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Last Modified August 1st 1999
July 1st - July 11th No building, working overseas. I managed to coordinate this trip with both the PFA Rally in the UK and with the NWEAA rally in Arlington which are very conveniently one week apart. Even more conveniently the PFA rally is only a short drive from Hemel Hempstead where I am working in the UK and the NWEAA rally is fifteen minutes drive from Everett where I am working in the US.
I have a number of ideas and developments that I am going to incorporate on the aircraft as a result of this trip. Graham has changed his tailwheel mod brackets to solid plates due to deformation at JAR/VLA test loads so those need replacing. I am going to do the LA mod on the pilot's side as this makes the aircraft a lot more comfortable to fly. I am going to duplicate Messrs Worthington's passenger compartment heating and cooling system as it is the only one I have heard of that you can actually get too cold with on a hot day and incorporates an effective demister.
July 12th Ostensibly not building but was in fact fitting the outlets to my newly purchased Andair gascolator while sitting in front of the TV and being sociable upon my return from the USA!
July 13th I brought back the cranked joystick mod from the UK. This mod fits a tufnol sleeve into the existing joystick socket into which the new 1" cranked joystick fits - or is supposed to fit! I pushed the starboard sleeve into place and then discovered that the joystick was more than an interference fit. Believe me, it is a lot easier to open up the inside of the sleeve when it is not already fitted inside the joystick socket. Having opened up the starboard sleeve I then opened up the port sleeve before I fitted the sleeve into the socket. The new joysticks are rather nice and take the MAC stick grips quite neatly over the top.
July 14th Popped the top off the aircraft and unbolted the aft bellcrank.
July 15th Filed down the spacers for the aft bellcrank, cut the bellcrank support plates to fit, reassembled the bellcrank mechanism and test fitted the new bellcrank housing into the aircraft.
July 16th My
day started really well with an email that told me that my web
site had been included in McGraw Hill's Top 300 Aviation Web
Sites list. No building though!
July 17th-18th A bitser weekend. First on the list was replacing the pitch counterbalance retaining pin with a rather neat retaining ring given to me by Bob Jacobson. This ring is turned out of aluminium and is held in place by a AN3 bolt allowing it to be easily removed during the counterbalance set up process.
I alodyned, primed and painted the bellcrank housing. As I was waiting for each coat to dry I proceeded to pull out the fuel pipes from the aircraft. I am replacing all of the Europa supplied tie wraps and bases with aviation P clips which I bought at an aircraft surplus store in Ontario California.
While overseas I started thinking about how I was
going to finish the aircraft and came to the conclusion that
there were some parts of the paint process that would be best
handled early on. One area that is easier to finish off at this
stage is the flat surface of the stabilator stub on the fuselage.
This part is covered by the stabilator actuating arm which makes
applying paint difficult unless you are an expert with a spray
gun - and as a rank beginner I am far from that!
I undid the pins holding the torque tube arms and slid these down the torque tube. I then masked off the inboard end of the torque tube and first applied Polyfiber primer and then silver shield. I didn't have enough time to do the final coat of silver shield so I'll need to do that during the week.
Polyfiber have now released a new UV barrier that is white which removes the requirement to add more layers of white primer over the UV barrier. I'll use silver shield for the little bits I am doing now but will change to the new system for the main priming job.
I spent a couple of hours sanding back the flaps and ailerons which I had filled before I went away. To see how effective the Europa supplied filler was in relation to Superfil I had filled the underside of the port flap with that. Never again! That stuff is much more difficult to sand compared to Superfil and took three times longer to sand back that the Superfil'ed flap. The other downside with the Europa supplied filler is that you end up with masses of pin holes so I ended up running a coat of Superfil over this to fill in the pin holes. All of the pieces will need more Superfil applied to bring up low areas but considering I have probably spent less than ten hours filling and sanding all of my control surfaces I am more than happy with the product.
Last job of the weekend was to remount the rudder bellcrank which I did - only to discover that the spacers that Graham had given me resulted in the bolt holding the rudder pushrod striking the lower plate. I undid the swing arm and replaced Graham's spacers with my original items which place the arm closer to the centre of the plates and give more clearance for the bolt. I reattached all of the cables but have left the safeties off the turnbuckles until I realign the rudder cables.
July 19th Applied the final coat of Silver Shield to the stabilator stubs.
July 20th - 23rd No building, having to make up work time for going overseas at the beginning of the month.
July 24th
Applied the first top coat of white primer. Some days building
advances and some days you go backwards - fast! I had Rob Waters,
a recent Europa convert around to get to building tips. Towards
the end of the afternoon I glanced over to the fuselage. With the
top off the aircraft my eyes were drawn to the bolts supporting
the aircraft in its jig. Instead of seeing a nice looking nut
with no gap around it, to my dismay I saw a 1.5" curved tear
in the fuselage side. At some stage during the wing set up the
glass had given way and the fuselage had collapsed in the jig.
Dashing round to the other side of the aircraft showed the same
result on that side. I grabbed a couple of my storage boxes to
support the tail of the plane and things got worse! While
carrying the boxes over to the plane I dropped one onto my port
flap which was sitting ready to have its filler sanded back and
punched a hole through the surface. I supported the back of the
fuselage, cursed slightly and then proceeded to give Rob a
demonstration on how to fix up holes in control surfaces which I
did using the standard repair technique.
July 25th Rebuilt the jig to provide support at the tail of the aircraft. The original jig design would still work well if I had reinforced the area around the bolt holes. If I was doing this again then I would lay up half a dozen layers of bid surrounding the place where the bolt comes through the side and bury a large washer or maybe an aluminium plate in the middle of the layers. This would dissipate the load over a greater area and could stay as part of the structure once the jig was removed without any issue.
July 26th Applied another coat of primer to the stabilator stubs.
July 27th To quote one of our television weathermen - a ditto day.
July 28th Removed the main wheel from the aircraft prior to having its brake support block replaced. I am fitting the (now standard) brake support arm which places the brake in line with the undercarriage arm. The courier promised to deliver it tomorrow so I should be able to get that in place this weekend. I removed the last of the fuel lines ready for the fuel system rebuild and then returned back to the warmth of the lounge to play with the Andair fuel shutoff valve and gascolator that I have bought. The position and interaction of these two items will be critical to how I make the LA mod on the pilot's side so before I take to the tunnel with a saw I wanted to make sure that I knew how I was going to position these. I am now satisfied that I have them arranged in the best layout so I can now go ahead and hack into the plane.
July 29th No building, SAANZ meeting.
July 30th - 31st No building.
