Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Canopy Fiber Trimming continued

After investigating a few builder's sites, I conclude that there is no standard way to trim the fiber arm regarding the covering of the cavity behind the pivot bolt. Here are a few examples of trimmings:







Conclusion: you are on your own, do your best to make it look good and clear of interference.

Friday, May 4, 2012

What about an electric powered RV-12?

Dick Van Grunsven must have already mulled this idea...
I believe the RV-12 is a good platform for it: lots of room for batteries in the tank and firewall forward areas once you get rid of the Rotax. Plus at $27K for the engine, you can buy lots of batteries with the money left after buying a $5K electric motor.

Major firms join electric aircraft discussion

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

A bad start after a nice vacation break!

Returning from a nice Spring break in Hawaii, I got back to my canopy fiber work, sanding and filling and sanding etc... Then came the trimming time and here is the result:

Left side looks fine, the cavity behind the front arm is well closed:



Right side is bungled, there is a gap, oh nooooo! :



Warning for other builders: my mistake was to trust the trimming template provided by VANs. Not that there is anything wrong with it (as Seinfeld would say) but you have to be careful in the positioning of the template. I was off 1/8 of an inch vertical and horizontal. I will need help to make the repair (as I did for the initial fiber layout) but it's doable as fiber is easy to repair... with time and patience.
I believe that VANs is a bit light on instructions concerning fiber work and they could have warned about this potential pitfall.