On the wing

Posted on June 30, 2019 by dsetser

Now that I’m done with transition training, I’m all fired up to finish the Mighty RV. So..let’s get those wings on!

The promise of beer and burgers made it easy to co-opt some of my flying and/or RV-buidling friends to come over to the ThermosWorks on Saturday. The wings aren’t particularly heavy, but a few extra pairs of hands come in handy when trying to maneuver the wing spar into it’s slot in the fuselage.

Mark Masse (RV-7 builder) and Rich Snyder (RV-8 builder) work the left wingtip up, down, left and right while Mike Henning (RV-4 builder/flyer) guide the spar into the fuselage and Burt Wadas (best friend) positions tapered stainless steel pins to align bolt holes.

Almost done…there are two close-tolerance bolts inserted now, enough to hold the wing in place til the rest of the bolts are installed.

Onto the right wing…same process, but much faster the time.

You can’t see him in this picture, but Bob DiMeo (RV-8 builder/flyer and my Technical Counselor) is waiting to insert tapered pins in while Burt and I position the wing spar.

Fast forward an hour or so…the wings are in place and all bolts inserted. Everyone who has a gut is sucking it in for this picture!

After burgers and beer, Ellen and I pushed the Mighty RV out into the sun for some pictures. Beautiful, ain’t it?

Another picture, I knew you’d ask for it.

And finally, a really nice shot captured by Ellen. This is a big day in the life of the project – we’re a huge step closer to flying!

Transition training time

Posted on June 29, 2019 by dsetser

I’m not good at forecasting completion dates for the Mighty RV, but I took a chance on being done this Summer/early Fall and booked transition training with Mike Seager this week in Vernonia, Oregon in the factory RV-7 trainer, N477RV.

Vernonia Municipal (05S) is beautiful and quiet grass strip with only a few hangars.

I put off my airline and lodging reservations as long as I could – probably a little too long. It’s not particularly easy to find a place to stay in Vernonia, but my wife came across a really great place on Airbnb that’s only a mile or two from the airport…

Tamara and her family are great hosts, and their guest suite is spacious, quiet and comfortable. I highly recommend you check it out if you’re traveling to Vernonia for training with Mike!

The first flight on 26 June was a short intro flight from Vernonia to Scappoose (KSPB)…

Turns out that my first landing in Scappoose was one of only a few really good landings I made that week!

The second flight on 26 June consisted of air work – steep turns, slow flight, power off/on stalls – and several touch-and-gos at Scappoose. N477RV had only recently been updated with an Advanced Flight Systems glass cockpit including ADS-B Out and In.

The RV-7 is easy to fly, but there’s definitely a learning curve when transitioning from a slower, less-responsive airplane. Control forces are significantly lighter, and gentle nudges on the stick quickly replace larger movements used on garden-variety Pipers and Cessnas. The RV is less speed-stable than I expected – a known characteristic – so Mike teaches trimming for pitch attitude rather than speed and that seems to work well. Stall characteristics are fairly benign, with a slightly sharper break but fast recovery with pitch reduction and/or power addition. Rapid application of power at low airspeeds can produce pronounced torque roll which was an eye-opener at first, but I quickly became used to it. Power-off descent rates are relatively high, in the vicinity of 800 feet per minute in this airplane equipped with a constant-speed prop.

I’m a relatively low-time taildragger pilot, but I found the RV-7 easier to land than the Citabria I’ve been flying. The RV’s large rudder requires less movement to keep the airplane pointed in the right direction, and its wide-stance landing gear and low wing make crosswind landings less challenging than the Citabria.

After ten stop-and-gos at SPB, I was pretty much cooked for the morning of the 27th. Fortunately, Mike had me scheduled for flights right after breakfast and lunch each day, so I had a lot of time in the afternoon to relax.

Weather on the afternoon of 27 June was challenging…there were showers and thunderstorms moving through the area so we took some detours to stay legal as we worked our way back to Vernonia.

Blah

Lots more touch-and gos on the morning of 28 June. At this point I thought I was improving nicely, but the afternoon was to prove me wrong…

We headed over to Astoria (KAST) for some crosswind landings on the last flight of my transition training. I can’t say that these were the best landings I ever made, but Mike patiently worked me through my mistakes.

My RV grin is in full force. Mike is a wonderful instructor – patient and easy to work with while training to high standards. I’m certain that I’m not the best student that Mike has ever had, but I’m pretty sure I’m not the worst and I definitely felt very comfortable flying the RV-7. I couldn’t wait to get back and finish up the Mighty RV!

Back to the wings

Posted on June 24, 2019 by dsetser

I’m working on preparing the wings for final installation, and one task that’s easier to perform now is installation of the Garmin GSA-28 autopilot roll servo. Nothing too tricky here, the G3x installation manual covers the process nicely. I’ve had this servo sitting around for a couple of years and it took a bit of searching to find the necessary parts.

One gotcha…in the past, Garmin claimed that their servo was compatible with mounting brackets from other manufacturers but that turned out not to be the case. I had originally installed an Advanced/Dynon servo bracket, because way back when I built the wings I was planning to use their avionics.

Turns out that the Garmin servo *isn’t* compatible with Dynon’s brackets, so I had to swap it for the one from the GSA-28 install kit. This won’t be a big deal for anyone who’s installing a servo from scratch, but if you’re swapping from another manufacturer, be prepared for a little extra work.

Full flaps

Posted on June 21, 2019 by dsetser

Continuing on with avionics and cockpit wrap-up, I had to install a microswitch that tells the angle-of-attack (AoA) computer when the flaps are down. Flap deployment changes the coefficient-of-lift curve and so for the AoA computer to work properly, it needs to know when the flaps are down.

The only place I could think of for the switch was right at the front of the flap arm, which is at its lowest point when the flaps are up. I thought I’d do something really spiffy and adjustable…

…but that didn’t work so well because the bracket (dark grey thing with the black switch attached) was too long and interfered with the elevator pushrod.

Going back to the drawing board, I put a 90-degree bend in the bracket and rotated the switch so that it’s activated by the flap arm clevis. Works great, and there’s enough play in the switch that I can adjust it later if necessary.

Turns out that was the easy part. This switch grounds a wire coming from the AoA computer, so I had to run a wire from it to the central ground block in the elevator pushrod tunnel. That took most of an evening, but it’s done and the AoA computer now shouts “flaps” through the intercom when the flap-down motor is activated.

And here’s the installed flap motor with a Deutsch DTM connector all ready for plugging in to flap power and position sensor inputs for the GEA-24 and GAD-27.

Tunnels and pumps

Posted on June 19, 2019 by dsetser

I found that all the wiring I’d run between the instrument panel and cockpit center section just wasn’t going to fit in the “tunnel” that covers up wiring, brake lines (for nosedragger RVs) and fuel lines running from the firewall and instrument panel to the fuselage center section. I had to modify the tunnel cover to relieve the 90-degree angle at its forward end and so create more room for wiring.

This bit of aluminum turns the tunnel’s 90-degree bend into two 45-degree bends and creates more room for wire.

Another picture? Sure!

That solved one problem in this area, but I still had another one – as I ran wiring from the tunnel to the center section I forgot to leave room behind the fuel selector for the J-shaped tube that connects it to the fuel filter/pump assembly. Oops.

The solution was to fabricate a bracket that moves the pump/filter up and forward enough to accommodate an L-shaped fuel line that doesn’t interfere with the wire bundles behind it.

The bracket attaches to the existing pump mounting holes in the tunnel cover. This created a challenging fuel line run from the pump outlet to the firewall but Tom Swearingen at TS Flightlines solved the problem with a well-crafted flexible fuel line with a 90-degree fitting on one end.

The end result – a tunnel that fits nicely in the fuselage and a pump/filter that connects nicely to the fuel selector.

Trimming the starboard stabilizing ailertooters

Posted on June 9, 2019 by dsetser

I have an unfortunate tendency to communicate in movie quotes, so bonus points to you if you can identify the “starboard stabilizing ailertooter” reference without using Google, Bing or some other internet search megalith.

No, the Mighty RV doesn’t have ailertooters but it does have ailerons and that’s what prompted the title. One of the last bits of cockpit work is installing the aileron trim motor; I fitted the bracket way back when I was building the fuselage center section and all that was left was to install the motor and connect it to the flight controls.

I didn’t take any in-process pictures, so all you get to see is the final product. The trim motor is under the square white bracket in the lower center of this picture. It drives a lever that’s connected to the control sticks with springs which are adjusted to be in just enough tension that the motor can move the sticks but not significantly affect roll control feel.

Drawing current

Posted on June 7, 2019 by dsetser

So after finishing almost all of the avionics wiring, I came across a little warning in the Garmin installation manual that their engine monitor unit may not be able to provide enough current to the boxes that determine the amount of fuel in the tanks – a bit of potential non-coolness. But I have a piece of parchment on the wall that says I know something about electrical engineering, so I decided to run a quick to check on Garmin’s warning.

I popped the fuel level sender’s Deutsch connector apart, jumpered my multimeter into the power line and powered up the avionics. Voila…an accurate measurement of the sender’s current draw – 8 mA, which is significantly under the engine monitor’s max current level. Cool.

First RF

Posted on May 26, 2019 by dsetser

New telescopes have “first light”, the Mighty RV’s avionics had “first RF” today.

I powered up the panel – both GPS receivers came up in 3D differential, Sirius/XM is begging for a subscription, tower and ATIS on the comm radios, and there’s even ADS-B In traffic on the G3x to boot. Cool.

The end of Act 1

Posted on May 20, 2019 by dsetser

I decided that my time as an Air Force civilian was complete; it’s time to move on to Act 2. Lots of friends and family joined me for the retirement ceremony, including my friends and fellow QBs Don McPherson and Vince Orlando who joined me in a dram of the Blue Label.

My sister and her family flew in from Kentucky and we had a great time at a Sox game. The Sox obviously didn’t know that VIPs were in attendance and had the unmitigated gall to lose the game.