Day 29 - April 14, 2012

Today was one of the first weeks of true spring weather for us.  We threw open some of the windows and let the sunshine and warm breeze in!  There was talk of opening the hanger door for the next future sessions, though that could be a bit of a challenge considering that most of the door has been sitting in the same position for close to fifty or more years.  It has rusted to its track over time.

The landing gear came back from being painted and that assembley has been taken care of. It has not yet been installed however because of the effort still being concentrated on the wiring inside the fuselage.  After the wiring is done, it will permit the fuselage to be turned-right-side-up and the landing gear, tail feathers, control cables, seat backs, seat belts, and avionics can be installed.

These are the two main gear completely assembled with the tires, brakes, and legs.

The nose gear is not a steerable mechanism, so the ground manuvering is done solely by rudder at higher speeds and by differential braking at low speeds. (e.g. to turn left, the left brake is actuated.  This stops the left wheel and turns it into a pivot point that the entire aircraft rotates around.)  The nosewheel castors within a sixty to ninety degree range.

The visible parts of the wing attachment pins were painted, and they were nearly completely assembled.

More wiring.

These are the right wing strobe and navigation lights.  Since it is the right wing, the navigation light is green.  The strobe light is the aft portion of the light and the forward portion is the navigation light.  As with the landing light, it is also an LED.  It is BRIGHT!

Final drilling of the wingtip for the light attachment fairing.

To be continued.

Day 28 - April 7, 2012

The last two weeks have been a little bit slower than normal as far as progress is concerned.  Week 26 and 27 were mostly spent attaching the instrument panel.  They began on the fuselage wiring, and installed the brake lines.

Here is the progress that the TeenFlight crew made on the build today:

The problem children of the project have been the flaperons, with many restarts done to ensure correct assembly.

A team worked on the tires, inner tubes, brakes, and axles.

The most complex job of the day was the wiring.  We fed in and mostly installed the main fuselage wire bundles.

After weeks of struggle, the wingtip navigation and strobe light composite fairing was adhered to the wingtip.

Shown here is the landing light that was also installed.

This is the "high-tech" way of testing the lights to make sure that they work.

Finally, here is the line of RVs that the mentors flew in today.  It was in the  60's, 10-20 miles visibility with light and variable winds.

More to come next week.



Day 25.5 - March 21, 2012

This week's midweek session was tonight with five students that showed up to get in some extra-curricular building time. 
I was so focusesd on building that I did not take many pictures, but there was still progress:

The hole that was not filled in with a rivet behind the gascolator was filled and the gascolator was re-attached.

One of the students worked with a mentor more on the left wing's light fixtures.

Two of the students continued with one of the flaperons.

The other two students completed the final assembly on the rudder pedals and then attached them to the fuselage.

(sorry about the sideways picture)

<----DOWNUP---->

Day 25 - March 17, 2012

Well, the fuselage came back from Van's Aircraft with a proficient paint job that looks very nice.  As the picture shows it is a medium, semi-gloss gray that sort of reminds me of a Navy gray.   That step being kindly taken care of, we moved ahead with progress on the fuselage.

The upper-forward-fuselage saw lots of work.  It was prosealed to the lower-forward-fuselage and the longerons. 

The team working on the wing almost finished it and successfully installed the wing tip.  The optional lighting kit was opened and a custom hole was cut in the wing tip to allow the mounting of the navigation and strobe position lights.

And here is the inspection panel for the left wing.

  

I hate to say this, but I think the previous generations are finally starting to get infected with the technology thing.

Uh oh... IT WAST'T ME (I hope)...

It was a proseal kind of day with more of it being mixed for construction of the fuel tank.

This was a short demonstration at the end of the day on how the fuel tank will be attached in a few weeks.

I will not be at TeenFlight for the next two Saturday work sessions (I will be in Honduras on a mission trip) therefore I will not be updating the blog.

Our sights are set on flying by June.

Day 24 - March 10, 2012

So day 24 was actually split into two parts: a midweek Tuesday session, and the normal Saturday session.

Tuesday was the rumored scotch-brite party.  It went well and was attended by three of the team members and the team leader.  We accomplished what we were hoping to and completely prepped the fuselage for paint.  The fuselage was shipped to the Van's Aircraft factory in Aurora on Wednesday to be painted in the prototype shop, but it was not begun until Friday and therefore not at TeenFlight for us to work on on Saturday.

Notice the "roughed up" look that the scotch-brite leaves on the otherwise polished aluminum skins.  This helps the primer and paint to stick.

Proseal for the steps and the beginning work on the fuel tank.

Proseal is probably about the coolest adhesive on earth!

Left: The antenna shaped piece of proseal came from the applicator tip (pictured above).

Right: The left over proseal was discharged into an old cup and rivet stems were added for rigidity to make a sort of hockey-puck.

Isn't this just a teenager's heaven? (and maybe inspiration?) 

The Saturday session went very close to normal with maybe not quite as much progress.  Last week the team riveted one of the left wing skins onto the wing, although this week they decided to take it back off again because of a dent in it.  This meant drilling out upwards of 200 rivets and potentially damaging the wing ribs.  However this didn't happen and everything turned out alright.  One mentor had the oversight to even supply an extra skin, so very minimal production time was lost. 

More work on the fuel tank was completed.

Because the fuselage had not yet been returned, other projects saw some attention, such as this right  flaperon.

    

    

Finally, it was amazing how clean we could make the hanger look if we dedicated ten minutes to some clean-up.

There will be no midweek session this week however the fuselage should be back for work by Saturday.

Our sights are still set on flying by late June.

Day 24 - March 3, 2012

Although I did not post anything new for it, the TeenFlight crew had its first midweek session last Wednesday.  It was attended by Me, Myself, and I.  In three hours, all that I was able to accomplish, was riveting the tailcone to the center fuselage section, and buttoning up the underside of the airplane.

Saturday: It is getting tighter all of the time to put in rivets in some places.

The rear window was fitted and clecoed onto the fuselage/tailcone section.  Some modeling heat guns were found in the back of the hanger and were propped up inside the fuselage to heat the fiberglass so that it will mold better and quicker.  It was a fine balance though, for we had to make sure not to melt the protective adhesive paper onto the fiberglass for good!

We got the privelage to have Van's RV-12 fly in (with Van).

Even though it was in the LOW 40's our brave patron and friend Mr. Millar flew his DeHavilland Tiger Moth unexpectedly to TeenFlight during our lunch time.

The left wing started to be sheeted and the bottom skins recieved some rivets.

Our RV-12 did its first knife edge for the installation of some of the fuel lines.

Our fearless leader kindly bestowing on all of us (students and mentors alike) his self-proclaimed "rant".

There is a rumor about the inside of the fuselage receiving its share of paint on Wednesday at Van's Aircraft, and therefore a prepping and scotch-briting party on Teusday.

Stay tuned for details next weekend!