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.
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).
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!
It is great to see Safety Glasses worn during the grinding of the exhaust extension and exciting to see both TF aircraft getting attention from your team at Hillsboro.
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