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Taking the extreme quickbuild route

Guy Prevost

Well Known Member
As detailed in this post: http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=133783 Our growing family led to us wanting an RV-10. We couldn?t justify both the 8 and a 10, so a trade was made. That said, I?m a builder at heart, I?m very picky about systems, and I still wanted to get my hands dirty. We flew N649BG, now named ?Bella? for about 3 months while we discovered what we did and didn?t like. We then set about an intense 3 month period to make it ours.

In general, the airframe was in great shape. The panel, although seemingly well-equipped was really basic vfr with the addition of a GNS530W. There were no backups, no heated pitot, and the system was only marginally integrated. The grounding system was old-school?In fact basic ground fixes increased ATIS reception from 13nm to 50nm during the first week of flying. The second com radio was 28V with an adapter, the transponder got altitude data from an out-of-spec ameri-king encoder even though it was sitting right next to an EFIS. Traffic data from the GTX-330 went to nothing, etc. I should point out, that I determined pretty much all of this in my extensive pre-buy. This airplane was just what I wanted?my own RV-10 (meaning systems done by me) in about 10% of the time of building from scratch. The one item I didn?t catch was that the plane had very leaky tanks. More on that later.

There was some scope creep on this project, like most. The thought process goes like this, "While I had everything apart I should...." Ultimately, we swapped to electronic ignitions, upgraded to a 406mhz ELT, added a heated pitot, switched to a 2 Bladed WhirlWind prop, completely redid the panel and did a completely new electrical system with dual batteries and dual alternators. The dual electrical system only added 1.5 lbs including wire and extra contactors since we switched to Earth X batteries from a PC680. We also insulated the firewall with fiberfrax and SS shim stock?the Horton Method. We found the vertically mounted throttle quadrant awkward and unnecessary for a cross country plane, so we switched to push-pull cables. That saved a few pounds too.

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Before

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Tank reseal

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Firewall Insulation

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Rewiring, new panel

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New ADAHRS location.

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Ignition coil install

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Crate built to ship the old prop.

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Cool custom engraved rocker switch covers


..continued
 
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Disaster! The new prop sits about 5/16? aft of the old!

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Interference in the bowl too.

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Filled camlock holes with Flox

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Two layers of glass tape underneath. Ready to refit the cowling.
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Done! (ish)
 
I meant to get this photo in there. It maybe gives the best overall picture of the scope of work. It also shows my awesome wife. MIT engineer, MD, Pilot, great companion, and great mother.

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Congrats to you and Merideth on so much done so swiftly - looks great!

Can't wait to see that high-tech autopilot in action, either :D
 
I showed my wife the last picture with your very talented wife at work. She said " And she is very cute too".

Frank



Building an RV-7A
dues paid for 2016
 
Yep, complete with ugly reworked cowling. We plan on arriving Sunday early and leaving after the kids seem to be done midweek. We'll be in HBC.
G
 
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