Back From Hiatus! (Or is it a 'fly-atus?)

Sarah here! After a longer than average hiatus from the blog and build, I'm happy to announce we're back on both. Nothing Earth shattering to report on the build front just yet, but here is a write up of what we've been up to since our last post.

On the flying front 

Since we last posted, I flew my first solo on August 26, 2016 in a Piper Warrior at C17.

 On June 2, 2017 Mike completed his RV-10 transition training in Vernonia, Oregon with Mike Seager. His parting words? "Finish building it, go fly it, and have some fun!" - A quote that we intend on living by! 

 As of 6/9/2018, Mike has flown 95 Young Eagles! 

FL Adventure 2017

It wouldn't have been right to start off 2017 in any other way than with an epic Tour de Florida in a 182 we rented from RexAir in Naples while we were down South visiting Mike's parents in Sanibel. Our official route was:  KARTR - KEYW - MTH - MNATE  JOMIN - CAHOO - VKZ - HIVUR - WOPDU - KSUA - KVRB - KISM - KVDF. 
    

A few notable stops from that adventure included staying the night in Key West (which had been on our list for a few years, but FL wx had always prevented the trip), flying along the Miami skyline, stopping for lunch in Stuart and having lunch with our dear friend Mandani, over night in Vero Beach, spending all day at Universal Studios, and an overnight in Tampa where we had the best dang ole steak at Council Oaks, a recommendation from fellow RV-10 builder and friend, Mike T.

We finally made it to KEYW so we just had to snap a selfie on the ramp.

  

While in Vero Beach, Mike received a one hour lesson in a motor glider, a gift that he got for Christmas.

 The morning we went to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter! Some of us were more excited than others. 

Oshkosh 2017!  

We flew into OSH17 in the Archer we've named Julie. We got set up in the North 40 and on Tuesday Mike flew to down Midway to pick up his folks and flew them in via the Fisk arrival. They really enjoyed their time in Oshkosh and we were so happy that they were finally able to see what we can never seem to stop talking about.

It wouldn't be a complete trip without the selfie in front of the Brown Arch. 

Oshkosh 2018!

In 2018, we ventured to Oshkosh in a different kind of Cherokee than in years past. We bought a camper in April and decided to bring that to Oshkosh instead of flying. Camp Scholler is a lot different than the North 40, but both have their charm (and bringing your house with you is definitely charming). That being said, we can't wait to fly the RV-10 into OSH!

Our home away from home for the week.  

Hanging out at S.O.S. with a few fellow builders. 

On Wednesday, we helped out with the Pedal Plane World Record attempt. It was super neat to see the crew of a C-5 Galaxy stop what they were doing to snap a few pics.  

2019

As I sit here and reflect on 2019 and try to wrap up this post, I can't help but to think what a crazy year it's been. In April we bought about 24 acres of land and have begun building on it. The first structure to go up was an 18'x42' shed that houses tools and building materials for the shouse (shop house) we will be erecting in 2020. We'll keep you all apprised of the progress on that building project as well the airplane which will be easier than ever now because mikeandsarahrv10 is on Instagram! Follow us here!

2019 brought us losses, broken bones (I was a natural at skiing until I wasn't...), curve balls, more building projects, another Oshkosh, incredible experiences with family and friends, and there was something else... oh yeah, we got married!

It's amazing how one minute you're skiing and the next you've met your deductible.

Our first selfie at the property. 

First concrete order! Pouring the footings for the shed.

An RV10 builder selfie at OSH19, callsigns "Squirrel", "Possum", "Conehead", and "Cupcake"

Here's the mock-up of the shed and the finished product. #NailedIt

 I ordered my 'something blue' from RadarContact and can attest to the phenomenal customer support! The left shoe is the New Orleans sectional (where I'm from) and the right is the New York sectional (where Mike's from). 

  

AirVenture 2016

Well, we're back from another awesome time at AirVenture Oshkosh 2016! Here's a writeup of our trip... enjoy!

Getting There

We left home a day earlier than planned (Friday 7/22) so that we could be in front of a line of bad weather that looked like it might be a problem if we waited until Saturday. Because we left so late in the day however, we weren't going to be able to make it to Oshkosh before the airport closed at 8:00 PM, so we set our sights on Baraboo, WI (KDLL) to spend the night. Our original plan was to fly formation as a flight of 4 aircraft (us in the Archer, Dan in a Cardinal RG, Gretchen in a Citabria, and Jonathan in an experimental biplane called a Burrows MB-360... a "motley crew" if there ever was one!); but since we were in sort of a rush to get airborne, and everyone would be departing from different home base airports in a staggered fashion, we figured we'd just improvise our way up to DLL and then do a "real" formation the next morning. So, we loaded up "Julie" the Archer with our 315lb of camping gear and set off into the dusk, headed for Baraboo.

About halfway there, as we were crossing the Mississippi River and wondering if we were going to hear from anyone in the formation on discrete frequency, I got a text message from Jonathan (I know I know, texting and flying...) that said "had an engine failure, all is ok." I thought whoa, not good at all. We decided to continue on, and after landing at Baraboo we called him to get the whole story. Long story short, the MB-360's engine quit on him at about 500' AGL just after takeoff from IIB. Biplanes aren't exactly known for their streamlined aerodynamics, and thus without power they basically become controllable bricks falling through the air. He ended up making a flawless forced landing on the road beside the airport, coasted into the neighbor's driveway (Bob Hoover style, from the sounds of it), and, I can only imagine, proceeded to reach for a fresh pair of shorts from his camping gear before climbing out of the airplane.

So after the dust settled with all that excitement, Jonathan and Gretchen decided to stay on the ground for the week, and in lieu of going to OSH they took a road trip and went camping around some different parks in the area. Sounds like they had a great time, and it was probably a well-earned reprieve from flying after that whole ordeal. That left Sarah and I in the Archer, and our friends Dan and Alexis in their Cardinal RG, who ended up also making their way to Baraboo that night.

We all split a hotel room, ate some frozen pizza from the hotel bar, drank a few Spotted Cows, and called it a night. The next morning, we looked up at the sky to realize it was pretty well socked in. The METAR was reporting BKN003, which is well below the limits for safe VFR flight. More bad news to the west: A line of storms had formed and were making their way toward us. The bright side of this was that at least we were on the correct side of the storms-- had we waited to leave home until now, we would have been completely stuck. This was unfortunately the case for our friends Roy and Merry, who were waiting to depart from IIB in a 172 to come and join us.

Our first Spotted Cow of the trip!

We grabbed some breakfast from McDonald's and waited for the skies to clear. Although the METAR hadn't changed, we were noticing a few holes in the sky showing clear blue above, and they seemed to be increasing in both size and frequency... a good sign, but it was now a race to see if the skies would improve in time before the storm hit us from the west. So we gathered our gear, checked out of the hotel, and headed to the airport to be ready to pounce at the first sign of good weather. The four of us joined a group of about 20-30 people out on the ramp at DLL, all waiting for good weather to head to OSH. What made it particularly frustrating was that Oshkosh itself, a mere 50 miles away, was reporting beautiful clear skies and calm winds. That means that although we're grounded here, the arrivals to OSH are in full effect, and with every new arrival there, it pushes us one parking spot further away that we'll be stuck with.

Waiting to depart KDLL Saturday morning

I should point out that this entire situation is the kind of thing you can find many accident reports about... a pilot pressed by a number of external factors including both schedule and weather, and the fear of disappointing your passengers, in this case by potentially ending up in a less-than-ideal parking spot to camp in. Of course, the latter point wasn't really a factor, at least from Sarah herself. She is very much accustomed to the way things go in GA, and is about as easygoing as it gets when it comes to schedule changes and improvisation like in the current situation. That doesn't change my own desire to get us there on time, though, and it really does take quite a bit of mental gymnastics to come up with a correct and safe "game plan" that is untainted by external factors.

We ended up chatting with a couple guys who had a Ryan PT-22 and a Waco biplane, and were waiting for the weather to clear. As we talked, we saw a rather large "hole" in the sky begin to float right over the airport. This might be our chance! Talking with these two experienced pilots who were flying airplanes that performed significantly worse than our own, Dan and I made the decision to follow their lead and depart behind them (if they can make it out, we should be able to no problem, right?). We ran out to the ramp and climbed into our airplanes as they were hand-propping their antiques next to us. With four engines now roaring to life, we taxied out to the runway and watched this flight of two depart ahead of us and climb successfully through the hole, turning on course to Oshkosh. With nothing left to do but follow suit, Dan and I took the runway and departed in trail, climbing up and out into blue skies. After about 10 miles of flying towards OSH, the skies opened beneath to become ideal "clear and a million" weather for the rest of our arrival. Not the most ideal of circumstances, but we did make it out safely and legally... that's the important part!

The arrival itself was pretty painless... there were a few other planes around, but the spacing pretty much worked itself out on its own and we just flew up the tracks, with a right turn at Fisk Ave, left base for RW36L, and landed on the yellow dot without any issue. After a long taxi up to the North 40, we got parked in a nearly ideal camping spot and shut down... we made it!!

Parked and started unloading

Tent set up - home sweet home for the week!

The Week

What a week! I couldn't possibly go into detail about the whole trip, but let's just say Oshkosh never disappoints! We did get a bit more rain than usual, particularly in the first couple of days (remember all those storms we were racing to get in front of?), but by the middle/end of the week the weather became much more tolerable. Here's a few highlights:

• Sunday we attended the RV-10 builder's dinner, put on by a number of current and former RV-10 builders in Camp Scholler. It's always great to see this group, meeting up with some old friends and making new ones, often finally being able to associate a face with a familiar online profile either from VAF or Facebook. It's a very diverse group from all over the country and even beyond!
• Monday we attended the RV builder's social, which is always a fun chance to "cut loose" a bit around your fellow RV family. It's sponsored by a number of vendors who cater to the experimental/RV aviation market, and there is always plenty of Spotted Cow (among other beers) flowing freely. It's become a tradition for us to attend this social and then stumble over to SOS when the kegs run dry, usually right around sunset, to grab some food and maybe a few more drinks. This is always a night we look forward to, but don't expect us to be ready for anything too early on Tuesday morning ;-) 
• Tuesday night we had the tough decision to choose between the Van's Dinner Social or the EAA Chapter Presidents' dinner, sponsored by Ford. Since this is the first year I've attended OSH as a chapter president, we thought we'd give it a shot. We had a good time and ran into a good RV-10 friend (they seem to pop up everywhere don't they!), but honestly there wasn't much food and there was nowhere to sit. I guess it didn't really live up to what I thought it was going to be... I think next year we'll stick with the Van's dinner.
• Wednesday night we attended the EAA Young Eagles dinner in the Eagle Hangar at the museum. This is always an excellent event with delicious and somewhat healthy/square food, which can be a rare commodity at AirVenture! We even had the chance to get a photo op with Sully and Skiles!
• Thursday we had our Chapter 33 dinner at Saz's plaza. We had a decent turnout, maybe 8-10 members in attendance from the Cedar Rapids area. It's always fun to plan these kind of destination events!
• Friday we were invited to fellow RV-10 builder Mike T.'s campsite for dinner and a few drinks. We had a delicious dinner and great conversation that went well into the night. It's so humbling and awesome to meet so many genuinely great people at OSH!
• Saturday morning we ran the "Runway 5K" while tired and sore from the week's events, not to mention still full of salmon and Jim Beam from the night before. Needless to say, we didn't set any world records, but we made it through and enjoyed the free water, bananas and bagels at the end of the race (I remember asking the lady handing out bagels where the doughnuts were... lol).
• Sunday morning, it was time to pack up and head home... time to get back to building and look forward to OSH 2017! With any luck, we'll be flying our very own RV-10 by then....

A few random pics:

RV Builders Social 2016! I got some crap from a few RV-10 friends who noticed my name tag said "Mike" the night before at the less-crazy RV-10 dinner, but tonight it was time for "Mikey J" to come out ;-)

We met Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger and F.O. Jeff Skiles from the "Miracle on the Hudson" at the Wednesday Young Eagles dinner!

Probably the highlight of the entire trip, Sarah and I both had the chance to meet the legend himself, Mr. R.A. Bob Hoover!

Had the chance to meet up with another RV-10 builder friend Mike T, who graciously invited Sarah and I to dinner at his campsite. Fresh grilled salmon imported from New Zealand... yum!!! Thanks again Mike!!!!

We ran the Runway 5K! Nope, we weren't in it to win it, but we had fun :-)

Lounging in our new Wind Pouch inflatable couches... they are quite comfortable once you figure out how to properly inflate them!

Sunday morning departure, headed for our halfway stop at Lone Rock, WI for our usual breakfast at the Piccadilly Lilly. Just a few other airplanes showing on the TIS!

With that, it's time to get back to building!!!!!

Forward Progress!!!

Well after almost 6 months of very little progress to report, I'm happy to say we had a very productive holiday weekend in the shop. Oh yeah, happy July 4!!!

Team Sarah Maggie and Mikey J back at it in the shop!

First order of business, however, was to fix our propane grill in preparation for Oshkosh later on this month... the hinge had some kind of cheap and terrible rivets holding the cover together, and it had come apart sometime last year. So, it seemed like a perfect project to fire up the rivet gun for the first time in quite a while:

A couple AN470AD4-4 and we're back in business... first rivets set in quite a while!!

Alright, now on to the fiberglass stuff. I've been wanting to get my center console and throttle quadrant up and going, so the first thing I wanted to do was put the throttle friction lock recess back into place. I did this by marking the center point of the friction lock stud, and drilling a 2.5" hole using a hole saw. Then, I took a scrap piece of 1/2" styrofoam and cut a hole out of it as well (using the hole saw with the drill in reverse):

Throttle friction lock recess

I took a second piece of styrofoam and glued it to the back of the first piece, and taped it into place behind the hole I cut in the console. After a quick layup session and some sanding, drilling, and cutting, I had this piece:

Throttle friction lock, with quadrant mounted into place

Nice!! Nothing like taking some time off from building and getting back into the swing of things with a successful first project. Next, it was time to tackle the cabin cover. We've got a couple things going on simultaneously with the cabin cover: (1) The A-pillars are nearly done after months of "5-minutes-at-a-time" work sanding and filling; (2) The B-pillars will be closed in much like the A-pillars, but that effort is just getting started. Sarah has volunteered to take charge of this task (in fact, that's what she's doing in the top photo in this post) and I fully expect them to come out better than the A-pillars that I did; and (3) The overly-complicated overhead console. While I'm happy we're taking this route, I cannot overstate the amount of extra work that "rolling your own" requires versus buying, say, the Aerosport overhead console out of the box. I think by the end of this build I'm going to be Aerosport's #1 sales rep, even though I've bought only a small handful of their products compared to what they have available :-)

So now that the ducts are pretty close to done, it's time to build up the rest of the overhead, which will contain lights, switches, and a 4" speaker. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what the best design would be for this, taking into consideration function, headroom, and aesthetics. I came up with this hourglass-shaped design which I'm super happy with how it turned out:

The hourglass-shaped cutout for the overhead console

The front two vent pads are visible at the bottom of the photo above. Working backwards from there, the idea is to have the vents "flow" visually into the area immediately behind, where there will be two eyeball spot lights. The center area will be raised slightly, approximately 5" wide and have an access cover containing a few switches and hiding some wiring. Moving further back, there is a mold to put a flush-mounted 4" PA speaker in the ceiling. I'm planning on using a Visaton R10S speaker with a black wire mesh grille. It *should* look pretty slick when it's done.

Moving further back from the speaker is the set of rear vent pads, which I've noticed I placed quite a bit farther forward than where they are in the Aerosport overhead console. From my mockups and measurements, these will be directly over the knees of the rear seat occupants, which is where I envisioned to be the best place for them. Maybe they are better further back? Oh well, too late to change that now. Lastly, there will be another area for two more eyeball spot lights for the rear seat occupants.

After mocking everything up with pink foam, I had an idea to try something different to fill in all the gaps and round off all the transitions: Great Stuff spray foam. We've dabbled with it plenty in the past, but this is the first time I'm using it for mold-making. I laid down a sheet of plastic film and got to work:

Using spray foam to fill in the gaps, and bucking bars to hold everything in place

Side view of the current state of affairs

Now to let the foam cure and get to sanding it all back down again!

We're still here...

This post is dedicated to our friends who've reached out asking for an update... we're alive and well, just had a CRAZY spring so far... hopefully things will be settling down soon and we can get back to building!

Well, we're over halfway to Oshkosh now since the last update (yes we keep track of time using Oshkosh as a reference), and although unfortunately I don't have a ton of progress to report, I thought I'd make a quick update. I think we left off complaining about the basement flooding...again. Fortunately, it wasn't too big of a mess or hassle, and within a week or two things were pretty much back to normal in that department. Both Sarah and I have had a number of things going on though, keeping us mostly away from the garage. Every now and then we'd sneak out there and sand a bit on the cabin cover, but really hardly any measurable progress has been made.

So let's see... where to start? Oh yeah, we got a new puppy!!! Guess what we named him?

Our new puppy - Cleco!!

I don't have to explain to this audience why we named him Cleco... but unfortunately everyone else we run into needs a quick explanation, always with the same unenthusiastic reaction of "oh... cool." It's alright, we think it's a good name for him. We got him from the local animal shelter, and he has adapted to our household very well, and gets along great with our other dog Mesa. Training and housebreaking is going "ok" so far, as I'm sure anyone who's raised a puppy can agree it's no small task and takes no small commitment!

Shortly after bringing home our new pup at some point in early April, I ended up getting in touch with fellow RV-10 builder Ed Kranz up in the Minneapolis area, and he very graciously offered for Sarah and I to come up and see his plane (now completed and flying) in person before it went in for paint. That was an offer we couldn't pass up! One of the primary things I was interested in seeing was his G3X avionics setup, which was very similar to what we've purchased, except for the fact that he had opted for the "whole hog" and has three beautiful 10" screens in his panel as opposed to my two. He is an advocate of the three-display approach, so that you can have a full-screen PFD and then use the center screen as the MFD. In a two-display setup like ours, the second panel is too far off to the right to contain much useful data for the person in the left seat (and vice versa).

Ed's three-display RV-10 panel in action

It was so cool to be able to get up there and see the very airplane I had been watching come together online over the past few years, and not only that but get a chance to go flying in it! Thanks so much again to Ed for your generosity and hospitality... we are truly grateful to be part of such a cool community of builders. Can't wait to "pay it forward" for some future builders in our plane when it's done... but now I'm getting ahead of myself :-)

Anyway, after a short flight back home in "Julie" the Archer, I had to step into the shop for a minute with some mockups and start playing around:

N165MJ with three 10" displays

N165MJ with a 7" center display

It's tempting... very tempting. We'll see how things go. Another thing to point out is I've gotten rid of the GRT Mini-X in favor of the new Garmin G5 EFIS, as well as swapped out audio panels from the GMA350c to the GMA245. I've actually been able to sell off those new-in-box items I had already purchased, and place an order with Stein for the new stuff. It should work out pretty close to a wash, maybe even a few dollars in my favor, and I'll have all the "latest and greatest" Garmin stuff. The audio panel may be regarded as a bit of a step down from the flagship 350c, but the new 245 actually has all of the features I wanted out of the 350c, and it interfaces better with the rest of the G3X system. And it's cheaper, so it's really a win-win! I think basically the only thing I lose is the voice command feature... which I wasn't really too excited about in the first place anyway.

So after the trip up north to see Ed and his plane, our schedules became almost completely filled up with "stuff" to do, and so we never really got any time to get back into the shop. I participated in a spot landing contest and LOST. Ugh. I landed about 2 feet short of the line, which is disqualifying. The winner landed about 20 feet beyond the line. Video of my attempt here:

Even two months later, still sore about this :-)

After that whole ordeal, I spent about the next 3 weeks holed up in my office, coding up and designing a new website for our EAA chapter. Back in February, I had been elected President of our local Chapter 33 (sounds pretty cool when I say it that way huh?), and the first order of business I wanted to achieve was improve our method of communication and simplify our website, making it easier to browse and maintain than before. It's just a basic Wordpress-powered site, but don't let the simple theme fool you... it still took weeks of work and thousands of lines of PHP code to make it all work the way I wanted. Fun stuff!! See the site here: http://www.eaa33.org.

At some point in here, I built a new cutting table and storage rack for rolls of fiberglass, peel ply, and upholstery that rolls around on the floor and collapses for storage. It also has a rack along the top that holds a number of wire spools for when we get around to wiring everything up. I'll throw a picture of it in here soon.

Next up was a Young Eagles Rally, held at our "home" airport in Marion and sponsored by our Chapter. It ended up not as busy as we had hoped, but I did have the opportunity to make a flight that I think easily counts as the most rewarding thing I've had the privilege to do yet in an airplane... take my friend Jenny's son Dylan up for a ride. Dylan has autism, and at first I wasn't sure how things were going to go on the flight. Those concerns melted away as we performed our takeoff roll... here's one of my favorite videos that I've ever taken (there are a couple others from the flight on my youtube channel if you're interested):

Young Eagles flight with Dylan - Takeoff!

That was a flight I will not soon forget... so happy that it worked out the way it did! We're looking forward very much to the next Young Eagles Rally!

So let's see... other than that, I took my friend Brannen on a surprise "Bachelor's Day" flight the week before he got married. We went to Lone Rock, WI (KLNR) for breakfast at the Piccadilly Lilly Airport Diner, followed by a day in Oshkosh (KOSH) to visit the EAA museum, and then finished the day with dinner in Prairie du Chien, WI (KPDC) at Jones Black Angus, a nice steakhouse right across the street from the airport. Fun times!

Brannen (left), Roy (center), and Me (right) up to no good flying "Julie" the Archer all over WI!

Memorial day weekend came and went faster than I could have ever imagined (thanks in no small part to Brannen's wedding... congrats to you and Becca!), propelling us straight into June now, again with very little progress to report on the plane. Lately, I've been sneaking out to the garage a bit more and continuing on the cabin cover. The A-pillars are nearly complete, and they are finally contoured the way I had envisioned, with very few high or low spots remaining. Again, will get some pics on this soon.

Lastly, we're getting more and more excited for OSH16 as it approaches... we even got a new tent!

Our new OSH tent, set up and ready for waterproofing in our hangar

That's about it for now. Unfortunately, the hits just keep on coming as far as distractions go. This weekend, we have a benefit to attend for a good friend in need of a heart transplant, followed by a deep-cleaning of our house in preparation for the upcoming Father's Day weekend, when my parents are coming to visit from NY to spend the week. HOPEFULLY, when that is all over with, by the end of next week, we can get back to spending some serious time in the garage.

See you all then!

Not Again!!!!

Welp... the basement flooded again. Not nearly as bad this time, and unlike last time, this event was 100% my fault. In an effort to "foolproof" the sump pump system for the coming spring season, I had recently installed a triple-redundant array of pumps (two 120v and one 12v backup), each with all new PVC lines and couplings. Unfortunately for me, I didn't properly tighten one of the hose clamps on a rubber coupling, and after the first 24 hours of operation (during which time I had been checking on it religiously) it came apart. For the next 36-48 hours or so until we discovered the problem, every time the pump kicked on, it was spilling water directly into the basement... Ugh.

So that really sucked. Luckily, cleanup wasn't quite as bad, and we should be able to salvage the carpet. But, it will be a few weeks of off-and-on rework down in the basement, which will of course take time away from the project. Oh well, that's life I suppose.

Things that we have gotten accomplished since the last update: nothing really measurable, hence the lack of posts over the past month. We've been filling and sanding on the overhead console, switch pod, and center console pieces. It's coming together, but motivation has been slipping a bit too due to all the other things going on. We'll get through it, eventually.

One other thing we got done was take the engine over to Poplar Grove Airmotive near the Rockford, IL area for assembly and testing. I spent more time than I thought would be necessary to inventory all of the parts in the days leading up to the road trip over there. By the time I was done inventorying everything, I had an SUV completely filled with boxes, and an Excel spreadsheet that itemized every single part and its current condition (new, overhauled, as-removed, etc).

I ran into a couple minor snags with the folks at Poplar Grove, but I'm pretty sure we'll be able to work everything out. I had no trouble making the 3.5-hr drive over there, and unloading all the parts and check-in was a breeze. I headed for home thinking all was well. The next day, however, I got an alarming phone call. They don't deal much with the experimental aviation side of things, and they were expecting many of the parts like the new fuel system (overhauled by Airflow Performance) to have yellow tags with them. Since the overhaul was experimental, those tags don't exist, and for a moment there I thought that might be a show-stopping problem. After some negotiation and explanation though, they were able to accept everything as-is, and I think I narrowly avoided having to drive back over there to collect all of my parts and take them somewhere else. I still don't have a finalized quote though, since they have a backlog of several weeks before they can really look at everything and shoot me a finalized number... so I'm still sort of in a holding pattern, hoping that things will turn out as originally expected.

While we wait on the engine, we'll hopefully get a chance to finish up on all this fiberglass business. If the timing of things goes well, we'll get our engine back and ready to hang about the time we finish getting the cabin cover and doors all fitted and glassed... we'll see if that happens!

Back To The Grind

Decent progress this last week, I guess. I'm finding that it's harder to gauge how far things are coming along with fiberglass work, because it's much more of a subjective art form than it is a concrete, step-by-step process. I think I'm much more of a step-by-step kinda guy.

We've continued with the A-pillars in the cabin cover, filling and sanding, filling and sanding. Complex curves are tough, but we've found out that using the right sanding block is the key to it. I made a sanding block out of a piece of 2" PVC pipe that is about 6" long, and hold it at about a 45-degree angle to the curve of the A-pillar. In this way, the roughness of the filler slowly sands away to become smooth with the natural curvature of the pillar.

The A-pillars, maybe about halfway done sanding and filling

We also final-attached the vent ducting to the cabin cover yesterday. This was kind of a benchmark step, since it had to be done before we can design and layup the overhead console itself, which will cover most of the ducting you can see now. It will also enable me to continue with the switch pod, and get everything to play nicely together. Lastly, we can also start on the B-pillar closeouts, which will be a similar process to what we're doing with the A-pillars, although hopefully not as difficult.

The vent ducting final-attached to the cabin cover. You can also see the spray foam making the general (initial) shape for the B-pillar closeouts

That's pretty much it on the fiberglassing front. In other news, I've done a bit more work in the tailcone area as well. I've attached the master and crossover solenoids to the battery mount, and re-made the yaw damper servo mount out of a slightly bigger sheet of aluminum, allowing me to mount the Garmin GDL-39R receiver next to the yaw damper servo.

Yaw damper servo (right bottom), Pitch servo (right top), GDL-39R (center), crossover solenoid (left)

Battery tray and master solenoid (left), crossover solenoid (right)

It came out pretty good so far! I'm excited to start wiring this stuff up. I did make my first RG400 BNC cable too, connecting the GDL39R to the TED transponder antenna located in the free area just aft of the elevator bellcrank. I watched a youtube video from SteinAir found at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPyLeBIcf9c, and it was really not a whole lot different than crimping standard household RG6 cable, other than using a slightly different crimper and the need to crimp a pin to the center conductor. The principle is pretty much the same though. I look forward to making the 10-20 more BNC cables necessary for the rest of the airplane!

Lastly, I had a question from a fellow RV-10 builder about the battery tray that I modified, so I'll describe what and why I did stray from the original Vans design F-1035 Battery mount.

The F-1035 battery mount is designed for a single Concorde RG-25XC battery, which has a footprint of 7.5" x 5". Many folks prefer to use an Odyssey PC925, which has a footprint of 7.05" x 6.64". Lastly, folks that run a dual-battery system typically install two Odyssey PC680's, each with a footprint of 7.15" x 3". Since I'm planning on having a "true dual" electrical system on this airplane, I'd like to go with the last option. However, I wanted to design a battery tray that would still have some flexibility in its design, in case someday I want to go back to a single battery setup, or maybe even move one of the two batteries up front for CG purposes.

After tossing around this idea for a bit, I decided to modify the factory mount to be 7-1/4" wide and 7-1/2" long, with provisions to attach a small 3/4-wide aluminum angle divider in the center (pictured above) and/or at the back. In this way, I can install two PC680's with a 3/4" gap in the middle and a 3/4" barrier in the back; a single PC925 with a 3/4" barrier in the back; or a RG-25XC in the original lengthwise configuration. There is an additional 3/8" nutplate installed between the two original 3/8" nutplates, so that I can attach a third hold-down bolt in that location to help keep everything secured and properly spaced.

The tray was modified by cutting off the side walls and taking some extra pieces of aluminum sheet and 1/8" angle pieces to make some extensions to "patch" into the existing part. You can see the two double rows of rivets in the photo above where the seam is. All in all, I'm very happy with how it has turned out, however I haven't yet actually installed any batteries, so the jury is still out as to whether or not it will work as I expect!

Hopefully that helps answer the question about the battery tray. Next post will likely be from back in fiberglassing hell! :-)