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What did you do with your RV this Weekend (3/13/21 - 3/14/21)

Shoveling snow

Perfect timing for a snow storm. Our runway is closed for resurfacing :)

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Continued slogging away, sanding the windscreen molding. Removed the fuselage masking temporarily to feather the epoxy edge. I wish I could say I enjoyed this work, but I don't... I mean, I really really don't. I'll get some more filler in some low spots this afternoon... then sand again. Sigh.
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I left home, and flew to Bakersfield to pick up a friend with a heart transplant and take him to Stanford/KPAO. From there, I headed over to Concord (KCCR) to pick up a few things that we left at my in-laws house when we were there last weekend. After that, down to Bermuda Dunes (KUDD) to visit my parents, and then back to the hangar.

Weather was a little iffy in the Bay Area, and I ended up needing the GPS approach to get into KPAO, but the rest of the flight was in pretty nice weather, albeit on top of clouds for most of the way.
 
I had a seven-RV formation fly over my house yesterday at about 1500' agl. All those engines running together made a sound a bit like a warbird. :)
 
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Flew IFR to our old Covid standby, KCRQ on Saturday morning for breakfast, then today, we flew IFR to KCMA and got to hear those glorious words:

"N814 Romeo Victor, we need you to slow down, you're following a Cirrus and you are about 20 knots faster....." :D

-Marc
 
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Flew over to KFFC to pick up a couple of needed parts from Aircraft Spruce on Saturday. Gave the plane a nice bath and belly rub (wash and wax) after church on Sunday. She’s looking good this afternoon!
 

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I took a lady friend to Chico California to pick up a sewing machine that she bought on eBay. It was pretty funny, I offered to take her “in my RV” on Thursday, and she promptly accepted. So she showed up at my place yesterday morning with an overnight bag in hand, and I think we were both equally confused. I was wondering why she packed for the night, and she was looking around for my RV, of the wheeled variety. When she realized it was a plane, she wasn’t disappointed but was confused.
 
Got a little closer to RTW today, I installed a pair of 7.5 gallon fuel tanks (a la Marvin Holmsly) behind the seats for 15 gallons on top of the 67 I've got in the wings. Now I've got 1500 nm ranges with IFR reserves, with two butts and bags. Not bad for a homebuilt.

A 10% overweight ferry permit will give me a 30-gallon bladder tank in the right seat, and I'm ready for trans-Pacific.
 
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Round the world?

I think you told us that more men landed on the moon than flew their homebuilt around the world. Maybe you will join the club?
 
Time to put the big boy pants on...again.

Finally getting 'round to my second pair of wheel pants. My better half is relieved to know I'll have my pants on when I go flying.

(Why the second pair? The sorry tale is here.

This is all I've done with my RV for many since the end of January. Man these things take a long time, even the second time around. The opaque gray gel coat was new to me, and the magnetic ball method for locating through holes for the screws proved to be far less accurate than spotting them with a laser pointer. In the picture, I opened up two misdrilled holes on the forward half of the wheel pant to 1/4". The 8-32 screws go in just at the forward edges of the holes. Finished laying up the molded in flox "pads" that bear on the inboard wheel pant bracket earlier today. I drove in heavily waxed 8-32 screws about halfway, then filled up the holes with more flox from the outside. Once cured, I'll unscrew them from the formed-in-place tapped holes, updrill to #19, and machine countersink.

Astute observers have undoubtedly noted the missing section on the leading edged of the intersection fairing. The gear fairing was preventing the forward half from closing up the seam with the aft half. Don't know what happened. The aft wheel pant went on and was still aligned, so I must have narrowed the for-to-aft distance in the teardrop opening at the top of the intersection fairing somehow. Once I cut out the missing section, the two halves snapped together perfectly. Had no such issue with the left side wheel pant halves; but I drilled them to the brackets with a laser pointer from the get go.

With waxed packing tape on the lower part of the gear fairing, the missing section was filled with flox. By next weekend, I just might have paintable pants.

Fiberglass is a wonderful material: any mistake can be fixed. And boy howdy am I prone to demonstrating that truth more often than not.

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I think you told us that more men landed on the moon than flew their homebuilt around the world. Maybe you will join the club?

That's the plan, yes. To clarify - quite a few experimentals have made the trip - but only about a dozen were built by the pilot flying the trip - the rest were purchased.

In any case it will be a while still - I have a 6-year old at home. I'll probably wait until he's in high school, but I'm planning some long legged adventures before then. This summer I intend to fly Alaska and the Aleutian island chain, and maybe a Bahamas trip.
 
Had an interesting flying adventure in my RV-6A C-GEOY this past Friday & Saturday. Friend Bill Beaton sold his Lancair and had to deliver it to Boise ID. As Canada has strict Covid travel restrictions with quarantine periods, we looked into the Air Crew exemptions if I chased him down there and brought him back. With a few hours research and assurances from Kelowna BC customs agents, we put it together. So Friday first leg was a 3.5hr, 490 nautical flight down to Boise (Bill the show off did it in 2.4hrs). One hour in Boise for customs, fuel & plane transfer, than the 2 of us were off in the 6A up to Kelowna, 3.1hrs, 405 nautical & head winds. With all our pre-prep work, the Canadian Customs process went smoothly with Flight Crew exempt status and the new Covid reporting processes done. Unfortunately we finished up a bit too late to head it back to Calgary that late afternoon, if we did, we would have been over the Canadian Rockies at legal night (been there, done that, definitely won’t do it again…!) so we got a room, steaks & a couple wine’s, many flying stories to finish a perfect day. Saturday morning flight back to Calgary was spectacular, another 2hr and 260 nautical of leasurely flying.
The real notable thing about our flights is that it showed it is possible for Canadians to do cross border flights in our planes, even in these Covid days, with the appropriate research done. You might ask why we cleared in Kelowna, two reasons- big CYYC landing fees, and it was suggested to us that the exempt status decision was very much up the individual customs agent, we thought we had better odds in Kelowna.
 
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With the help of a couple local RV gurus (Carl and Tom) we installed my first Pmag on my RV-6A.

Learned a ton, not just about mags but about a few other things I needed to do on my plane, too.
 
My RV-6 is in the shop for a new fuel system, new panel, O-320 to IO-320 conversion. Grounded and put on insurance lay-up four weekends ago.

Withdrawal symptoms.

Glenn asked if I wanted to come out and play in his RV-7. Imagine saying, "No." Inconceivable.

I arrived at his hangar and he told me I'd be left-seating. Holy ****. I have never expected anyone to honor me with an offer like that.

YSBK - YWBN. A few hangar visits. An aerobatic formation sortie with Mal, including loops and opposing passes with half-cuban reversals. Best fun you can have with pants on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFA_1MeXsvw

Back to YSBK for bug-wipe and debrief.

What a heck of a day. I needed that so bad. Thanks Glenn, and thanks Mal.

- mark
 

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Got that trailing edge nailed down!

I was pretty anxious about the TE, but it worked out splendidly! Lot's of help and encouragement from the forum, of course.
 

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Removed engine mount on my early SN RV-12 to repair crack in lower tube at left side engine attach point. Engine mount WD1220 out-of-stock at Van’s with estimated ship date of mid-May. I will chamfer joint, pre-heat ~800F, TIG weld crack, and weld Chromoly 4130 split over-sleave blended into weld cluster at engine attach point.

Ten hours to remove mount and I’m guessing two weeks to reinstall and pretty everything up. 633TT…
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