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RV-6A N164BL - Brad Benson

ChiefPilot

Well Known Member
This is my RV-6A which I started building in 2001. I flew it for the first time on November 24, 2012 then after about 100 hours dropped it off at Midwest Aircraft Refinishing for paint. I picked it up on August 3, 2013 and this is what it looks like:



I designed the paint scheme myself, using side and top views from the plans along with a Mac image editor called 'Acorn'. I'd been kicking around the paint scheme for the ~12 years it took to build the project, but it was only in the last couple that the scheme started to solidify. It was changing right up until about a week before I dropped it off at the paint shop.



From the outset, I was determined not to develop a case of AIDS (aviation-induced divorce syndrome) as part of this project was to provide us something to visit friends and family. The N-number therefore, logically, represents "One -6(a) for Brad and Lynn".



The panel is IFR, with a Dynon D10A EFIS and redundant steam gauges. The avionics stack provides for VOR/LOC/ILS approaches as well as non-precision GPS approaches. The Dynon 2-axis autopilot is a nice workload reliever on trips, although I find I prefer to hand-fly most of the time and save the autopilot for use when doing things like checking a map or eating lunch. I decided early on that I wanted the panel to be as "human friendly" as possible - panel items were to be logically grouped and immediately apparent as to their function. All switches are across the bottom, and fuses mounted under a swing-down door for access. I used a composite panel blank from Laird Owens, and switch plates I designed and had manufactured by Front Panel Express. Designing/wiring the electrical and avionics systems was by far my favorite part of this project!



One of the things I had seen here on VAF as well as at Oshkosh was an oil door with no visible latches or hinges. I made my own hidden hinge from several layers of CF cloth, and designed/manufactured the latch mechanism from various materials using my milling machine. The latch is released via a pull cord inside the left air inlet, and the door is sprung open slightly by a piece of neoprene tubing held in compression against the hidden hinge and a foam backstop glassed onto the top of the cowl. I'm really happy with how this turned out!



For lighting, I really liked the recessed lights delivered with the standard 7/8/9/etc. wingtips, but remember - this is a -6A which provides far more fun for your building dollar. I hacked the tips apart and installed the Airtech insets from Van's, then nestled the Kill-a-Cycle/CreativeAir LED position lights inside. The strobe lights are Nova units, using a Whelen lens to provide the correct distribution of light. The strobe is recessed slightly and mounted on sub-surface shelf to provide clearance from the clear plastic lens and also to stay out of the way of the landing/taxi light.



When I picked it from the paint shop, I still had fuel caps with Sharpie-marking the capacity and type of fuel. Clearly, that wouldn't do so I ordered custom fuel caps from Aircraft Specialty. They look great - highly recommended!



People invariably ask if it is really as fast as Van's claims. I didn't build it for speed (I typically cruise at ~150 KTAS to save fuel), but I did take it up high for a speed run after one of the guys at the paint shop asked how it did at 10,000. I've done numerous speed runs using the GPS and the NTPS spreadsheet, and I believe the Dynon to be accurate - while far from the fastest RV around, I'm more than happy with this! (please excuse the uncentered ball and slight altitude deviation - this was the only photo I took that was in focus. Normally the ball is centered during all phases of flight thanks to the adjustable rudder trim).



The highlight (so far, anyway) occurred just this week when I got home from work. I took one of my airport buddies to a pancake breakfast in New Lisbon WI after looking online to see where such a breakfast might be happening. When we got there, they asked for the particulars and also contact information for the pilot for the RV judging they were doing. When I got home from work this past Wednesday, I had a box that contained this! While I question the judgement of those looking the aircraft over - there were several really *NICE* RVs there - I am really humbled/honored that they would send this to me!



A number of MN Wing members made this journey possible for me and contributed time and expertise - Mike Hilger made a number of Tech Counselor visits and Tom Berge provided much wisdom along with transition training. When the world ended one day (i.e. when the slider canopy frame kinked while being “fit”), Alex Peterson said to bring it over and he’d weld it up. I likely never would have attempted the composite rear slider skirt were it not for the expertise and encouragement from Pete Howell. Bob Collins, Bryan Flood, and especially Vince Bastianni were a constant source of encouragement and helping hands as well.

Several VAF folks were extremely helpful as well - whether they knew it or not. Big thanks to Dan Horton for constantly sharing his knowledge of composite techniques, Kevin Horton for his wisdom around handling and flight testing, and Bob Axsom for his model of discipline and experimentation.



I hope to see you all at a fly in soon!
 
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Beautiful, Brad! Wow. Nice job. Where can a guy get more details on how to do an oil door like that?
 
Congrats

Brad,
It was great having you and your aircraft at our fly-in, as you mentioned there were many beautiful Rv's at our show.
Your plane was outstanding, well built with attention to detail and a wonderful paint job.
It's never easy doing the judging because of the outstanding workmanship in many of these aircraft. I would like everyone to get first place.
Again, thanks for joining us and congratulations on a beautiful build.

Don
 
Your N Number follows the logic I used back in 1986 for my RV-4 - N144KT - or ONE (RV) Four For KATIE - my daughters name.

Current reserved N Number for the -10 I have under construction:

N104HB - TEN FOR HENNESSY BIBB - the names being my significant other and mine....
 
Beautiful, any chance you're going to start selling that oil door release? :D

Sell it? No, no chance of that. But, it's simple enough that anyone can make one in about an hour or so. I was going to write up an explanation with some pictures; just need to get back out to the airport and pull the cowl to get said pix first.
 
Sell it? No, no chance of that. But, it's simple enough that anyone can make one in about an hour or so. I was going to write up an explanation with some pictures; just need to get back out to the airport and pull the cowl to get said pix first.

I didn't mean pull it off and sell it, but make them!

A write up would be much appreciated!
 
I didn't mean pull it off and sell it, but make them!

A write up would be much appreciated!

Hmmm, I knew what you meant....and pulling that particular latch off and selling just it is even less likely than me manufacturing and selling copies :)
 
For those who might be interested, I wrote a post on how I did the oil door hinge and latch. It can be found right here on VAF.

Thanks!
 
Wing tip lighting

What a beautiful job. I am very interested in your wing tip lighting. I would like to use my standard wing tips on my RV8. I have the old style and. Do the landing lights provide adequate light ?

Any input would be appreciated.
 
What a beautiful job. I am very interested in your wing tip lighting. I would like to use my standard wing tips on my RV8. I have the old style and. Do the landing lights provide adequate light ?

Any input would be appreciated.

I would call them just "ok" as far as brightness. They are adequate, but they aren't the light spears that newer tech is. On the other hand, installation was pretty easy and I like the appearance. The insets are the larger ones Van's sells; they are made by air tech. They have some smaller ones, but those will only accommodate a position light and have no room for a strobe or landing light.
 
where did you purchase , or did you make the plexi clear lens cover?

They came as part of the wingtip kit, but they must be trimmed and fit. I thought it was actually good practice for doing the canopy only on a smaller scale.

I do not think it would be hard to make the lenses actually, especially if you have access to an uncut wingtip, but it would likely be more trouble than it's worth. My fear is that Van's drops the kit (and replacement lenses) since the newer wingtips don't use them and I then subsequently crack or break a lens. That's why I've been thinking about to make a replacement if need be.
 
Attack of the Plane Spotters!

So I happened to google my N-number last week and was surprised to find a rather cool picture of my bird on JetPhotos.net :

23289727210_b854ec6aba_b.jpg


This was taken at an Flying Cloud, MN during their summer airplane event. Lots of static displays and a handful of fly-bys but no aerobatics since the airport is underneath the Minneapolis Class B etc. Anyway, after we landed ground control had us taxi over to the show area; we parked adjacent to a B-17. Free admission for both me and my groveling buddy Tom along with a fun time!
 
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Favorite Picture of N164BL So Far...

This was a frame grab from a video taken by a friend. The interesting thing about this was that just a few moments earlier, we were lined up on the end of the runway staring down a coyote who seemed sure that he had more right to be on the runway than we did. He got bored and left, which enabled our two-ship to get the day started.

38948857901_50568dc344_b.jpg
 
They used to leave the hole in the fence over on your hangar side of the field open, I think, so that the coyotes could get in and get the geese. I presume the FAA has since ordered them to close it up since I've noticed all sorts of stupid signs and stuff going up around the field lately.
 
SB-00036 Completed

Well, there they were. Cracks. Not very big, and only around four of the 16 rivets, but no more flying until this was addressed. A complicating factor is, of course, disturbing the paint. The design on my horizontal tail means a simple touch up and re-clear would be impossible if I were to remove all the rivets required to peel back the skin as outlined in the SB instructions:
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But first things first. Drill off the hinge brackets and stop drill the cracks:
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Next step is to fit the parts, but how to get the repair doubler in place without unzipping the skin? I recalled a section in AC43-13B that dealt with flange repair. Having done an earlier service bulletin on the horizontal stab where the root ribs were removed, the flange cut off, and a new flange added gave me the idea that something similar might work here.

I used a Dremel tool with a carbide cutting bit along with a piece of thin stainless. Removing the two AN-470 rivets attaching the tip rib flange, I slide the SS inside to protect the rear spar and zipped the flange right off (but I practiced on scrap a bunch first). The picture makes it look rougher than it was and I actually ended up with a nice edge after deburring.
52789289728_cee0de8c35_z.jpg


Then using masking tape and a strip of aluminum to hold the repair doubler, I was able to slide the repair doubler in place. This would let me install and remove the doubler for match drilling, and by pushing the strip of aluminum inwards after final assembly it would peel the masking tape off the repair doubler:
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Since this was a repair using existing holes, I opted for oversize Cherrymax 3243 rivets and drilled the hinge bracket holes through as required, ensuring a precise fit for the rivets. After fitting and match drilling everything together, I removed all the pieces. Everything got de-burred, primed/painted, and prepped for final installation. I used an in/out deburring tool on an electric screwdriver for the holes in the rear spar as well.
52788285682_c3c25253fb_z.jpg


The Cherrymax rivets went in pretty easily, but I had to modify my pneumatic puller a bit due to tight clearances. But once that was done, everything came together nicely:
52788841176_b9cc68f706_z.jpg


I then squeezed the AN426 rivets holding the nested doubler, spar, and skin together. This was pretty trivial - it's kind of hard to mess up squeezing these so long as you have the right length rivet:
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At this point, it was time to clean out the inside of the stab and remove all the chips and rivet tails. This was surprisingly easy - I used a vacuum attachment over the tip rib where I removed the flange and an air gun blowing in the tooling hole on the tip rib. A borescope inspection showed a couple of rivet tails which wouldn't fit through the opening created by removing the rear flange, so I fished them out with some music wire covered with double-sided tape via the tooling hole.

After that, I fabricated/fit the repair flange following the guidance from AC43-13b. Once that was done, I removed it then deburred it and the mating surfaces and primed/painted it. It was installed with Cherrymax 3213 and AN470 rivets (the photo makes it look like there is a gap between the repair flange and the rear spar - there isn't; it's just an odd shadow):
52788288632_cf73259e5c_z.jpg


I still need to repair the paint on the top/bottom skins where the nested doubler was installed but that will be relatively simple (sand, blend the color coat, re-clear the entire stab) once warmer weather rolls around. Otherwise, pretty straight forward.
 
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Brad, very nice work, and nice write up.

Methinks many other folks will benefit from this.
 
SB-00036

Well, there they were. Cracks. Not very big, and only around four of the 16 rivets, but no more flying until this was addressed. A complicating factor is, of course, disturbing the paint. The design on my horizontal tail means a simple touch up and re-clear would be impossible:

Brad,

I feel your pain on not wanting to mess up the paint. Mine does not have cracks, but I'm contemplating doing the repair anyway. My reading on the SB is there are two RV types out there on this issue, those that have cracks,.....and those that will have cracks. (Arguments/debates on that are for another thread......:))

So, one burning question for you: Was your -6A horizontal stab one of the later pre-punched ones? Or, was it like my (neolithic....:D) non pre-punched one? My non pre-punched version has me looking at drilling out rivets to peel back the HS outer corner of the skin in order to back drill through the HS rear spar holes into the new blank (no PP holes) elevator hinge brackets. Sure, I can do it on the bottom of the stab, but I still manage to hit all thee paint colors on my airplane. :mad:
 
So, one burning question for you: Was your -6A horizontal stab one of the later pre-punched ones? Or, was it like my (neolithic....:D) non pre-punched one? My non pre-punched version has me looking at drilling out rivets to peel back the HS outer corner of the skin in order to back drill through the HS rear spar holes into the new blank (no PP holes) elevator hinge brackets. Sure, I can do it on the bottom of the stab, but I still manage to hit all thee paint colors on my airplane. :mad:

Mine was pre-punched, but I don't see why this approach couldn't work for you as well. The additional thing you'd need would be to make a fixture for drilling the brackets based off the old ones but that's pretty straightforward (I actually started doing this before they made the pre-punched version available to us -6/6A types).
 
SB-00036 for non-PP kits

Mine was pre-punched, but I don't see why this approach couldn't work for you as well. The additional thing you'd need would be to make a fixture for drilling the brackets based off the old ones but that's pretty straightforward.

Yea. It's that "make a fixture to duplicate the holes on the existing brackets" bit that has got me. I know how to do it for the bracket to spar rivets on a single bracket. Now add the second bracket (for the same hinge point), and I'm kind of stumped at how to keep the left/right bracket alignment, AND make the hinge pivot hole (also blank...to be drilled by me) end up in the right place.

Without getting into the weeds on the non-PP fix for this, I'll just add that ALL the parts for this SB fix (for the non-PP world) are blank (aft side spar doubler, hinge brackets, and front side spar doubler).....blank as in NO rivet holes, and NO hinge pivot holes. Not complaining here...it's just the way it is for the non-PP kits. I am still thinking about a solution that does not involve peeling back the stab skin....not rushing into this SB fix any time soon.

Anyway, thanks for confirming you had a PP kit. The flange repair technique you described may still come in handy.
 
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