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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