Thursday & Friday--We have a plane! And fog!

Hello everyone--thanks for checking in!

Thursday and Friday we put the final touches on the airplane to get it ready to fly.  Although the weather held us on the ground for most of the week, we were able to get a break Friday and get some flying in.  Then, we started fixing 'squawk' items--things about the airplane that aren't exactly as they should be.  Here's the photo recap:

Thursday morning, this is what our interior looked like!  It's a lot closer to a flying state than it looks.

The reason our interior was in such disarray was an antenna/cable we had to install in the belly of the airplane.  This is the Marker Beacon antenna--a piece of Instrument Flight equipment that we will probably never use, but is required by the FAA for us to be certified to fly instrument approaches.  The antenna routes under the flight control cables right back by Bulkhead "A".

Meanwhile, Tyler was putting our cargo pod up.  This is only the second cargo pod Glasair has done, so they are still working out kinks in the assembly/design.  They're doing a great job, though!

We thought we might have a fly window on Thursday, so Ben gave the 'all hands on deck' call.  I like this photo with all the feet surrounding the airplane.  Truly a team effort.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to fly Thursday (see the fog in the background!), but the plane was done enough to call it 'complete.'  Here's our Glasair team photo--from left to right:  Tyler, Ben, Eric, Tracy, Ryan, Matt, Tyson.  Missing is Bryce, who wasn't there that day.

And here's our cheesy key handoff photo!

Friday morning we got to fly her and get our taildragger checkout (now why didn't i get pictures of that?).  Then we went right back to work!  Our airplane had a slight tendency to roll left, so Glasair helped us do something about it.  We disconnected the right wing and changed the angle of incidence by about 1/32."  Here, Ryan and I are holding part of the weight of the wing while it is disconnected at the root.

Meanwhile, Tyler and these sawhorses are keeping the outboard side steady.

This is the bolt we used to change the incidence angle of the wing.  We just changes washer size & placement to move this triangular bracket around 1/32."  Then we put it all back together, flew again, and--voila!  She flies true!

Okay everyone, thanks for checking in!  This weekend we will be flying off some solo time, and hope to get some good photos of that!  See you soon!

Wednesday 23 Oct--Teamwork, baby.

Hello again everyone!

Well, the bad news is, we didn't git'er'dun today--but it wasn't for lack of effort.  Today was a great 'all hands on deck' day by the Glasair crew, with everybody pitching in hard to reach a complete aircraft.  I didn't have time for a lot of pictures, but here are some of today's highlights:

We began this morning with the wings folded back.  Here, Tracy is re-connecting the fuel lines to the main left wing tank.

While the wings were back, i put on our inboard vortex generators.  It's funny how such a small piece of metal has such a big effect on airflow and stall characteristics.

Matt, one of the Glasair employees, was a true hero today.  Here he is rigging our flight controls after we put the wings back in place.

Meanwhile, Tyler was throwing the wheel pants on.  If you've never heard of 'wheel pants,' well, they reduce drag caused by the wheels in the airstream, and with them on we gain about 5-7 knots of speed.  They are depicted, assembled, below.

Here is Matt putting the speed fairing on the lower strut.  It's the nice curvy piece of plastic around the strut/fuselage connection.

Here's the first look we've had of the plane with the full cowl on.  Except for the cargo pod and wingtips, the exterior is complete!

So like I said, not too many pictures today (sorry!).  But, the exterior surfaces are mostly done.  We are hanging up on the interior a little due to not having a couple of antenna cables we need routed.  One of the antenna cables goes near the flight control cables, so we have to dismantle a lot of the interior to ensure it's routed without interference.  Time-consuming, but worthwhile!!

With some elbow grease and a little bit of luck, everything will come together tomorrow.  We should finish the interior by about 9 or 10, then have the wings and cargo pod done by noon--and if the weather is good, we might fly tomorrow afternoon!

Thanks for checking in--see you tomorrow!

Tuesday--wings & flight controls

Hello all, happy Tuesday!

We made a big push on the plane today but are not quite done yet!  Today's focus was mostly on the wings and flight control surfaces, with a lot of random work done...well, because it was there!

Here are some photos:

Today we got right to work putting the wings on.  Before that we had to prepare the wing struts.  This is the left wing strut, with the electrical & antenna cables run back through it.  for paint, all the wires were disconnected and stored inside the fuselage.

Here Tracy and i are fixing the strut placement.  In truth, Matt--one of the Glasair employees--was directing the show, and i had time to take this picture when he scampered off to get the correct bolt.

Part of our finished airplane is speed fairings for all the surfaces.  This fairing covers the top of the strut.  The fairings reduce drag around some of the otherwise aerodynamically awkward pieces of the plane.  In addition to the fairings, you can clearly see the aluminum L-bracket on the inboard strut bolt.  Its purpose?  Simple--it's a tie-down point for the airplane.

Once the wings were on, we reattached the flaps and ailerons.  This is easy in concept but difficult in practice, as the tolerances for these surfaces are around 1/32".  Each aileron has about 20 washers and spacers to make sure all the distances from the bearings & connection points are correct.  It took about an hour per aileron for just 3 bolts and all the accompanying hardware.

After the flight control surfaces went on the wings, we began the wing fold.  The wing fold is to ensure tolerances are still right after paint, and also to hook up the fuel and electrical lines (they are easier to manipulate with the wings folded back).  We will finish this tomorrow.

One of the random events going on today was the installation of the flap position detector switch.  It's the little black square immediately aft of the flap handle track, and has a black wire (sensor) and white wire (ground) coming out of it through the back of the flap handle.  This is part of the Angle of Attack system, which we decided to get for the plane after we started out initial build--that's why it's just going on now.  In addition to pressure sensors in the wings, the AoA includes this flap switch and adjusts its AoA sensitivity based on the flap position.

Okay, one more day down!  There are a lot of little tasks to get done tomorrow, so hopefully i have a lot of pictures.  Keep your fingers crossed for a finished airplane!

Back to work--new paint, old tricks!

Hello all!

Yesterday was a productive workday that made us feel as if we hadn't left the factory at all.  When we arrived at Glasair, all the airplane parts were there except the fuselage, which we picked up around 10 o'clock from the painter.  Then we started putting everything back in its place!  Here are some of the things we worked on:

Before we went over to get the fuselage, we put anti-chafe tape all along the flap tracks on the wings.  This tape prevents paint-to-paint contact between the flaps and wing coves.  You can't see the placement well in this picture but it goes right on the trailing edge of the wing.

Over at the paint shop, we saw the final pieces Jeff is prepping for us.  This is our left wingtip.  It has just been clearcoated and is ready for polish.

Here is our cargo pod!  It is fairly spacious with about a 1' tall, 2.5' wide door.  It will hold up to 250 pounds, and attaches to the bottom of the fuselage with 24 screws.

The fuselage was outside in the fairly standard Seattle area weather.  I missed a picture of it, but Ben Rauk (our build team lead from Glasair) towed it across the airfield with a Toyota 4-Runner.

We spent a good portion of our day taping the windows up for sealing.  The windows have to be taped on both sides for the final seal, and we're looking for less than 1/32" error all the way around.  The straight parts are easy, but the curves take awhile.

Here is a shot of the right-side door with a finished 'swipe' of silicone--we've just pulled all the tape off it.  The windshield has finished tape and is ready to swipe tomorrow morning.

We also did an oil change and put the prop spinner on.

Later in the day, Jeff came over to put out tail numbers on.  They are a high-quality vinyl which should last the life of the airplane.

It's official!

The only major flight control surface to go on today was the horizontal stabilizer (pictured) and elevator (not pictured).  Tomorrow--wings, wheel pants, & fairings!  We also have a ton of interior work to do to put the guts of the plane back together.  Can't wait--we should be flying--weather permitting--by Wednesday!

Hello Everyone, & welcome back!

We've arrived back in Washington and are about to go back to work tomorrow.   In our absence, the Glasair team and the paint team (Aerocoating, here at Arlington Municipal) have done a huge amount of work getting the plane configured, painted, and ready for tomorrow.   Here's a summary of the work they've done:

After we left Arlington in August, the Glasair team set about disassembling the plane to send it to paint.  This is the last picture we got of the airplane before it left the Glasair hangar to get over to Aerocoating.  In addition to disassembling, they finished up a lot of the things we didn't have time to do while we were there.  First, they put the plane back to tailwheel configuration.  They also fit the cargo pod to the bottom, and installed the back seat.  In this photo you can see the back seat (it faces backward, so you're looking at the back of the bench). 

This is the rendering we gave Jeff at Aerocoating.  Jeff has been fantastic and worked with us every step of the way on paint--both color and scheme.

Here is the plane with primer on it, and the white coat done on the bottom.  The blue stripe is painter's tape--the beginning outline for the eventual black stripe between red and white.  To paint, Jeff and his team started with white, laid up the black, and then the red.

Here is the black coat with more detail laid out in the striping.

Jeff was great about the exact placing of the stripes and getting what we want out of the paint scheme.  For a 4-day stretch he texted us every night with updated photos.  Here are the outlines for the tail stripes, and...

...the draft of the stripe up by the nose.  Jeff sent us multiple ideas for stripe placement and width, until we got something all of us really liked.

Along the way, Jeff was sending us photos of all the parts we're soon to be putting back on.  Here is the right wing.

And here is the finished fuselage, on a rare sunny fall day in Arlington!

Here's what the color looks like in the shade.  We wanted something a little darker than pure red, but still shiny in the sun.  This clearcoat did the trick, and Jeff and his team did a fantastic job!

So here we go!  The next couple of days we will be putting everything back together and get everything ready to fly.  We don't know exactly how long that'll take, but we hope to be flying by mid-week.  We'll post pics of the process and be sure to blog 'em...thanks for checking in!

Last 2 weeks' recap: Flying & Fixing

Hello everyone!

Bottom line up front--this will be the last airplane Blog until October, when we will be back in Arlington to pick up our plane.  When we get it, it will be complete--fully painted and ready to go.  Tracy and i plan to fly it from Arlington to North Carolina.  I'll resume the Blog in October to show the finished product, so check back then if you like!  You should be able to 'subscribe via email' to the blog if you want an alert--or better yet, just give either of us a shout to let us know you're interested, and we'll let you know!

Sorry I've been offline for awhile, but our last two weeks have been even busier than our first two!  We have been working towards getting the FAA-required 40 flight hours flown off our airplane, as well as fixing some "squawk" items--things that weren't quite right about the airplane that are within our control to fix.  Don't worry, mom--squawks are normal and our airplane is still very air-worthy!  Just think of it as fine-tuning the machine.

Our biggest squawk, unfortunately, was a leaky engine.  Our engine, built by Superior Air Parts in Texas, is a modified Lycoming.  It works great, but we found that some of the silicone gaskets in the accessory case were leaking.  It took us awhile to get to the cause...

This is the fuel pump with its gold-colored  heat shroud—coated in oil.   When we first got down to troubleshooting leaks, we estimated we were leaking about a cup of oil an hour—certainly not enough to impact our available oil (6 qts) but enough to make a nice mess in the engine bay.

This is the oil sump—the camera flash shows the sheen of oil and you can see the drips at the bottom.  We weren’t sure if the sump was a collection point for leaking oil or part of the cause—so we took out the plugs at the bottom, resealed them, and put them back in.  This required a full oil change with only 3 hours on the engine.

Over time the leaks built up a sheen of oil on the bottom of the plane.

Luckily, Glasair is a great company (and our engine has a warranty!) In this photo Jim is inspecting the engine with us.  With his help (along with Preston, Matt, and Ben!) we were able to reduce our leak to about a tbsp. per hour.  Glasair will have the leak entirely stopped when we come back to pick up the airplane.

The only other engine problem we’ve had is a one-time occurrence of a backfiring cylinder.  The culprit is this small piece of debris that worked its way into the fuel injection nozzle (the nozzle opening is about ball-point-pen-sized).  We cleaned out the injector line and haven’t had any more issues.  We’ve been confident enough in the motor to take it into mountainous terrain…see below!

 In addition to fixing our engine issues, we've still been working on getting the plane finished and ready for paint.  Here are some of our rainy-day modifications:

This piece of metal in the tail is our “tail pull”—basically a handle for moving the airplane around easily once it’s in tailwheel configuration.  Tracy and I cut the holes and fiberglassed this into place during a rainy morning this week.   Sorry I don’t have a picture of what it looks like from the outside…I’ll try to remember to get one in October!

While we were working on that, Jim put the cable covers & headphone jack inputs into the roof. 

 And of course--we did a lot of flying!!

Troubleshooting the avionics has been part of the 40 hours of flight test.  We had some problems with the magnetometer in our EFIS—in this picture I was shooting an approach to Orcas Island and the magnetic heading and GPS ground track are 40 degrees divergent because the magnetic heading kept drifting in the EFIS.  This requires a magnetometer calibration to fix—just the right digital wizardry.

This is a picture of everything going right!  For you GA performance junkies, this is the rough performance we’ll see from our finished product—about 135kts True Airspeed (145-ish MPH) on 10gallons per hour.  Quick math says around 15mpg.  Gadget & Holly, don’t know if we can quite keep up with you…but we’ll carry your gear.  Those figures are still good at our 1100lb usable-load limit.  :-)

When we’re not troubleshooting—well, we’re sightseeing!  It’s beautiful here.  This is Olympic National Park at sunset.

Point Roche at the San Juan Islands.

Mount Rainier—stunning.

Okay, that’s it—the last picture of our new toy before it goes to paint.   In the next two months, Glasair will fix all our squawks, weather-seal the plane, take it apart for paint, and put it back together for us to fly it away.  How’s that for a good deal?

It’s been a life-changing experience here and we look forward to sharing our stories with you!  Thanks for keeping up with the blog—hope you’ve enjoyed it!   We’ll run a few more posts in October, including our cross-country trip to take the plane home to North Carolina.  Hope to see you then!

Blue Skies,

Tracy & Eric