Posted on November 15th, 2007 by Patrick.
Categories: Uncategorized.

Well as my blog and galleries show, I have gotten quite good at picking up the camera to snap a few photos while building the RV-10, but I have gotten quite bad at documenting the process in my blog.  I’ll try to correct that through the end of this year.

The summer was spent working my way through the rest of the empennage kit.  It is nearly complete with just a handfull of rivets and fairing to complete.  It’s hard to believe, but within the next short while, all the pieces that came in the first crate will be fully assembled!  I’ve also spent considerable time researching planning the systems that will be installed in my airplane.  There are a huge number of options for equipment and even more on how to install and use those systems.  Each decision also requires significant research and learning before proceeding.

I’ve  already decided on most of the instrument panel components and even ordered the primary flight displays back in July.  the displays I decided to go with are the OP EFIS PFD’s produced by OP Technologies ( http://www.optechnologies.com ). Unfortunately (well, fortunately for the product and organization, unfortunately for the waiting customers such as myself who had orders on the work docket), they were acquired by Aerosonic a month after my order which considerably delayed shipment of the units.  The acquisition will be good for the product, but delayed my receipt of the displays.  Last update from OP was they were to ship this week.  So we shall hopefully see them soon.

I’ve also ordered much of the plumbing and electrical tools.  There are still many to go, but I think I have decided upon the general electrical system architecture with the help of the Bob Knuckles and his great textbook The Aeroelectric connection.  Anyone building for the first time would be well served by adding this text to their library (along with the AC 14-63 Aircraft Standards publication by the FAA.)  But I’ll be building an essential bus electrical system with dual batteries, a standard primary alternator and a backup B&C SD-20 alternator which mounts on the unused vacuum pump mount point on the engine.  As the panel will be very electrical dependent, this should provide more than adequate power redundancy to render any single and many dual failures a non-event.

Next up after the few remaining tailcone tasks are installation of sound deadening matterials under the cabin floorpans.  I recently pulled up all the floors in the quick build fuselage for instpection and priming prior to that.  Removing the landing gear weldements was no fun what so ever. But it had to be done.  I’m also working out ordering conduit for the fuselage wiring runs.  Only about 15 feet or so is required, but it’s been difficult to find vendors willing to sell less than several hundred feed of the material I want.  The conduit is a plenum grade Innerduct with suitable dimensions, toxicity. and flame resistant characteristics.  It seems to be used primarily by telcos and companies with large wire runs through facilities, so they like to sell it by the “spool” which is 500-1000 feet long.

After  the floors are sound dampened it will be time to attach the tail cone and move on to the next stage of building, the installation and routing of systems.  There are a number of things to be done such as brake hoses, fuel pumps, lines and filters, and control actuator mechanisms.  This shouldn’t take too long by comparison to prior steps.  The plan sections are quite short compared to the already completed tasks in the tail, wings and fuselage.  So hopefully I’ll be able to pick up some speed on those tasks over the holidays.

There are also some tasks remaining to perform on the wings.  There are a few items not performed by the quick builder factory such as tie down bracket threading and wign root fairing attach points.  But I’ve done most of those.  The parts remaining are mostly system installation such as auto-pilot servos, angle of attach sensors, the pitot tube, wiring conduits, landing and nav lights, wing tip fairings, control actuation mechanisms, and then finally the riveting of the wing bottom skins.  I will probably wait on tiveting the bottom skins until I have all wing systems finalized.  Installing things is much easier without the bottom skins attached.  I’ll probably go back to working on the wing systems after I reinstall the floor pans in the fuselage because I’m eager to get those reinstalled as they take up a lot of space in the work shop when not installed!

Once  all of those tasks are complete, the next tasks are another of those big gear shifts when building an RV-10.  It will be time to work on the composite cabin cover which is a new type of work because of all the fiberglass and epoxy work.  It’s the first time in the building when you stop working mainly with aluminum and instead work with composite materials.  It’s quite messy, but I am eager to get going on it.  That stage lasts a while as you work through the cabin top installation and continue on with the windscreen and rear windows.

At that point there will be a few more fuselage tasks, but not many before it is time to start work on the finishing kit (which I still need to order).  The finishing kit includes the doors, door windows, landing gear, wheels, wheel pants, gear leg fairings, engine cowling, engine mount, seats, and the rest of the pieces aside from the electrical systems and engine work.  I’ve been holding off on ordering that kit, because many of the pieces like the cowling halves, doors and seats are quite large. The house is full enough of plane parts as it is.  Hopefully after the tailcone attach, workspace will open up so I can accommodate them.

I also need to get the engine order in soon (again, waiting due to space constraints.)   The engine needs to be hung fairly soon as the airplane is tail heavy when mounted on landing gear and will fall on it’s tail without an engine attached.

But anyway, that should server as a long overdue blog update on the progress and status.  Now that I’ve brought the blog mostly up to date, I will try to keep it more regularly updated.  However, I’ve said that before.  But this time I mean it.  (I’ve also said that before too…)

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Still at it.

Posted on June 1st, 2007 by Patrick.
Categories: Uncategorized.

The last few weeks since the delivery of the quick build fuselage and wings have been busy.  Work has taken a lot of time in my schedule, but there has also been considerable time inventoying the kits, planning systems, and working out all the planning for things that need to be installed during the wing and fuse work.  But I have been making progress on the empennage as well.  The horizontal stabilizer is just about finished, should be done this weekend.  That took a considerable amount of time to deburr, dimple, prime and rivet.  But about done.

 I have been absolutely horrible in updating the blog but hopefully will be able to update it more frequently.  The priorities have been 1-Work, 2-Plane assembly, 3-Photos, 4-Blog.  I will be trying to devote more time to the blog so it doesn’t fall so far behind.

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Day 22 - Rudder Complete

Posted on May 8th, 2007 by Patrick.
Categories: Uncategorized.

Due to a myriad of distractions, there has not been much time to update the blog. Also, there were a few days with no progress while waiting for the pro-seal sealant in the trailing edge of the rudder to cure. I will try to add a post with summaries of the days prior to day 22. But today, I was finally able to wrap up the rudder. Photos are up.

Rudder turned out very nice. The second time going through the alodine and priming process was much much better. The most time consuming step so far seems to be deburring the edges of larger parts like spars. Thankfully, the trailing edge turned out perfectly straight with no bumps, bows, waves, or ripples.

There are a few photos of the rudder hung on the vertical stabilizer (which is where it will ultimately be attached) in the gallery. Together they are pretty big and I am starting to get an idea of just how large the plane is going to get before it’s done.

I have to get busy building. The wing and fuselage kits will be delivered sometime from Sunday to Tuesday. Expect some interesting photos when they arrive. Next order of business on the empennage kit is the horizontal stabilizer which is somewhat large compared to the vertical stabilizer and rudder.

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Photos updated each day.

Posted on April 30th, 2007 by Patrick.
Categories: Uncategorized.

I’ve been rather sloppy with updates to the blog this past week.  Things have been very busy, and what free time I have had, I used to work on the kit.  I have however been updating the photos each day.  It’s a quick process to upload the pictures from the day to the gallery.  I tried to make sure to at least get that done each day.  I will try to update the blog with events since day 9.  I did add short descriptions of the days activities to the gallery section for each day.  So, at least there is some description of what was done.

Progress has been very good. A few days ago the vertical stabilizer was completed and ready to set aside until final assembly down the road.  Rudder is nearly ready for riveting.  I just need to countersink the holes in the trailing edge wedge and then alodine (that is, if I decide to do that again, it is quite an unpleasant task), prime and rivet.

The standard sequence for each piece of the tail seems to be:

  • fabricate needed parts
  • deburr edges
  • assemble with cleco fasteners
  • match/final drill common holes
  • disassemble
  • deburr holes
  • alodine/prime
  • rivet
  • piece finished!

So you can see where the rudder is in this sequence.  Rudder has an extra step in the middle of riveting.  The training edge wedge needs to be glues with a sealant.  The sealant that will be used is this stuff known as pro-seal.  Pro-seal is definitely not fondly regarded by other RV builders.  Tomorrow or the next day, I should get to see for myself how nasty this pro-seal is or whether it is much ado about nothing.

1 comment.

Day 9 - C-Frame Work Surface - Photos Up

Posted on April 22nd, 2007 by Patrick.
Categories: Uncategorized.

Not much time to work today either, a long time friend that flies A320’s for Frontier was in town.  Since he is the one that turned me on to the RV-10, it was obligatory that he spend some time checking out the kit. But I did manage to get the worksurface for the C-Frame dimpler built.  The C-Frame is used to dimple holes too far from an edge to use a hand or pneumatic squeezer. The work surface helps suport skins and protect them from scrathes while dimpling.  Photos are up in the gallery.

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Day 8 - VS Hole Prep - Photos up

Posted on April 21st, 2007 by Patrick.
Categories: Uncategorized.

I had one last workshop construction project to finish.  I wanted to create a wall garden tool rack to get the tools off the garage floor to make more floor space.  I finished that before finally returning to airplane construction.  Though with the empennage crate still in the garage it didn’t yield as much benefit as it will once that thing is gone.  It rained yesterday and is supposed to tomorrow, so I will wait until Monday to finally get it out of the way.

The rest of the work day went towards hole prep which is the last step before priming and riveting the vertical stabilizer.  Hole prep was basically using a soldering iron to score the protective vinyl sheet covering all the parts that came in the kit, so that you can easily tear it away from the rivet holes, yet leave the bulk of the vinyl on the part to protect it from scratches until final assembly next year.  Some people just take all the vinyl off right away, because supposedly it hardens some and is more difficult to remove later.  As the workshop laypout is still changing, and parts will still be moved, I am leaving it on for a little while longer until the parts have a final storage location until final assembly.

Photos are up.

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Day 7 - Workshop Management, Photos up

Posted on April 20th, 2007 by Patrick.
Categories: Uncategorized.

With the arrival of the big tools, something needed to be done to get workspace back before the situation got out of hand.  The biggest issue was to get rid of the empennage kit crate that’s been taking up most of the garage for the last week.  To get rid of it, I needed somewhere else to store the skins.  After a survey, the best plase seemed to be overhead.  So I put together an overhead rack to store the skins and long items from the kit.  Once that was complete I cleaned up the rest of the garage.  Photos are in the gallery.

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Day 6 - New Tools Assembly - Photos Up

Posted on April 19th, 2007 by Patrick.
Categories: Uncategorized.

Today I was expecting to receive my new air compressor, but as luck would have it, the band saw came  days early and arrived at the same time.  The band saw was cosmetically damaged either during or prior to shipping.  Not sure what I will do about it yet.  It’s disappointing to buy an expensive tool that arrives in that condition, but it doesn’t affect it’s function and it would be a pain to disassemble and ship back the damaged piece.  Most of the work time today was spent assembling and adjusting the band saw.  Photos are in the gallery.

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Day 5 Photos Up

Posted on April 18th, 2007 by Patrick.
Categories: Uncategorized.

Day 5 photos are posted in the gallery. Todays work entailed finishing work on the vertical stabilizer skeleton. Numerous holes had to be match drilled, deburred, and final drilled. The nose ribs also had to be grinded to fit the stabilizer skin. The spar doubler plate also had to be machine countersunk. The alclad aluminum used in most of the parts has an amazing finish. This produced some really interesting photographs of the inside of the stabilizer. Tomorrow’s work will be to final drill the skin/skeleton rivet holes and begin dimpling of the skins and countersinking of more spar.

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RV-10 Empennage Sub-kit packing dimensions

Posted on April 17th, 2007 by Patrick.
Categories: Uncategorized.

Should anyone reading this be waiting for their own empennage kit to arrive here are the sub-kit sizes as I received them.  I took this list to Walmart with me to shop for plastic bins to store the smaller parts in until needed:

1 - 17″x8″x4″
2 - 36″x8″x4″
3 - 35″x22″x2″
4 - 25″x4″x4″
5 - 28″x3″x6″
6 - 96″x3″x6″
7 - 29″x9″x4″
8 - 134″x2.5″x3.5″
9 - 8″x4.5″x5.5″

I tried to store pieces as organized in sub kits.  That way when I need a part i can look it up on the packing list (which is organized by sub kit) and know which bin it should be in.  I labeled all the bins using a Brother label maker.  I am not far into the project, but so far the system has worked great.

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