A Nice Nose Job...

After a few days of making dust from fiber glass, I finally took her new face out of the shop for the first time:

More work is still needed as everything is holding with Clecos. Now on to riveting the hinges to the fiber glass after a heavy countersinking session on the fiberglass, another first for me!
Note to builders:
I found the VANs instructions lacking on the fiber work needed to adjust the cowls. The shapes are complex and when you cut and/or trim to fit the cowls to the fuselage, it would help to have more precise instructions. You have to infer a lot and in hindsight, I would do things better now but ... too late. Some are minor annoyances, for example instructions tell you to mark the holes to be drilled on the hinges which I did. What they don't tell you is that these marks will be used when drilling with the fiberglass on top of them, well to be seen these marks have to be well drawn with contrast and... on the right side of the hinge (in my case they were on the wrong side!).
My overall rating on my cowl job: not bad for a first, will do better next time!

ELT installed and wired...

... but not tested! (who wants to test his ELT anyway?)
Here is my Emergency Locator Transmiter in its new home:

While I was working on the instructions from VANs, I kept thinking of Steve Fossett, go figure!

I also didsome work on my plane's paint scheme, thanks to a nice template provided by Bill Hollifield, a fellow builder. Here is how it looks so far (click on the picture to enlarge):

Restarting after long break!

From the Chesapeake Bay to the Appalachian mountains this break took almost a month. The good thing is that the summer heat is over and the temperature in the workshop more comfortable.
Aiming at painting the plane among other things, I took care of the modification of the flapperon's rivet obstruction mentioned earlier in this blog. Here is the result:
Before modification you can see the rivet on the wing attachment that is slightly ground:

After replacing the LP3-4 with a CS4-4 there should be enough clearance for the Flapperon:

This operation was repeated for the left wing.

I then started working on the ELT installation, just behind the passenger seat.

A Beautiful Control Panel

I am very proud of my control panel, could you imagine a full glass panel on an experimental LSA just a few years ago?

Here we are, not one steam gauge, all flight, engine, navigation information will appear on the 10" Dynon Skyview display.
And behind the control panel it's not bad either:

Everything is connectorized as explained in this presentation by VANs:
http://www.vansaircraft.com/public/FaceBook/RV-12ElectricalSystem-Skyview.pdf

Next big step will be the power on, but we will need the engine before that, just a few more months before we smoke these nice cables!
A good, gratifying step but still a lot to do as several of the harness seen fully connected in the control panel need to have their other end connected to some gismos that are not all installed.

A few tips for the builders:
- Retrofit harness or new harness?
If you already installed the previous version (D-180) harness, you will have the choice of undoing your wiring and use new harness or use the retrofit harness. This latter solution that I choose  creates some burden in the wiring and requires to think deeply, beyond just following the instructions that are not that detailed. You can see the result in the picture above: there are two additional connectors corresponding to the adaptation harness (you see them on the picture as they are the only connectors that are not plugged into a box). The few wires/harness that had to be passed into the tunnel to the tailcone were not that hard to route, thanks to the wise step Vans took to remove the static line to make room through the several bushings involved. I was concerned about routing back the static tube (which is now a pitot tube) but it worked well (I used a fishing steel line to go under the instrument panel as everything is very tight aroung the guide which collects all wires going to the tunnel).
Conclusion: if you already wired the old harness, do the retrofit

- Intercom: there are contradictiong instructions between Vans and Softcom and Softcom is right. It's about the fastening of the box to the panel. However once you install the two rotating buttons, they interfer with the screws. I had to trim the base of the buttons (put the button in your drill press chuck and use a file to grind the extra plastic off)

- Panel fasteners: with the previous avionics, the screws of choice were round heads with optional flat heads requiring countersinking. For the new avionics, Vans chose the flat heads but does not tell you to countersink the holes (there is a lot of them, all around the panel!). I think that the flat heads are a better choice for the look anyway so I went for them. I did the countersinking after the panels were painted (powder coated is best, I chose a black semi gloss with texture) and had no problem as this kind of paint is harder once cooked.

A letter from Richard Vangrunsven!

Just received a letter of congratulation from Van, authored (but unfortunately not hand signed) by Richard Vangrunsven for winning a finder's fee (check included!!!), the result of Paul Harding's nominating me as contributor to his decision to order an RV-12 kit. It's good to have at last a fellow RV-12 builder in the Research Triangle, I have been waiting this moment for two years!
You made my day, thank  you Paul and Dick!

Taking a break from building an RV-12...

... by flying another RV-12!

With fellow builder Kim, we had a rocky start with winds gusting at 20 MPH and the usual mountain wawes that are tough on LSAs:
http://youtu.be/bvPlT49LPKQ

Once at 5,000 feet, things got smoother:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDdCFDHMDh4&feature=plcp

Finally the Flaperon Torque Tubes are Drilled

With Anne help, we went for a delicate operation that I had postponed until the wing retrofit with the new electric plugs. On Friday we started installing the wings with the intent to drill the flaperon torque tubes. We faced a little problem, though. Right wing no problem, the connectors self aligned and the wing went right in. Left wing, no way to get it in completely, there was still 1/4 inch left to go and no way to go further. Looking at the connectors, although the guiding pins were engaged, it looked like the casings were colliding. After more checks, it appeared that the wing connector was upside down! Easy fix, unscrew and rotate connector 180 deg... Tried to put the blame on VANS... but page 31A-05 figure 3 warns: Caution: Orient connectors as shown.
My lame excuse: I was working with the wing upside down when installing the plug...

Here is the picture of the plug once fixed:

We had a storm coming and had just enough time to bring the wings and fuselage back into the workshop and stop for the day.
Today was the day Anne had scheduled to leave, this did not leave room for error... and everything went well, indeed as these pictures show:

 Preparing to install the wings, you can see the left wing sitting on its "super rack", my solution for one man wing fitting/removal.

 The two wings are on as the two "super racks" sit empty

 Time to board!

Kneeling in the baggage compartment, this is killing me!

Drilling in process, viewed through the gas tank filling hole

 One tube drilled and clecoed, one to go!

All done!

 Anne's turn now!

 Disassembling the just drilled torque tubes with bolts and screws in tight quarters. I'm glad to have small hands around to help!

Anne is waiving good by after a job well done!