Airframe Assembly Photos
Putting it all together
Here's a slick way of inserting bolts into elevator or rudder
hinges. I used 3/16" hex wrenches temporarily to
align everything, then slid the bolts into place, pushing the
wrench out. The hex wrenches are a lot easier to insert
into the hinge because they have a nice long 'handle' for easy
control.
Here's the horizontal tail clamped to the workbench and aligned, ready for mounting on the fuselage.
Empennage installed for trial fitting. Rudder stops need to be refabricated, as they don't seem to limit travel enough.
Refabricated Rudder stops (foreground). Extended them 1/8" aft. 3/16" would have been better, but a small adjustment of the Rudder rod-end bearings and the new stops fixed everything up. Other builders have had this problem, so it's better to make them too big and cut them down rather than have to remake them.
Yes, the whole airplane is assembled in my garage... you can't see the other wing, but it's there. Eat your heart out.
Canopy Sealing
3M 5200 polyurethane sealant along aft bows and between plexi and aft skirt. Idea is to relieve rivet stresses.
Sealant on forward bows, and detail of felt sealing strips along canopy skirt.
Felt seal on aft skirt and 'doghouse' seal. Had to cut the ears off to get the canopy to close properly.
1 week to go before paint!
Pivot point for main wheel fairing balancing. Bolt fits through axle attach bracket.
Main wheel fairing balanced with lead shot in plastic cup.
Lead is epoxied in place with several layers of glass cloth.
Step barnacle fairings. Mixture of polyester resin, dry micro and flox, layed up around steps. Sanded to shape, filled...
...and glassed. Barnacle fairings will be bonded into position after airframe painting.
Here we are, set to tow the fuselage to the airport. Quite a struggle, and slow going...
So we gave up and rented a lift truck.
At the paint shop...
The final result.
Fuel flow test. Raised fuel line by 16", representing a deck angle of 22.5 degrees (12.5 degrees best angle of climb + 10 degrees AOA).
Use 1.1 to 1.4 L of fuel for tests.
Results:
L tank 1.05L in 39 sec. = 25.6 USG/hr. Unusable fuel 50 mL.
R tank 1.00L in 38 sec. = 25.1 USG/hr. Unusable fuel 25 mL.
Required flow: 13.6 x 1.25 = 17 USG/hr (from Lycoming engine manual).
Closeup of stand pipe.
Details of skid plate for nose cone. Filled a plastic back full of flox/epoxy. Inserted between nose cone and nose gear weldment, secured with screws and let it set up. Removed from bag, and glued skid plate to nose cone. Filled creases and wrinkles with body filler, covered weldment in plastic and redid the fit.
After removal, used a cutting tool to remove about 1/8" of material around nut assembly to allow free rotation.
Weight and Balance:
I made three identical ramps for weighing.
Each ramp has a removable insert.
Sized to allow two My Weigh freight scales to be inserted.
Covered with a platform, and weighed.
Each wheel is weighed in succession after the aircraft is carefully leveled.
Fixing interference of FAB with lower cowl. Trimmed with a cutting disc in my die grinder and glassed over with 4 layers of BID glass.
Taxiing in after first flight of C-FVRL. Safety pilot Mike Langford and yours truly. One hour flight, a few snags with electrical stuff (the shame!).