Day 53 - January 26, 2013

After six hours of work on the landing gear service bulletin for the TeenFlight 1 airplane, we got the gear back on and all the bolts torqued down.

On the TeenFlight 2 airplane we continued to route the engine control cables.  They are almost ready to be attached to the carburetors. 

The next step in the lower cowling process was to apply an aluminum heat shield to the inside of the lower cowling half in the places that come close to the hot parts of the engine.  After pressing down the sticky-back of the heatshield to the fiberglass we spread a coat of resin along the edges of the shield to make sure they do not peel up.

We also routed the oil hoses.  That plumbing is almost done except for one hose.

Day 52 - January 19, 2013

After taking off the lower cowling half, we extracted the clecoes from the dried resin and inspected the bonding work.  It set up very nicely and formed a nice thick bond between the cowl half, the cooling duct, and the cooling duct interface.

 

One of the students routed the engine control cables.  They are not hooked up to the engine yet, but are all in place and ready for attaching.

 

 

As one of the finishing steps in the control systems, we tightened and verified the tension of the elevator control cables.  In order to adequately set a neutral point for the control stick, the plans called for clamping it to a piece of wood that ran the width of the cockpit.

 

 

We also moved along with progress on the landing gear service bulletin for the TeenFlight 1 airplane.  

 

 

 



Day 51 - January 12, 2013

On Thursday this past week, a couple of the TeenFlight mentors flew the TeenFlight 1 airplane from its current home at the Aurora State Airport to the TeenFlight 2 hangar at the Hillsboro Airport so that we could perform the required surgery on the landing gear to satisfy the latest service bulletin for the RV-12.

So on Saturday, we had two airplanes in the hangar ready for us to work on.

 

In order for the lower cowling half (with the cooling duct attached) to slip into its correct place, the exhaust pipe had to be trimmed to four inches below the cowling.  It dulled out the cutting disc pretty fast, but the sparks were pretty neat.  

 

 

 Beginning the service bulletin on the finished airplane was a little different than modifying the partially completed aircraft.  We had to drain the brake lines, and even though we though we could get away without removing the fuel tank, in the end it turned out to be a safer bet to remove it temporarily so that a drill bit did not find its way into it.

 

We also worked all day on the lower cowling cooling duct so that we could epoxy and glass it into the lower cowling half at the end of the day.  As always with fiberglass, it was a messy experience, although the end product looked very nice (when we locked up at the end of the day, the epoxy was still drying so we shall see what the finished product looks like next week).

 

One of the last steps in completing the exhaust system is to fill the springs with RTV.

 

 

More to come next week from the TeenFlight Crew!



Day 50 - January 5, 2013

After taking a weekend off over the holiday break, we were ready to get back to work!

Our main focus now is the firewall forward section of the airplane.  However a couple of the students went around with a mentor and completed minor tasks to the airframe and its constituent components as to satisfy our "Squawk Sheet".  Besides that, the propeller crew continued making progress on the spinner assembly by using pieces of fiberglass to fill the empty space on the spinner between where the propeller blade root meets the propeller hub and the spinner mounting plate.

We also began fitment of the lower cowling cooling duct which will provide a fresh breeze to the radiator and the oil cooler.

The exhaust system was installed in its spot under the engine.

We changed the brake fluid in the brake lines but were still not able to flush all of the bubbles out of the system.

Some of the students scrubbed the fuel tank with scotch-brite in preperation for a coat of paint.

More next week from the TeenFlight Crew!