36-03 & 36-04 main wheel fairings prep

it’s been so long since I just did a routine ‘page report’ that I almost forgot how.  Anyway, the plane is effectively grounded since I’m at 25 hrs on the Hobbs, so—despite being a beautiful day—I decided to get to work on finishing the plane by doing the wheel pants.  I also have a bit of a deadline as I need them done before we go to get it painted next week.

The current plan is to get the engine inspected on Friday morning and take the instrument panels to the painter in the afternoon.  He will take off the spray paint (that’s already flaking) and do a nice carbon fiber overlay.  I’m out of town next week, so that works well.  While the panels are being done, I’ll start on the annual condition inspection.  That should be signed off in early December.  I have 1 or 2 flights to do to finish the Product Acceptance Procedure which I will do and then deliver the plane to Marion for paint.  After getting it painted and re-assembled, it will be very appropriate to sign it off from phase I!

Anyway, back to the present.

Back in the summer, I had finished sanding the front shells to mate well with the rear shells.  It took much longer than expected, and was surprisingly difficult.  One of my hangar neighbors has a new-to-him RV7 (?) which is gorgeous.  I decided that i may be getting a tad anal about trying to match sand the shells, so I went over and looked at his wheel pants.  They have a bit more gap than I do, and his plane is perfect, so I stopped sanding.

Once again, I read the instructions until I understood them (cue the minor key violins) and proceeded with confidence.  I drilled out the little dimples where the screws will attach the wheel fairing brackets.  Damn.  The dimples only are useful if you happen to have sanded the shells exactly as designed.  See paragraph above.   It took a while to figure out what to do.  I didn’t want to just drill again too close to the holes, so I ended up mixing up some flox and filling in the holes, then overlying that with some fiberglass.  That was about 2 months ago.

Today I finished fitting the shells together with tape and drilling the 9 #40 holes around the ‘equator’ and clecoed in place (from the inside.)  I screwed the wheel fairing attach brackets into the rears, then used a light to shine through the front holes and match drilled them.  Viola! 

 

 

Match drilled Main Wheel Fairing

 With the bright light shining through, you can see the fiberglass repair showing through.  It’s quite invisible without the internal light, much less with paint.

The next page was to mark and cut out the locations that the gear legs will pass through. I laid down masking tape and double checked all measurements before making short work of it with the dremel cutting disc and small sanding drum.  Alas, I ran out of time and didn’t get to proceed to the next page.  Next time!

Main Wheel Fairing with leg cut outs

tempus fugit

my, how time flies when you are having fun flying!  Or, to quote a Virgil via a student of mine, tempus fugit.  

N76012 now has 25 hours on the Hobbs meter.  It has also been a year since my airworthiness certificate was signed, so I have grounded the plane until the 25 hour Rotax inspection and my annual condition inspection are done.  The 25 hr Rotax inspection is pretty much an annual/100 hr inspection according to my local Rotax specialist.  He’s going to help me do that in a few weeks.

I’m pulling the paperwork and organizing the Service Bulletins before I start unscrewing things and just doing random inspection.  In other words, I am making a checklist and to-do list before beginning work.  Stay tuned.

I also identified a new painter at Marion airport, which is only a 10 min flight from Delaware.  He’s just setting up a new business and has agreed to paint the plane sometime in December or January.  I’m learning a fair amount about the painting business in the process. 

Here’s an embarrassing rendition of a color scheme.  I’ve been carrying around a handful of these 2 view drawings for several months.  Now that I have a painter, I’m finally motivated to choose a paint scheme.  I’ve been collecting pictures of RV-12s and went through my folder.  This scheme (originally in blue/white) kept catching my eye.  I had a few minutes at work the other day and grabbed the crayon set we give to keep kids entertained in the ED and just colored it in.  With only 3 crayons to work with, you’ll have to use your imagination.  The red represents a bright candy apple red, the yellow is actually the beige of the upholstery.  Despite the crudeness of the sketch, I’m pretty pleased with it.

As part of the condition inspection, I will pull the panel and and have it covered in carbon fiber.  Get that done, re-installed and finish the inspection, then fly it over to Marion.  I will take off all the control surfaces and he will paint it. (He says in a week or so!). I then will head back and re-install all of the surfaces, re-tension the control cables, etc. and finally put in all of the carpet.  I will then sign the logbook and take her out of Phase I and into Phase II and find my first passenger!