Flying Backward

A diversion

2011-12-11T19:37:00.000-08:00

So it has been quite a while since I last posted on my Long-EZ build progress. For the most part this is because I done very little with the project for the past 5 months or so.

After I drilled the wing/spar bolt holes I test fitted the spar wings and canard on to the fuselage. It was great to see all these major parts assembled into something that looked like an aircraft.

Unfortunately after assembling all of this I sat down in the garage to take a break and then noticed a problem. The main spar and wings were level, but the canard was not. How could this be?! The canard was level with the fuselage longerons and so was the spar. After more investigation, I found that the fuselage has some twist to it. I will now have to remount the canard to fix the problem. Not a big deal, but I hate having to do things twice.

The other problem I have is that not having two wings, a canard and a fuselage with a spar mounted, there is very little room to navigate my garage. Something had to be done to fix this, so today I dissembled my small work bench and slid the large work table up to the wall where the bench used to be. This now gives me enough room to move about. I need to re-organize the shop and upgrade the lighting.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 19

2011-05-14T21:58:00.000-07:00

Since my last update I have completed installation of the right wing aileron and nearly completed the left wing aileron.

Today Marc and I loaded the wings and center spar into his truck and headed down the street to my work supervisor, Pete's, house, where he has a nice 3 car garage. We proceeded to level the wings on 6 of the cheapest crappiest saw horses I have ever used. I purchased 4 of them a couple of days earlier. Coincidentally Pete also had two of them on hand as well.

Finally after dropping the center spar on the floor of the garage once, we managed to get the wings set up pretty stable and level. We used standard bubble levels, Marc's laser level and a water level to ensure the wings were set up correctly.

We then proceeded to match drill through the center spar into the wing attachment points. I started out using the spot face tool as described in the plans, however that was a very slow process and I managed to burn up my drill. We then switched to a 5/8" bi-metal hole saw that I purchased today as advised by Marc, who probably did a lot of research into the procedure than me.

In the end all went quite well and I am very happy with the results.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 18

2011-03-28T22:48:00.000-07:00

Last week and yesterday I finnished installing the wing root aileron hardware.

Pictured here is the infinity spherical bearing prior to bonding the click bond fasteners (seen bolted to the bearing houseing). I did make sure to sand the fiberglass and clickbond surfaces prior to flox and glass.

Pictured here is all of the wing root aileron hardware installed except for the pushrod and rod end bearings between the bellcranks.

Also yesterday I layed up the two plies of bid glass to close out the aileron ends. Today I cleaned up the edges and reinstalled the aileron.

With the left wing aileron work complete for now, I turned my attention to the right wing. Pictured here is the right wing aileron liberated from the wing.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 17

2011-03-06T22:39:00.000-08:00

Today I completed installation of the aileron on the left wing.

The next step after removing the protective tape from the ailerons (see step 16) was to apply small dabs of bondo between the hinge and aileron. I used some small pieces of foam rubber to hold the hinge up against the aileron while the bondo set. This was a somewhat frustrating procedure as the plans do not explain well how to do this. I actually tried to complete this step last week and I gave up for the night.

Next I unbolted the hinges from the wing, removed the aileron and drilled holes through the hinge for rivets.

After test fitting the aileron on the wing and removing it again, I temporarily installed control hardware. The hardware store machine screws will be replaced with AN hardware soon.

Pictured here is the universal joint that connects the torque tube to the aileron.

Pictured here is a more complete view of the aileron control hardware including the spherical bearing (blue). Also in this photo, if you look close, you will see that I have yet to close up the end of the aileron with bid glass.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 16

2011-02-21T21:25:00.000-08:00

More work today on the left aileron and wing.

Pictured here I have clamped a straight edge on the wing to guide me while cutting out the hinge notches on the top skin of the wing. This ensured that the hinges were all in line with each other and inset the proper amount.

Pictured below is the inboard most hinge with clickbonds test fitted. The plans call for a machine screw and a nutplate to be riveted to the hinge. The ckickbond fasteners are simpler to install and will have a seamless appearance then the wing if finished. This hinge happens to be 8" with three fasteners, the middle and outboard are 6" with two.

Pictured here is the middle span hinge with showing the clickbond fasteners protruding through the top skin and hinge.

And here is the inboard hinge clickbonds floxed in place with two plies BID. The hinge has a protective clear tape to ensure that any flox or epoxy will not bond the hinge to the clickbond or wing.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 15

2011-02-19T21:19:00.000-08:00

Work continued on the left aileron today. I completed fabrication of the A-2 and A-5 brackets.

Next I resessed the forward face of the aileron to mount the brackets flush with the foam surface. These were then bonded in place with micro along with the 9"x3/4" A-10 torque tube.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 14

2011-02-16T22:07:00.000-08:00

Monday I was greeted at my front door by a box from the Cozy Girrrls containing many pieces of wing hardware.

Also earlier, last week, I received the wing root spherical bearings from Infinity Aerospace (the blue bearings in the photo).

And as luck would have it, another builder was selling extra universal joints and I managed to pick them up for a little under Aircraft Spruces price.

This weekend I will attempt to complete the left aileron and begin work on the right.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 13

2011-02-10T21:58:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago I began working on the left aileron. I started by carefully ripping down a scrap of lumber to create a 120 degree guide for the Fein tool while cutting the aileron from the tip wing skin.

Pictured here is the top wing skin after cutting. This part of the operation was done correctly. Unfortunately cutting the aileron from the bottom skin didn't go as well. I made a stupid mistake when transferring the measurements from the plans to the wing and then cut too much from the wing. I was really upset with myself for doing that, but after some calm planning I realized that the fix was not going to be a big deal at all. I glassed the aileron back onto the wing (underside only), let it cure and re-cut the aileron correctly, all was good in the universe again. Unfortunately I did not take the time to take photos of this process.

Pictured here is the left aileron with the 7/16" steel rod counter weight bonded in place.

Pictured here is the aft wing rib that is laid up with 3 plies BID glass into the area the aileron was removed.

Aileron control hardware should be arriving by UPS tomorrow. I hope to have this chapter wrapped up by then end of this month or early March.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 12

2011-01-10T21:28:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I layed up the top spar cap of the left wing. Unfortunatly I received a phone call from my brother just before laying up the final 20" ply of spar cap uni. I spent a few to many minutes discussing Christmas plans and the spar cap epoxy started to gell. I layed on the final 20" ply, but it refused to wet out completely. I finaly gave up tring to save that ply and just let it cure completely.

After final cure I sanded off all of the uni roving that didn't wet out and applied a 22" piece over the repair area.

Here is the section cureing just after the repair. Looks a little sloppy, but its not as bad as the picture lets on.

Here is the left wing after top skinning, again with the help of Marc Oppelt. This took us about 3 hours. Practice has made these large layups quicker. Recently there has been a friendly debate on one of the online forums about the value of using an epoxy pump. My opinion is that those expensive pumps are really neat, and probably worth the money, however even with the largest of layups like this top wing skin, the use of a digital scale and cheaper west system pumps works just fine.

Yesterday I used the dremel tool to rout out 0.7" of foam from the forward inboard wing rib area, and today I layed up the three plies of bid glass. I now have two wings at this same stage.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 11

2010-12-06T20:14:00.000-08:00

Yesterday some time was spend preping the bottom wing for glass. This included sanding down the lower wing foam in the spar cap vicinity to give a nice smooth transition to the spar cap. The hotwire process left the sparcap a little too deep in places. I will need a little extra mico fill to correct the wing contour at the finnish stage. The plans describe this situation so I am not concerned.

Marc Oppelt stopped by this afternoon and helped me glass the bottom of the left wing. Today was yet another example of the value of having another builder assist, It's almost like having two of yourself. I spend a lot of time just mixing epoxy while Marc wetted out the glass.

I may get up early tomorrow morning to knife trim the glass. If I do I will also spread dry micro into the trailing edge joggle. Then it will be time to reinstall the lower jigs and flip the wing over for the top skin.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 10

2010-11-28T15:44:00.000-08:00

Early this month I continued work on the left wing. I did things a little different this time. I made a 2x4 frame that I then layed on the floor and leveled with shims. This was much easier than bonding each individual jig to the floor.

After making sure the 2x4 frame was a level as possible, I then attached the jigs to the frame with small angle irons and screwed in diagonal bracing.

When everything was ready to go it was time for the shear web. Local aircraft builder Marc Oppelt stopped by and helped me layup the shear web and install the forward wing cores. Having another hand did help make the job quicker, however the process was still long. Some builders have recomended laying up all plies for the shearweb on a flat surface on plastic and then transfering the whole mess to the cores. I just couldn't picture how this would work, with making sure the web was trimmed correctly. However after further though I think I understand now how this could be done and save time. Also another change. Marc brought by some resperators that he had handy. In the past I had sort of gotten used to the odor, however with the risk of becoming sensitive to the expoxy, it is good practice to limit exposure to the fumes. The masks worked great at filtering out the fumes, but were a little uncomfortable. I will wear a mask now for all large layups.

My girlfriend Serena helped me move the wing from the floor to the workbench on friday and today I layed up the bottom spar cap.

Stick Grip.

2010-11-01T20:13:00.000-07:00

I just recently purchased a B-8 style stick grip through e-bay for not a lot of money. These things usually go for up to $300 used. Because mine was damaged and missing a button I picked it up for $70.

It was pretty rough when I got it. The trigger was cracked and falling appart, the hand rest on the right hand side was mostly missing, one button was missing and another I found out was a normaly closed/push to open.

A little mending and a couple of new switches and it is almost like new. The internal trigger switch also disintegrated, so I have ordered a limit switch that I will retrofit into the handle.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 9

2010-10-28T22:07:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday Marc Oppelt ( http://sites.google.com/site/garagerocket/ ) stopped by and helped me hot wire the left wing. For the most part the whole operation went very smoothly. Sunday night I bonded the foam cores to gather to make up the 5 individual cores now ready for jigging and shear web. The second wing is now well on its way to completion.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 8

2010-10-21T21:55:00.000-07:00

The right wing has been put away for some time to clear the shop for preparations for the left.

I have not completed the right wing, most notably the aileron and glassing the wing root area.

Before beginning work on the left wing I made new wing jigs that I just finished off today. My first wing jigs were made with crappy plywood and I was just not happy with them. I purchased a better grade plywood and I am a little happier with the new jigs.

Another development with the project occurred last weekend when I picked up a used Varieze cowl. While the cowl is beautifully made it will not work, at least without a lot of modifications. It was a gamble that may not have paid off. Still it may work for me. I will hold on to it until the time comes to decide what direction I should take with the cowl.

I will hot wire cut the left wing as soon as I can secure some assistance.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 7

2010-09-08T21:12:00.000-07:00

During the month of August more work was completed on the first (right) wing.

After the shear web and hard point layups were complete, I joined the leading edge cores to the wing and re-installed the forward wing jigs.

Next leading edge wing root was trimmed to 90 degrees to the shear web as indicated by the black line.

Here is the foam core after trimming. Also you can see the aluminium hard point prior to glassing the wing.

Here is the bottom of the wing after laying up the lower spar cap and ready for glassing.

Local canard builder Marc Oppelt is seen here after the bottom of the wing was glassed. Marc is building a very interesting Long-EZ derivative here in Olympia. His project has a slightly larger fuselage and he intends to install a V8 auto engine. If my plane makes it to 10, Marc's will go to 11. Seriously though, Marc has been a great help with both the top and bottom skin of the wing. I believe that these layups are the biggest in the whole project and with Marc's help they went very smoothly. In addition Marc has been really resourceful in finding alternate and local suppliers of materials and parts. Recently we both stumbled upon a supper deal that provided me with enough foam to complete my left wing and provided Marc a great deal of foam for his project and landing gear parts. Having another builder to help is golden, you both learn a little and the job goes quicker.

Here is the right wing after bottom skinning. Peel ply is applied to prep for winglet installation.

After skinning the bottom of the wing I flipped it over an began preparing for the top skin. Here is pictured the process for removing the foam "tail" and removing the peel ply for a glass to glass binding on the trailing edge.

Marc again stopped by to skin the top of the wing. All went well, but I was rushing to prep for the skinning and forgot to rout out the rudder cable channel until after we had smeared micro slurry over the wing (DOH!!). Not a big deal though. We just ran the router through the foam over the micro, made mess of my Dremel tool, but all turned out fine. Again, thanks to Marc O for his assistance.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 6

2010-08-09T20:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I finally got back to some real work on the right wing. I laid up the shear web. I did run into a couple of minor road blocks however.

First of all, I started to late in the day. As usual the layups took longer than I expected. I spent 6 hours cutting glass, mixing epoxy and wetting out the plies. Because of this I had to stop short and didn't lay up the reinforcing lay ups wher the aluminium hardpoints are installed. Instead I peel plied the areas for later.

Also I failed to recognize that I was running low on peel ply. The entire shear web should be peel plied after the glass is laid up. Because I was low on peel ply I only applied the dacron tape to the areas that the spar caps will be bonded in later steps. The forward face of the shear web is bonded to the forward foam blocks with micro and does not require such a super strong bond.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 5

2010-07-18T19:29:00.000-07:00

Found some time today to do a little more work on the wings.

I finnished routing out the wing attachment depressions with my Dremel tool and sandpaper. These depresseions will later house the wing attachment nuts and allow space for a ratchet. I followed this with 2 layers of bid fiberglass. I will knife trim the exess glass tonight after the expoxy has set up enough.

Next I finnished fabricating the two LWA4s and LWA6 for this wing. These were then treated with Alumiprep and Alodine.

Finnaly I bonded the LWA6 with bondo. The smaller LWA4s will be bonded in place after I have trimed the wing attach depressions of the excess glass.

Intermission

2010-07-12T21:30:00.000-07:00

I have not had a lot of spare time these last few months. Washington state's fiscal year ends on June 30 and this time of year is especially busy for me at work.

I just got back from a trip to the Arlington airshow and saw some really cool aircraft and I am anxious to continue my own project.

Thanks to all who check in on my build blog on a regular basis.

More build updates to come soon.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 4

2010-04-10T21:02:00.000-07:00

Well, today, after a little break from the project I managed to get a little work done. But first I'll back up a bit.

A couple of weeks ago I completed temporarily bonding the wing jigs to the floor of the shop with Bondo. Care was taken to ensure that the templates were lined up, level and square. In the photo you can see, if you look close, the red laser line that I used to allign all of the templates.

After the wing jigs were bonded to the floor I test fitted the foam cores. This was not an easy task because the fit was very tight, especially on the training edge. I used a tip from another builder and didn't bond the upper jigs to the floor. That allowed me to unbolt the upper section to allow the cores to more easily slide into place.

Next the leading foam core sections and wing jigs were removed to allow access to the shear web area.

Finally today I bonded the three aft foam cores together with micro. Next up is to fabricate the aluminum hard points that will correspond with the hard points installed in the center section spar.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 3

2010-03-21T13:15:00.000-07:00

Last weekend my brother and I finnished hotwire cutting the right wing cores. Again the whole process was very easy.

Unfortunatly I made a mistake while cutting the aileron cutouts in the outboard most setion. I mistakenly used the inboard aileron template instead of the midspan template. I mulled redoing the entire outboard section, but I decided to glue the scrap back in and recut the aileron with the proper template. The fix worked out fine. There should be some minor repairs to the foam after the aileron is removed.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 2

2010-02-15T14:47:00.000-08:00

Last Friday my brother came down from Seattle and helped me cut the first of the three wing sections. I really messed up when ordering the foam and so I only had enough to cut the outboard section.

After cutting the core, we cut the wiring conduit and split the cores allong the shear web. Next I bonded the blocks togather with micro to complete the two individual foam coars. These will be bonded back together after the shear web is layed up.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 1

2010-02-03T19:22:00.001-08:00

Well, as the plans say, "this is the big one", the wings.

First step was cutting out and assembling the wing jigs. These are used to allign the wing foam cores while they are bonded togather and while the shear web is layed up.

Each jig is split into 4 peices and bolted togather so that they can be separated for different layups.

When I constructed the canard, I purchased preformed foam cores. However after assisting Steve Parkins cut one of his Cozy MKIV wing cores, I reallized how easy it was and decided to cut my own wing cores.

After I completed the wing jigs I bonded the wing templates from the A drawings onto formica laminate and cut them out. These templates guide the hot wire cutting tool to form the airfoil. Also included are templates for cutting torque tube access, aileron cutouts and wiring conduit and winglet.

Here is a photo of the hotwire cutting tool I constructed. An assistant will be required to weild this while cutting the foam cores.

The foam blocks are enroute. In the meantime I will be transfering the "talking numbers" and other information to the back side of each template. Sometimes a reverse template is required depending on weather or not the template is used inboard or outboard of a block, and of course when the other wing is constructed as well.

Chapter 14 - Center section Spar - Part 3

2010-01-12T19:15:00.000-08:00

Happy new year everyone.

The last few weeks I have managed to work steadily on completing the center spar. Today the spar is complete (except for 2 2-1/2" access holes).

The plans call for the spar to be permanently installed at this time. I think however that I will not do that. The EZ takes up a lot of shop space with the center spar and canard installed. If I leave the center spar off and remove the canard, I will have plenty of room in the shop to complete the last of the large layups on the big work table, the wings. I believe that after the wings are complete, I can disassemble the large work table, or cut it down to take less space while I complete the spar installation and build the wing strakes.

Here are some photos of the spar completion:

Here is the center spar after the spar cap layups and the aft bid exterior layups. The 4 aluminium plates are floxed into place. 3 plies UNI glass are layed up over each of these hard points.

After the UIN layups are cured, the center access hole is cut and 3 plies BID is layed up over the foward face of the spar. This hole will allow access to the inside of the center spar for wing attach nuts. This space will also be a baggage compartment behind the passenger seat.

Here is another view of the completed spar.

And here is the spar temporarily installed into the fuselage.

Chapter 14 - Center section Spar - Part 2

2009-12-21T21:33:00.000-08:00

We had quite the cold snap here in the north west and heating the shop to acceptable temperatures had been futile until late last week. With the help of a couple of heaters I managed to get the shop warmed up enough to do some layups.

Here is the inside of the center section spar with the internal glass plies and bulkheads. In this photo the top of the spar is on the right. The bottom, on the left, has a slight dihedral. The aft face is down and the forward face is up. In the right background is pictured the 3 panels, glassed on the inside surface, that will be the forward face of the spar.

Here is another picture of the 3 forward panels ready to micro in place.

Here pictured is the spar after the forward face has been bonded in place and the spar cap troughs have been carved.

Pictured here are the 6 1/4" attachment point reenforcement pieces. Each of these locations will later be drilled to receive 1/2" bolts attaching the wings to this center spar.

And yesterday I completed laying up the center spar shear web. Next up are the spar caps.

Chapter 14 - Center section Spar (and misc photos)

2009-12-02T19:23:00.001-08:00

Materials for my Center Section Spar should arrive via the magic brown van tomorrow.

While waiting for the materials (1/4" divinicell foam, aluminium, fiberglass and epoxy) I dug out the spar jig that I built many months ago. I cut the urethane foam parts (which are pictured test fitted into the jig).

I also cut the 1/8" aluminium attachment renforcement peices (the remaining reinforcement parts will be cut when I recieve the 1/4" stock tomorrow).

Finally I cut the 8 spar cap templates.

MISC. Photos...

Here is a photo of a cover I installed just forward of the instrument panel. the two triangular "flanges", just aft and on the left and right of the panel, will provide a surface for the a gasket on the canopy to seal against.

Also here is a picture of the final nose shape. My brother commented that I never posted a final photo. The top of the nose still remains to be glassed because I want better access to install brake resivoirs and other items before it is glassed in place. I also want to find a clean way of instlling the access hatch.