Side skins reinforcement completed

To comply with Service Bulletin 12-11-09 from Vans.
This was a necessary step before completing the fuselage painting. Here are pictures of the skin doublers once installed:

On the left side:

On the right side:

Now we are ready for the paint shop but we will have to wait for milder temperatures to proceed.

Painting in process

Given the time of the year, this process might take longer than usual, however we are well on our way with many small parts like the cowlings, the tail cone fairing, flapperons, rudder, Vertical Stabiliser and anti-servo tabs already done. The big things are still ahead: fuselage and wings.
We took the opportunity forced on us by SB 12-11-09 requiring to remove the Main Landing Gear (MLG) to put the fuselage on a rotisserie concocted by Terry. Here is how it works:
Firewall and tailcone end are attached to rotating supports

This allows to tilt the fuselage while painting, making the painting of the bottom more comforatble for the painter.

Here the fuselage is in the paint booth, waiting for priming.

The cockpit is all taped/masked with plastic sheets that are specially made for gun painting as they will keep the paint mist attached, preventing the mist to turn into invasive dust.
Here is a view of the cockpit with the Skyview under heavy protection:

The preparation is labor intensive and in the Experimental spirit, I am doing it all, with some help here and there!

I am an empty nester!

My bird has gone away and I feel lonely!
It all started this way, one morning a guy eager to show off an RV-12 in his hangar shows-up with a big trailer:

Once wrapped expertly by Terry, the bird takes to the highway:

And ends-up 45 minutes later at the place where it is going to get a double make-over: painting and Service Bulletin 12-11-09 implementation:

Why mixing painting and the SB?
Good question!
The idea comes from my painter Terry (aka Claude Monet) who owns the shop above:
As we have to take the MLG off and as the engine is not yet on, we have a perfect timing to put the fuselage on a "rotisserie" and therefore make the painting "easier" (we have to go easy on Monet's back!).
For the time being though we are in the blue regarding the delivery of the SB kit. After some investigation, I found that my friend Kim whose RV-12 is flying will receive the kit before me and, talking to him, he is willing to swap his kit with mine as he is going away for a couple of months and will not work on it right away. Problem is, VANs did not have Kim's RV-12 on the flying list but he had them update their files and we are now hoping for the best...
Still, getting back in my workshop the same day, I felt lonely and sad... My companion for 2 1/2 year was gone!

Not to worry, it will be back to mount the engine which is waiting for this by the garage door.

Santa Claus came early

Look at what I found in my workshop today:

This is one big box, let's see what's inside:

Another box! What is it, what is it?

It's an engine, it's a Rotax, I am the father of a Rotax 912 ULS!
I  could not have dreamed of a better Christmas "gift"!

My take on the Landing Gear Fix

This is what I shared on the VAF Forum to cool down the controversy about this critical Service Bulletin
Happy people never complain but in the context of this discussion I find it worthy to tell how lucky I feel:

I started almost 2 1/2 years ago, at the time the avionics was D100, Garmin GPS etc... As a green builder it took me enough time to get to the avionics kit to fall into the "Skyview hole", a six month delay and uncomfortable wiring retrofit but very satisfying glass panel result. Because of this delay I find myself with a plane that still has the fuel tank on a shelf and the brake lines filled with air (easy to purge!).
I forgot to mention that after pondering building or buying the fuel tank I opted to build based on the wise advice of a fellow builder (i.e., if you build it you know the screw-ups that are inside, if you buy it you don't)... and bingo, the fuel tank mod came just before I started building it. Had I bought it the modification would have been almost as aggravating as building the whole thing.
... And another one: because the news of the avionics update came so early (albeit at the cost of VANs credibility for a release date), I was aware that new wing connectors would replace the flimsy ones I was supposed to build which also saved me some work to be undone later.

Now I am waiting for the engine kit... and I cannot help wondering what kind of trouble is looming with Rotax?

Bad news and good news

This morning I find on VAF Forum that VANS is issuing a Service Bulletin to take care of a Landing Gear problem that led to skin wrinkles following loosening of the landing gear fasteners. This is the VAF Forum posting:
http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=93410
I will receive the retrofit kit associated with this service bulletin in the future (as the SB is not official yet no official information is available from VANs concerning the schedule of shipping.
The bad news is that I will postpone my fuselage painting until this retrofit is done. The good news is that it did not come after painting and engine installation which would have resulted in a more difficult work. As the fuselage has to supported on stands while the landing gear is removed, it is preferable not to carry the weight of the engine during this phase. If my engine which is scheduled to arrive in one or two weeks arrives before the retrofit kit I will have to postpone engine installation too.
Overall, I consider myself lucky compared to the builders who are flying now: they will have to take the fuel tank out, purge the brake lines, get rid of the paint around the rivets that need to be drilled out, etc... all things I don't have to do.

I received the filter I had ordered from VANS following the mishap related earlier while installing the Auto Pilot roll servo. I decided to use one tie wraps each to secure filter and plug and I am happy with the result, easier to do and safer on the capacitor as the associated tie wrap needs less tension than the one used to secure the plug.
 Here is how it looks now:

I also secured the plug with a smaller tie wrap also used to route some wires.

A bad day in the workshop

I was working on the installation of the Autopilot Pitch Servo, a difficult to reach area with lots of challenges to pass your hands as well as the parts. I was practically finished, just tying the Molex plugs and Noice filter to the housing of the servo when I heard a click... The connection of the wires to the noice filter had broken under stress.
This is the noise filter resting on the instruction's drawing after a post mortem:

The issue is that the tie wrap pinpointed on the drawing is insufficient to secure firmly both filter and Molex plugs.
More details on the damaged filter:

Rotax Engine Ordered!

Ouch!!!
Do I need to say more?
The good news: It's the last sub-kit order for this RV-12 (note "this").
As a preview, here is a picture of the Rotax 912 ULS engine:

The 100 hp four-stroke Rotax 912 ULS has become the most widely used engine in the world in Light Sport class aircraft. And for good reason — it’s proven itself in all kinds of conditions, all over the world. It’s designed to operate on unleaded auto fuel. Altitude compensating carburetors automatically adjust mixture and a gearbox reduction drive keeps the prop in the most efficient rpm range.

Little Blog = Beaucoup built!

I cannot believe I have not blogged since September. Here is what took place since my last post in September:

I worked on my rudder and vertical stabiliser fairings:

Bad surprise, the fairing on the top of the VS did not align with the fairing of the rudder:

I sent the faulty fairing back to VANs who shipped me a new one that was correct, it just took one month and I just finished today the VS with the new fairing.
This did not prevent me to march on. Next activity was to finish the installation of the ADAHRS which had been pending waiting for Anne to come and do it because my flexibility did not allow me to crawl into the tailcone where the ADAHRS is located.
Here is Anne at work for President Day:

While Anne was here we also finish the installation of the Auto Pilot roll servo which was an opportunity to install the flapperon control tubes which were waiting since they had been drilled.
I got a good news early October, a fellow EAA builder Dennis Robert was willing to sublet his hangar at Louisburg airport for at least one year, waiting for his next plane to be built. Louisburg also called "Triangle North Executive Airport" is the best option I had for testing my plane as it is just 30 minutes from home, non towered and has low traffic. Soon my wings were on the way:

Once my wings were gone I had enough room in my workshop to install the Stabilator (which combines in the RV-12 horizontal stabiliser and elevator). The stabilator is 8 feet wide and does not fit throught the door of my workshop!
The installation was not easy to do alone but I managed, with the help of two polystyrene boxes!

Once the stabilator in place I was able to proceed with the tailcone fairing installation, another cumbersome task requiring lots of fiberglass grinding, fitting, nutplates riveting both on the fairing and on the tailcone.

In the last week we started painting in the paint booth of  fellow EAA1114, Terry Gardner. I benefitted of the research made by another EAA1114 fellow, Noel Fallwell, about which paint system to chose and what process to follow. We are both using PPG's DCC Concept system which is Acrylic Urethane one stage. PPG is a World leader in automotive finishes.
Here is a video showing Terry shooting a flapperon with primer:
http://youtu.be/uyiWPkJ66xY
More on the painstaking (but rewarding) job of painting an airplane in the coming weeks...

With the painting in process, I will again have little time to blog in November, but I will try to keep good records as I am entering the final stage of the building. Still gotta order my engine...

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!

Full Speed on Avionics!

I took the opportunity of my daughter's Anne visit to go full speed into the avionics retrofit.
We soon were submerged into dewiring some of the old wiring as well as adding new harnesses. The main challenge in section 43C is that it has been targeted at people who had the old avionics, not people like me who wired for the old avionics but never installed any avionics as we were aware of the Skyview coming "soon". Already when you follow the instruction dutifully, it is sometimes difficult to interpret some steps as VANs is not holding your hand closely but here I have first to remove/skip the instructions that refer the D-180 avionics. As the wiring of the old avionics would have change somewhat the wiring that I left unconnected, I have really to understand what I am doing, may be not a bad thing after all but very time consuming. Anne's help sped-up the process by replacing my loud thinking with a dialog filled with disagreements on the interpretation of the instructions. Eventually we found our way through the rewiring including rerouting new harness through an already packed central tunnel and reaching the area where the new ADAHRS (Air Data Altitude Heading Reference System) will soon be installed (about mid tailcone under the top skin). I also really appreciated (and may be somewhat abused) the flexibility Anne's younger age and Yoga practice enjoys compared to my stiff joints and heavier build. To make a story short, she did most of the crawling as shown in the following pictures:

The toughest part was routing the wires under the instrument pannel

Look Dad, only one hand!

 

We hid the extra wires in the central tunnel after making a "neat" bundle

A clean instrument shelf after rewiring 

 Anne viewed from the end of the tailcone, rewiring the ADAHRS

Anne's view of the tailcone while she is sitting in it, rewiring with the instructions between her feet

Fiddling with AutoCad WS

VANs made the Skyview wiring available in the AutoCad format. No need to have the expensive AutoCad program though as AutoCad allows to work online for free with AutoCad WS. As a test, this is the link to access my own Skyview schematics:
https://www.autocadws.com/main/publish?link=R0hydGVBaWJ3UDVYS1hF
I have the feeling that it is the beginning of a long "friendship" but hey! it could be worse, I could be drawing these wiring diagrams myself... with a pencil!

Flaperon movement obstruction

After installing my flaperons for the first time, I was concerned that the travel in the up direction was blocked by the collision of two rivets heads, one on the flaperon and one on the wing support. Here are pictures of the problem:

You can see in the slot the two rivet heads in contact.
To allow you to locate these rivets, I rotated the flaperon in the down direction:

You can see some abrasion of the last rivet on left.
The corresponding rivet on the wing is shown here:

This is the last rivet at the bottom of the angle, showing also light abrasion.
There is no adjustment anywhere close to this place on the flaperon which means that likely I am not alone to have this problem. The reason why this is not a big deal is that in this blocked position, the flaperon is close to full up deflection as shows below with the middle support:

Of course I checked the other flaperon and the same blockage exists with the same rivet heads.
The next question is: what happens once the flaperon is connected to the control stick?
I found the answer with the RV-12 of my friend Kim Mitchell who has been flying for one year and a half:
Lo and behold, he has got the same problem, just a little worse: on his left wing the two heads being offset by half a head, both heads have been half ground, letting the flaperon travel beyond the rivets for a full stop. As for the right wing, there was no offset of the rivets which butt head to head with the following result:

The rivet head on the flaperon is gone! The one on the wing is badly chewed:

My conclusion to the RV-12 flying pilots: Gentlemen, check your flaperons!
As for the solution to this problem, I will defer to VANs
In the mean time, here is feedback  from VAF Forum:
http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=88177