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Last Modified March 10th 1998
February 1st Set up the alignment of the aileron rod ends. This is a messy job as the flap nuts have to be partially disassembled to move the flap out of the way and every adjustment and check of the aileron requires the aileron to be removed and then reattached. [I discovered later on that you can undo the aileron push rods without removing the ailerons, the secret is to remove the arm from the nut when when the aileron is in its fully down position]
February 2nd Fitted the wings to the cockpit module and rechecked the aileron rod end alignment again. Lesson - do all of this adjustment with the wings rigged to the cockpit module. All of the setting up I had done yesterday with the wings vertical was a total waste of time. As I don't have enough space in my workshop to setup the wings and cockpit module together I can only do this work outside on the front driveway which really restricts me to working at weekends on the alignment so my progress is being slowed down at the present time.
February 3rd - 5th No building, getting ready for SportAvex '98
February 6th - 8th SportAvex '98. Great turnout, great planes, great weather. Much fun had by all! Lots of people asked where the Europa was!
February 9th -13th No building, working out of town.
February 14th At last, an opportunity to work on the plane again. I set both wings up horizontally in the garage and did the aileron link rod and drive plate alignment on both of them. Following this I set the cockpit module drive plates so they were vertical when the control column was vertical. Having persuaded Carol to keep her car out overnight I left everything in place until tomorrow.
February 15th Rigged
the wings and checked the setup. This time the setup was close to
ideal with the only misalignment being that the two ailerons were
up slightly at neutral and that I had too much down movement.
Following the manual to fix these problems, it took me less than
an hour to get everything aligned and setup.
I have noticed a bit of play on the port aileron which is being caused by a small (<0.5mm) gap between the cockpit aileron thrust plate and the wing thrust plate. As these were tight up against each other during the setup I suspect that the flexibility of the cockpit module as it is right now has resulted in this gap. I am going to leave it at the present time and revisit the problem once the cockpit module is bonded in place within the fuselage.
To celebrate getting the wings setup I cleaned up the garage then started working on the fuel tank. The fuel tank requires 3/4" holes to be drilled in the three bosses and the inlet pipe hole to be expanded. The 3/4" holes were simple to cut with a hole saw but I found it easier to cut the outline of the larger hole with a series of small drill holes and then cut between the smaller holes. I cleaned up the swarf with a round sanding spline and then flushed the tank out with a hose fitted with a high pressure nozzle. Getting a high pressure nozzle out the tank when it is disconnected from the hose is possible with the aid of a pair of long nose medical forceps.
With that out of the way I spent some time cutting cloth for the layups that will secure the wing pin surround blocks to the seat back and also cut out the aluminium parts for the fuel tank spacer blocks.
February 16th Laid up the wing pin surround blocks. These first get floxed to the body and then have a couple of layers of bid securing them in place.
February 17th Drilled out the wing pin holes in the layup. No resin in the holes thank goodness. Primed the rest of my metalwork.
February 18th - 24th I am now waiting for Europa to send me the modification to the pitch push rod before continuing with the main build process. To fill my time I have assembled as many sub assemblies as possible, cut out tufnol rubbing blocks, cut out most of the plywood parts and assembled the majority of the pushrods! The greatest skill required for these parts would seem to be the ability to hold a saw straight. I also applied filler to my door handles, sanded them smooth and applied primer. It is rather neat seeing what level of finish will be achieved on the final surfaces. Going from a rough bit of fibreglass to a smooth shape in only a couple of days was very satisfying. What surprised me was how easy the filler was to sand to a smooth finish.
February 25th Decided to have a play with the instrument panel. First I mounted the instrument panel in place on the cockpit module then I cut out instrument shapes from card. Positioning the instruments soon showed where conflicts would arise in my original computer only design and I have adjusted several of the instrument locations to suit. I have no doubt that this process will occur several times before I am satisfied with the layout.
February 26th The pitch tube modification arrived. Nice timing Europa! The first part of the job was to fit a nutplate onto the end plate. For this you need a brand new 3.3mm drill bit as the end plate is stainless steel. Guess who didn't have a new 3.3mm drill bit.
February 27th With new drill bits in hand I drilled the holes for mounting the end plate and riveted the nutplates in place. The end plates were then fitted into the pitch tube with 5 minute epoxy and left to set. Once the epoxy was set four holes were drilled in through the tube and end plate and more pop rivets added. I painted the previously primed tube then dived down to Gary Spicer's hanger to use his rivet squeezer to attach the bearings to the end plates.
February 28th
Fitting the pitch tube is an exercise in patience. The first task was to attach the three rod ends and bearing plates and then attach the tube to the two pitch rods that pass through the aileron rods from the control column. With these attached and the push rods adjusted to their shortest length, 4mm spacers were placed on top of the pitch rods to space them within the aileron tubes. Then came the "interesting" bit. What you have to do is position the bearing plates against the body in such a way as to keep the pitch rods 4mm from the top and centred within the aileron tube and at the same time get both plates aligned. The challenge is made more interesting by the fact that the bearings are self aligning and are therefore free to rotate in more than one axis! With the help of a pair of clamps I finally got the job done in around two hours though I must admit I was so absorbed with the task that it only felt like half an hour. The final task was to drill holes in the cockpit module and bolt the pitch plates into place.
Happy that my controls were working correctly I
started on the fuel tank. The first job was to cut a hole in the
baggage bay front face to accommodate the fuel tank inlet. I used
a dremel with router bit to do this job. I was very quick but
really scared the cats with the noise! At this stage the
starboard wing plate bracket has to be removed and I was very
pleased to discover that the Carnauba wax that I had used as a
release agent worked according to manufacturers specification
with the bracket releasing easily once the bolts were undone. I
slid the tank into place then, using a pair of tie straps pulled
the rear of the bulkhead back until I had achieved the spacing
detailed in the manual. I now have to make up some spacers to
ensure that the tank is sitting in its correct position in the
body.
