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. 

Just Fueling Around

Every now and then, I do something completely pointless. As was the case today when I took Co-pilot Egg car shopping, which in itself was anything but pointless. Where the frivolity came in was when I succumbed to the temptation to test drive a brand new 2012 Miata. Some of you may understand the poignancy of that; I still bereave the loss of my own 1996 Miata last year. Driving a brand new one could do nothing to salve the pain of my lost friend, but Oh, what a wonderful little car!

The newer models are far more refined than my early vintage. All of the little annoyances have been smoothed away, albeit at the cost of some of the nimbleness and the feeling of oneness with the road. But look at this picture and tell me that there's none of the original spirit of the car still inhabiting the newest version:

So, what were some of the trifling flaws of my car? Well, mostly the canvas convertible top. It was loud, it was a pain to put up and down because of the zippered, plastic rear window, and it was hard to see out of with the top up, again because of the rear window. And then there was the finicky tonneau cover that was supposed to protect the plastic window from sun damage - it was such a hassle to put on and take off that I seldom used it. Oh, and driving in the winter with just canvas between me and the hostile elements? Ugh!

Now consider the new way they do it:

Better, right? A lot better! Twelve seconds, total. And from inside the car! Anyone that has spent interminable minutes on the side of a freeway in pouring rain trying to get the top up on a 1996 Miata will understand the significance of that.

I am so sold on this car! It's just a damn shame I can't afford it. Still, some day, maybe....

But in the interim, I have an airplane to build. Yesterday I spent a couple of hours finishing up the installation of the fuel door while Pete continued to whittle away at the two parts that will comprise the tail cone. The installation of the fuel door starts with cutting the hole for it in the top cowling. That was easily accomplished with the trusty Dremel tool.

The door itself comes from the factory already bent to shape. It gets placed in position on the cowling and the holes in the cowling that will host the AirLoc fasteners are match-drilled through the holes in the door. Then an odd looking hooked part gets riveted to the top edge of the door. This will be the hinge about which the door pivots.

The AirLoc receptacles are larger than the pin that feeds into them, so the holes in the cowling get drilled out to 1/2". The step bit makes short work of that.

I ran into a problem when it came time to rivet in the receptacles. I retrieved the little bag of AN426AD3-4.5 rivets, but there was a problem: they looked like they were too short to be 4.5 length rivets. I put a 4.0 rivet next to them, and sure enough, the 4.0 rivet was longer than the 4.5 length rivets. That would never do! I solved that problem by getting some 5.0 length rivets and grinding just a touch off of them on the ScotchBrite wheel.

Once that was done, it took only a minute or two to get the receptacles riveted in.

The pin-side of the AirLoc gets attached to the door with a star washer. I had a heck of a time getting the washer to fit over the barrel of the pin. I finally resorted to using a socket to push on the washer.

And there it was. Beautiful! Except for one small yet critical detail: it wouldn't open!

I had to take it all back apart and drill out the holes that the pivot bolts fit through - the fit was just too tight to allow the hinge to pivot on them.

I couldn't wait to get the top cowling back on the airplane and pretend to check the oil level!

Even with one of the wings removed, it's really starting to look done!