Hello Everyone & Happy Friday!
First, some non-airplane building business--congratulations to the Bold Tigers for getting to resume flying ops!! It's about time...wish i were flying with you guys but them's the breaks. And, we've got a pretty good thing going on here...
...today was the Arlington Airshow, so I've included some pictures. Our airplane work was light today to accommodate the show, but we did get the rudder up on the tail and got the main gear legs fit. Here we go...
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| Here's the rudder up on the tail section. Matt and I are adjusting the stops to make sure the rudder deflection is even and to the right amount (25deg plus or minus 1deg). |
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| In order to adjust the stops, we did some metalwork on a steel bracket attached to the bottom of the rudder. As the rudder turns, the bracket swivels and hits the bulkhead--that's what governs the rudder travel. |
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| Also on the tail, we drilled the holes that will eventually hold the tailwheel steering cables. The oblong holes through the fuselage were fun to drill and required a pre-made jig to line up the placement correctly. The hose that holds and protects the cable is held on with a fiberglass layup that we mixed up and sculpted. |
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| This is the inside of the tailcone now. The wire is temporary while the fiberglass dries--tomorrow or Monday we will insert the tailwheel steering cables there. |
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| Our main gear is in now! Note the big gap between the aerodynamic fairing on the gear leg and the fuselage. That's on purpose--we will use these same legs when we are tailwheel-configured. when the main gear moves forward in the tailwheel configuration, it will sit on a different part of the fuselage and be flush. |
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| This is the view of the gear strut sitting inside the roll cage and secured. The main gear is made of high-carbon steel and required a special drill bit to drill the hole. We took our time--the clearance tolerance for the bolt is around 1/1000th of an inch, so the hole has to be perfect on this one. |
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| Airshow day! This picture isn't airshow-specific, but I thought it was funny. The front plane is a Sportsman that is complete and flying, and will be painted and flown to OshKosh this summer. The back plane is a DC-3 (also C-47). We are told it was Ronald Reagan's transport when he was campaigning for Governor of California. It has not flown or moved positions since 1995...so we see it every day here. |
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| Kitplane owners band together & go places together. These airplanes all flew in to the Glasair BBQ for various hellos. In front is a Van's RV-10 belonging to Advanced Flight Systems, the company that makes our instrument panel. I told the owner: "Nice RV-10!" He said: "thanks...but my wife wants a Sportsman!" The yellow bird is an RV-4A. In back is a Piper Cub painted Army green. |
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| We didn't make it over to the airshow side of the ramp, but still got a fine display. You can see all the tents and booths across the runway. Performing behind a Sportsman is a Yak-52. |
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| Another airshow shot. Good weather for it! |
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| Our work area turned into a party at around 5 o'clock. A lot of Glastar & Sportsman builders came in to say hello...some from as far as Canada. It was funny to see so many people looking at our 4-day-old airplane just to see what the latest innovations are and how our build is going. We are about to become part of a great little community. |
That's it for today! Tomorrow will be a slow work-day (only 2 Glasair employees and us) but we hope to have the wings up and maybe the landing gear ready to go anyway! I'll still post our efforts to keep you updated. Have a great weekend! -zen
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