to escape from a parking garage when there was quite literally light at the end of the tunnel. Just a half a dozen more cars remained between us and blessed release from the dark environs of the parking facility and then just a drive home.... when the phone rang. It was Co-pilot Egg, herself having driven her own car to the event. A car which, we were informed, she could not find. Nor was she 100% sure of her own location. Needful of rescue, she was. Ah, the life of a Dad. Never a dull moment, no matter how much a good dose of dullness might now and then be desired.

The rescue of Egg and the lengthy search through a number of parking garages is a long story, and not particularly interesting for all that. Suffice to say, the car was found, a dinner with Dad and daughter was enjoyed, replete with a tall, malt- and hops-based beverage for the paternal side.

That, it must be said, put paid to any work on Saturday. Sunday was the Formula 1 Grand Prix of Monaco and the Indianapolis 500. So, another day gone, but enjoyed nonetheless.

Monday was a holiday, but it promised to be a scorcher. An early start would be required. Pete and I had a quick breakfast at McDs, notable only for the discomfort of the plastic chairs they have installed to keep people from sitting there all day sucking up free WiFi. We got to the hangar soon thereafter and started looking for work. I decided to rivet the hinges on the engine cowling, which Pete picked up a part to work on that he's been eyeing for a year. Given that it was the fiberglass tailcone, a part that would need to be trimmed to the correct size, I was more than happy to let him have it. I'm sick to death of trimming fiberglass, and he's better at it than I am anyway.

That said, it didn't take long to run into complications. It's no surprise, really, that when going all the way back to section 12 of the build manual that there might be parts of the airplane in the way of whatever it is we're required to do. It has grown quite significantly larger in the intervening thirty sections, after all. Pete's problem was that after diligently marking up a piece of masking tape to act as a drill template, there was a pesky horizontal stabilator in the way of the skin edge that was to be used to correctly position the template. It looked like it would have to be removed, and that is no mean task.

Fortunately, we were able to use a straight edge to position the template, thus relieving us of the onerous job of removing the stab. For now, at least. We may have merely delayed the inevitable.

Disaster at least temporarily avoided, I went back to my riveting.

The templates in place, Pete commenced to carving out a tailcone.

I got done before he did.