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N104EW Is Flying

ecurington

Well Known Member
N104EW received its airworthiness certificate on Jan 31 2020 and flew first flight Feb 17 2020. Slow build kit approximately 3000 hours build. All work completed mostly by myself including wiring and paint. Wife and sons did help with impossible do it yourself tasks.

First flight was mostly non event. I did get 5 mile radius over the airport for the first 5 hours on my operating limitations.




IMG_1528 by Eulice Curington, on Flickr
IMG_1520 by Eulice Curington, on Flickr

Eulice Curington
RV-10 N104EW Flying
 
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Congratulations! What an accomplishment, the paint is spectacular. Good luck with the 40 hour fly off and a lifetime of flying adventures.
 
Congratulations

Congratulations ?. I just finished my phase 1.

? but 5 hours within a 5 mile radius, ouch. This plane likes to git up and go! With engine break in as well. Make that like a 5 mile DME circle to land (at 170 knots) and 34 circles will do it!
 
Congrats!

Is there something unusual about your build that provoked the 5 mile radius for 5 hours?
 
5 Mile Radius

Nothing drastically different about my plane. Vans experimental YIO540D engine with a vans Hartzell blended prop. I thought it unusual at the time but did not question the DAR. He came with the op limitations prepared.

Anyway the 5 hours are behind me now, but couldn't say for sure I kept it within 5 miles. Just did the best I could to comply.

Flight testing is going good. She is a nice flying plane.

Eulice Curington
N104EW Phase 1
 
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I sure hope that 5 miles for five hours doesn't become a trend.

Congratulations on the sign-off and first flights! Beautiful specimen.
 
Congratulations Eulice. Beautiful plane. Wishing you many hours of pure joy and safe flying!!
Johan
 
Well done!

I am envious of your paint job too. Can you tell me more about that? How much (ballpark) would you say you spent and what was your prior experience before painting. I am interested in painting my bird myself, to save some bucks, if it's a reasonable savings. I have no idea what it costs to have an RV-10 professionally painted, so it would also be good to know approximately what you think you saved by doing it yourself. Thanks for the inspiration!
 
I am envious of your paint job too. Can you tell me more about that? How much (ballpark) would you say you spent and what was your prior experience before painting. I am interested in painting my bird myself, to save some bucks, if it's a reasonable savings. I have no idea what it costs to have an RV-10 professionally painted, so it would also be good to know approximately what you think you saved by doing it yourself. Thanks for the inspiration!

Mike,

I painted my 6 and my 10. You are welcome to call me as well to discuss details and cost projections. I spent about $1200 in materials to paint my 10. Never looked at professional cost.

PM me if interested.

Larry
 
Paint Job

I am envious of your paint job too. Can you tell me more about that? How much (ballpark) would you say you spent and what was your prior experience before painting. I am interested in painting my bird myself, to save some bucks, if it's a reasonable savings. I have no idea what it costs to have an RV-10 professionally painted, so it would also be good to know approximately what you think you saved by doing it yourself. Thanks for the inspiration!

Ballpark $3000 including exterior primer. Red was $1000 for a gallon. Paint is Matrix base coat/clear coat automotive paint with a pearl intercoat in the white. You cannot see the pearl in the pics but I think it even looks better in real life.

Very little experience auto painting. Never clear coat.

Painted in my two car garage with a 2x2 frame and plastic extension on the front. I did a fairly elaborate setup to draw filtered air through the personnel door by framing in four box fans at the car door side. I have a few pics but would have to upload them to Flickr if you are interested.

Very important to maintain a clean area and draw the overspray off. Clean the booth by wiping walls and anything else you can, seal everything up, mop the floor and leave it wet, filters in place both intake and exhaust, fans on, then paint

I designed and laid out the design myself with painters tape using rods to get the curves consistent and pleasing. Then traced patterns to do the opposing side matching. To some extent the design is copied from others.

When I first started I was bad at running both the base and the clear. All of that sands out easily. Base coat dries quick and you sand any runs prior to clear. Clear dries overnight and can be sanded the next day. Quite a bit of time cut and buff. The better painter you are, the less time you will need to cut and buff. The idea is to lay down a enough paint or clear to get it to lay out smooth and not orange peel, but not so much that it runs.

Used a Devilbiss Finishline 4 FLG paint gun, amazon $213.80. Recommended by several on this site that have DIY painted.

A lot of prep. I mostly got every imperfection out or filled, primed two coats and sanded to 600 grit.

It is not perfect by any means. Attempted to touch up some of the gray around the windows and it got splotchy. I would like to redo the gray around the rear windows sometime. Overall, I am happy with it and everyone who see's it is impressed.

Eulice Curington
RV-10 N104EW Phase 1
 
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Nothing drastically different about my plane. Vans experimental YIO540D engine with a vans Hartzell blended prop. I thought it unusual at the time but did not question the DAR. He came with the op limitations prepared.

Anyway the 5 hours are behind me now, but couldn't say for sure I kept it within 5 miles. Just did the best I could to comply.

Flight testing is going good. She is a nice flying plane.

Eulice Curington
N104EW Phase 1
Congratulations!

Was this five miles for the first five hours of a 40 hours Phase I test period or was it five hours total for your Phase I test period?
 
RV-10 envelope expansion

What a fine example of an RV-10. It?s easy to see why people walk up to Eulice while he?s fueling up and admire his handiwork.

As he finishes his Phase I and starts looking to travel out and about I wish him all the best!

2YOdWna.jpg
 
Thanks to Al

Al,

Thanks for the kind words.

I would like to publicly thank you for your contribution to my dream come true. For those of you that did not catch it, Al offered a couple of months ago to provide training for those in need in the Southeast corridor. I ask Al if he would be willing to do my transition training and high performance endorsement which he graciously accepted. Due to weather, he drove down to Florida from South Carolina and not only did my transition training and endorsement, also renewed my bi-annual.

Al was a joy to fly with and his experience was very helpful in providing me the confidence to move forward with my flying passion.

Eulice Curington
RV-10 N104EW
Phase 2
 
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