RV-9A, SoCal

[rightrudder]

Fitting the upholstery bits, seatbelts and carpet are some of those "reward" jobs that make up for hours of sanding fiberglass and filing aluminum. Powered up the panel and plugged the ATIS and tower frequencies for Chino into the GTR-200...and...OK, maybe I did make an airplane noise or three.

The seating position is great, with the seatback top all the way back to the crossbeam and the bottom on the middle row of hinges. I'm glad I drilled the brake pedals low on the bracket that connects to the master cylinders for a little more "tilt back"; if I had done it per plans I think I'd be on the brakes too much while simply working the rudder.

[rightrudder]

Wow, lots happening! I found a hangar at Cable in Upland, got my 3rd class medical yesterday, and am chair-flying the assigned route for my BFR on Monday, after a flying lapse of seven years. Looks like the Big Move will happen in a couple of weeks.

The right lower skin is riveted (thanks for the help, Pete!) and right wingtip is mounted, after a seemingly never-ending plate nut marathon. The tip extends out about 1/8" past the aileron....no big deal; not a show plane. The W-930 jig is great to align the tip in profile. Finished off the nav/strobe/landing lights wiring too. My wiring bundle was so small that it rattled around inside the snap bushings more than I was comfortable with, so I sleeved each one with a section of vinyl tubing. Also put some spare wires in right wing just to give the bundle some rigidity. Not exactly "simplicate and add lightness," but it did the job.

It felt good to put the Experimental decal on the baggage partition. Wear it proudly!

[bruceh]

Doug,

Get everything you can done before you move! Not having the project close by will definitely slow you down (although you seem to be moving pretty quickly).

My in-laws live up in Claremont and we fly up to Cable often. Let me know when/where you are and I'll stop by some time.

[rightrudder]

Will do, Bruce! I'm getting one of the T-hangars on the East end. I'm so looking forward to moving in and getting organized...and having some real space to work. I'd very much value your opinion of my build, and maybe we could isolate any problem areas before the DAR inspection.

I've been finishing up a bunch of those little jobs, but for the major stuff I'm down to bleeding the brakes, making the tank attach brackets and fabbing up the steel links for the rudder (once the tail group is bolted back in place).

And of course, the lower wing skin and wingtip for the left wing, which I should have wrapped up by the end of next week. After that, it's stuff that needs to be done with the wings fitted....fairings, electrical connections, adjusting flaps and such.

It's great that there's a Lowe's only a few hundred yards away. They will know me on a first-name basis!

[rightrudder]

Moved! Well, the fuselage, anyway. I had to call four towing companies before I found one willing to transport a plane. Ultimately, I found Blair's Towing in Lake Forest, CA. They have some prior experience with this sort of thing, and the driver was super nice and helpful....I highly recommend them.

Wings and tail bits will go via U-Haul box van next week.

The fuselage looks lost in the cavernous hangar. So nice to have all this space, and be able to garage my car again. Went to the Lowe's (about a driver and sand wedge away from the hangar) and got some nice shelving infrastructure, then got a patty melt at Maniac Mike's on the field, served by a waitress who could be Maria Sharapova's sister. Life is good.

[pmccoy]

Looks good. You will enjoy cable. Lots of RVs and good people.

[rightrudder]

Welp, after a half-dozen 100-mile round trips, I've got all the airplane pieces in the hangar, and accomplished a ton on the build. Rudder and elevators hinged and torqued, pushrods final-adjusted, brakes bled, prop installed and safety-wired, rudder pedal-to-cable links fabbed, painted and installed. What a luxury to have all this space to work in....no sucking in my gut to squeeze between the garage door and prop hub!

Feels good to finally step on the rudder pedals and feel that control surface clank from stop to stop! Fan effect cooled down the hangar a little too. Brakes feel nice and tight....maybe 1/4" stroke from off to fully applied.

Also installed the PC-680 battery and spun the engine for four periods of about eight seconds each, with some cool-down in between. Saw 22 psi of pressure, so that's good to have oil gurgling through an engine that's been sitting around for the better part of a year. Hobbs made little clicking sounds, but has yet to register its first .1.

The control stick just grazed the toggle switches for lights, etc. at the limit of down elevator travel, so I shortened it by about 1.5 in. Problem solved, and now the right and left sticks are close to the same length.

Now to find some helpers to hang the wings. I've already got the hardware-store fitting bolts, cut off their threads and ground the ends to a nice taper.

Bonehead move of the week: While getting the fuel caps engraved, I stuffed a paper towel in the filler openings. You guessed it....during transit of the wings, one of the towels fell inside the tank. Aaaargh! Shoulda used tape. But it did justify the purchase of a neat $10 pick-up tool with an LED on the grappling end. Retrieved the wad on the very first try.

[rightrudder]

Temporarily, at least, with some hardware store fitting bolts. Pretty easy to do with two people (bolt fitter inside and "wing jiggler" outside), and a padded sawhorse to support the tip. I used several chunks of 2x4 and some strips of plywood to get the height exactly right.

Wing sweep was durn near perfect right out of the box; I got it down to less than 1/4" without any trimming of the spar stubs. And incidence was within 0.1 degree side to side (really hard to even get repeatable measurements when dealing in tenths of a degree!) so I went ahead and drilled and reamed the rear spar holes with at least 5/8" edge distance all around.

I could've fussed with the holes a bit to get the underside flap skins a little closer to the fuselage belly, but I like the priority of getting that nice centered edge distance, and let the flaps fall where they may. They easily retract to the "in trail" position, and the rear of the inside skin is maybe 3/4" from the belly. I can bend them closer as I finalize the rigging.

No hangar is complete without an airport scooter, so I bought this racy 50-cc number that just happens to be painted in my RV's future scheme. Spent all today assembling it, changing motor and gear oil, adjusting, charging the battery, etc., so not much got done on the plane. Put 5.1 hours...er, miles...on the Hobbs...er, odometer, just putting along past rows of hangars.

[kai]

Good to see the progress, you're getting closer!

Thanks for sharing,

Kai

[Dbro172]

Not far off now!