Today was another day of intense work, but this time we focused on specific areas instead of bouncing around. Tracy worked on the wingtips for most of the day, and I was working on the door assembly. While we were doing that, the Glasair team was wailing away on our engine, windshield, and autopilot systems, to name a few! Here are some pics from today:
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The first thing Tracy worked on today was the aileron servo
tab. This tab on our left aileron
serves to assist aileron travel during flight by helping the aileron act like a
‘mini-wing’ in the airstream. It’s
all mechanical, determined by the inclination of the tab relative to the
position of the aileron. For
further explanation…come visit and we’ll show you! All kidding aside, this is one of the parts of the aircraft
that has to be just right for the airplane to be perfectly rigged. Tracy was adjusting it to a tolerance
of less than a millimeter. If our
airplane is out of rig inflight (one wing feels heavier than the other), we may
have to go back and readjust.
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Tracy also did the final checks & torque seals on our
flaps and ailerons. Sounds
easy…but getting a wrench in there is a pain. That lone jam nut on the pushrod (the one you can see
through the lightening hole) took about 30 minutes.
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Once she was done with that, Tracy worked on the wingtips
for the rest of the day. These are
aerodynamic caps that go on the wing spar ends; they also house our landing
lights, strobes, and position lights.
They take time because we have to custom-fit them to our wings, then
position the lights just right and run the electrical.
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Part of the wing build was pre-routing the electrical wires
for the wingtips. They go down
through the strut to the fuselage.
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Here’s the inside of the wingtip with Tracy’s electrical
work. Looks pretty simple but
takes awhile to put together right!
The angle of the landing light has to be perfect. Luckily, if we need minor adjustments
these are fairly easy to take off. Knowing Tracy these won't need any adjustment at all!
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Here’s the wingtip from the front. You can see the landing light—it is a High Intensity
Discharge (HID) light with about 5x the power of an incandescent landing light. A little pricey, but makes night
landings safer! On the right you
can see the nearly flush position light/strobe fixture. These are LEDs.
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While Tracy was doing that, Bryce and I were working on the
left side door—pretty much all day.
The latch mechanism on the Sportsman is ingenious but takes some time to
get everything fit right.
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Here’s the door opening with the watertight gasket set
in. If you look closely you can
see three cylinders in the frame—one top left, one top right, one near the bottom
on the right. In the Sportsman,
when you close the door it latches in to all three of these cylinders
simultaneously—creating a nice tight door seal.
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I only look mildly happy in this picture because the door
took so long! In truth, I am
ecstatic—we are still having a great time!!
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Last thing of the day—peeling the tape off the door window
after applying the silicone.
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All day today, the Glasair team was hooking us up with major
airframe installs. Here, Tyler is
form-fitting our windshield. The
process for this is ‘simple:’ Fit,
mark, shave a little, fit, mark, shave a little….Tyler was at this most of the
day. Thanks buddy.
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Ryan was awesome walking Tracy through the wingtip install.
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Matt worked most of the day on our engine install. You’re looking at the throttle assembly
on our Sportsman. Like I said
yesterday, it’s all mechanically actuated—but that means there are some
important fits to do. The stops on
the throttle must align exactly with the lever placement in the cockpit—which
requires a lot of precise metalwork to design the stops.
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Last, I walked up to the airplane this afternoon and the
autopilot servos were installed! I
think Bryce did it in between door work.
The servos are simple—electric motors hooked up to cables, which are in
turn attached directly to our flight control cables. Cool!
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