Last Modified May 1st 1999

April 1999, A Miscellany

April 1st Tidied up the lay-up on the transponder aerial support block that I made earlier and attached the aerial to the block. This is one of Bob Archer's aerials as comes highly recommended. I shaped the support block to allow the aerial to be attached to the starboard fuselage side just aft of where the original pitot static holes were located. A pair of nutserts provide the mounting holes for the aerial while the block will be reduxed to the side of the fuselage next time I have the top off.

I had intended doing the first part of the wing incidence setup over the Easter weekend however family plans and forecasted high winds led me to delay that process.

April 2nd Measured up the plywood for the two centre supports for the cockpit bulkhead and then reduxed these to the bulkhead underside. Later in the day I reinforced these with two bid strips either side of the ply. While the redux was setting I bonded the pitot tube into the lower side of the port flap closeout. I used small dabs of instant glue to keep the tube in place and then added small strips of bid every twelve inches or so along the way. I bonded the pitot static support block into the hole I had made some time ago.

Filled some of the "dents" in the fuselage with superfil.

Painted the inside roof section of the cockpit.

April 3rd Laid up two plies of bid over the pitot static support block and peel plyed the lay-up. Cleaned up the first two ply support brackets on the bulkhead and refitted the bulkhead into the fuselage. Once it was in place I measured the shape of the outboard ply supports taking care to ensure that the bulkhead was level laterally. Cut out the outboard ply supports and then reduxed the plywood to the bulkhead. At the end of the day I repeated the bid lay-up process on the outer supports.

Ripped the peel ply off the pitot static lay-up and fitted the pitot static head into place.

Did some spray painting on metal bits.

April 4th Measured up and fitted the side supports to the mudguard. The more observant builder will note that I have rotated the brake caliper away from the underside of the support arm where Europa specify that it should be. Like many other builders I was not comfortable with the original location as it can result in the brake caliper being damage in the event of a flat tyre. Repositioning the block is easy to do and doesn't affect operation.

Measured out the position for an aluminium sheet to surround the brake and throttle levers. This took a few experiments with paper as the two levers do not move parallel to each other.

Made the snail cam that I will be using as a parking brake.

April 5th Decided to attack the starboard door! I have been putting this off as I suspected that door fitting was going to be a pig of a job. I was not disappointed.

Selecting the base as my reference point as this section did fit nicely into the flanges I proceeded to sand the sides and top until I got a good fit. This is one of the sections of the manual where a simple sentence can result in many hours of entertainment. It took me the good part of a very dusty afternoon before I got a fit that was decent.

April 6th - 9th No building

April 10th Marked out the hinge positions on the door tangs.

April 11th Drilled out the hinge holes and counterbored the holes from the top surface. This is pretty nerve racking as it would really ruin your day of you drilled too far into the hole and came out the other side. The hardest bit about this job is making sure that the holes and counter bore are perpendicular to the inner face of the tang. Tested the fit of the door and then cut back the tang to give me the required 8mm clearance at the tang to allow the door to open.

April 12th Repeated the process with the port door. At this point the doors are a snug fit. The next stage will be to fit the door latch mechanism and drill the holes in the fuselage top for the hinges. Once I am comfortable that all is well then I'll trim the door back to give a couple of millimetres clearance all round. If I had made the clearance in the first place it would have been pretty difficult to establish the final position of the door.

April 13th - 16th No building, Computerworld Expo Show.

April 17th I was going to do the first bit of the wing incidence setting today but it is pouring with rain and blowing a gale so I'll skip that bit. Started work on cutting the slots in the surround plate for the throttle and brake lever. Filled the surface on the mudguard with supafil.

April 18th By the time I finish this surround plate I'll have probably spent over ten hours. It fits well and I only have to cut a hole for the brake fluid cap to finish the job. Sanded back the surface of the mudguard.

April 19th - 21st No building, reports to write :-(

April 22nd Cut the brake fluid hole in the surround plate. I made this 1" diameter in order for it to fit a blind grommet. I checked the fit of the plate and found that I needed to open up the throttle slot a little so I did that.

April 23rd Primed the mudguard. Retested the fit of the surround plate. Mounted the surround plate.

April 24th Sanded back the primer on the mudguard.

April 25th Rigged the wings onto the aircraft and checked the sweep. To do this I stretched a line between the wing tips and checked that it passed through the door frames and the same place each side. I then measured the distance from each wing tip to the front of the firewall and from each wing tip to the ends of the torque tube. The measurements each side matched to within a couple of millimetres. I measured the gaps between the fore and aft lift pin sockets in order to make backing blocks for the lift plates. The forward lift plate is only going to need a small wedge while the aft plate will need a block that varies between 4 and 9mm.

April 26th Made the basic shape of the aft lift plate backing block. I can't confirm the final shape until the next time I rig the wings. Spent a bit of time cleaning up the outside of the fuselage where I had used flox to fill the holes left from fitting the cockpit module to the fuselage.

April 27th Decided to take the plunge and fit the electric trim tab to the port aileron. I placed the outside edge of the plate for the hole surrounding the trim tab 20cm inboard of the outer counterbalance. The plate itself is 8 x 8.5cm. I bonded a 2 bid lay-up onto the plate to reinforce it and made a mounting ring out of 4 bid plate. The foam inside the hole was cut out to match the size of the MAC S9 servo which left 1cm fore/aft and 1.5 laterally as a support surface for the plate. I cut a groove at the outside edge of the support surface and undercut the surface glass slightly to allow for a flox pad to bond the surface to the surround plate and ultimately to the lay-ups inside the hole.

April 28th Fitted nutplates to the mounting plate and then bonded the mounting plate into the hole. For the bonding I first covered the hole plate with cling film and used 3/16" screws to clamp the top plate and mounting plate together. The grooves in the foam and under the top surface were filled with flox and the two plates bedded into place. I clamped a couple of metal plates over the lot to keep everything in line.

April 29th Removed the metal plates and, much to my satisfaction, was able to undo the top plate and extract it from the hole. I cleaned up the odd bit of flox from the inside of the hole. Today was a red letter day - did my first taildragger solo and got my rating on a 1961 PA22/20-108 Piper Colt. Glassed the inside of the hole. I laid in two pieces of bid, the first on the base of the hole and lapping up the lateral sides and the second again on the base of the hole and lapping up the fore/aft sides. I then laid in another piece which ran all around the sides before peel plying all of the surfaces.

April 30th Third anniversary of the arrival of the kit! I am a couple of month's behind where I thought I would be thanks to my right knee but other than that I am very satisfied with the build progress. Cleaned up the glass on the aileron then cut out the groove for the trim drive arm and filled it with flox. I'll grind the flox back later to create a lined channel for the trim push rod.