In the same fashion as the rudder cable conduit channels on the sides of the fuselage, I Dremelled a channel down each side of the underside of the fuselage, left & right of the Landing Brake, to run the brake lines internal to the fuselage glass & foam.  This is another significant departure from the plans since the brake lines aren’t normally installed until chapter 15, but for all the reasons I spelled out earlier I wanted to get this mod knocked out.

Also, just as a quick mention, the plans still spell out how to install the master brake cylinders on the Firewall in the engine compartment.  Ever since Debbie Iwatate’s groundbreaking mod back in 1982’ish to move the master brake cylinders forward to the rudder pedals, it doesn’t seem like there are too many builders who still mount them in back.

After using the Dremel to rout the two channels on the fuselage bottom, I used the #10 long drill bit (again) to drill holes at the front side of the fuselage and at the aft end of the fuselage to bring the brake lines back into the cockpit.

For each side, I took a 14 ft length of 1/8″ 3003-0 Aluminum tubing and inserted it into 88″ of a 3/16″ Nylaflow sleeve.  Approximately 22″ of the aluminum tubing will stick out of the front the fuselage on each side.

About 1″ of the tubing, on initial entry to the interior fuselage, coming in from the exterior side of the fuselage is covered in Nylaflow as well.

After I got everything set, I micro’d the Nylaflow/aluminum tubing into the channels on both sides of the fuselage and secured the conduits in place with toothpicks.

After about 8 hours I pulled out the toothpicks.  The brake line conduits looked good and were secured nicely down into the bottom of each channel.

Chapter 8 Step 6 – Installing Seatbelt Brackets

On to seatbelts! In yet another discussion with Dale Martin, he cautioned me that long before the click-bond era, many a imbedded bolt and screw would either vibrate out of the their flox mooring, or simply break loose when either being tightened or during nut removal.  So, how do we ensure this doesn’t happen?  Well, we make the screw head NOT round and give it an edge… for flox to grip, and provide a physical stop that prevents the screw head from turning.  I ended up following his advice after even further discussing with him and a few other gurus on the affect that “butterflying” the screw heads would have on the strength of the screw.  As I suspected, seems that these AN guys are pretty darn stout and it wasn’t a significant limiting factor, so I notched my screw heads in “butterfly” fashion.

I cut 4 pairs of countersink notches into the outside corners of the fuselage around the screw holes that I had drilled previously from inside the fuselage going out, having used the seatbelt brackets themselves as a template (that’s why each bracket is marked as to where it needs to go exactly since they were initially all hand drilled and have some slight variances in hole locations, drill angles, etc).  Besides just making these countersink notches just wide enough for each respective screw head to fit, I also had to make them deep enough so that there would be enough of each screw’s thread coming through the bracket to put a nut onto, and have the requisite 2-minimum threads showing after the nut is mounted.

Finally, I floxed in the seatbelt bracket screws from the outside of the fuselage inward, and put a thin film of flox on the bottom face of the seatbelt brackets.  I then bolted on all the seatbelt  brackets (my buddy Kevin helped by keeping the screws from spinning on the outside of the fuselage while I installed the nuts from the inside).

I drove down to Aircraft Spruce EU in Bretten,Germany, about an hour and a half from my house, to pick up 28′ of 1/8″ 3003-0 aluminum tubing for my brake lines.  I also picked up some Alodine, a 3′ hinge and a plastic eyeball vent.

When I returned to the house, I finished the other 3 angled aluminum seatbelt brackets and final-drilled all the holes to 1/4″.

Continue reading →

Today was a non-building day.  I focused on getting a bunch of items that I received in an Aircraft Spruce shipment inventoried, organized and stored, along with some other items that needed the same.

I try not to go too long in-between entering everything I order into my tracking spreadsheet.  In the spreadsheet I track every item that I’ve bought, and I have a list of every item I plan to buy & schedule of what timeframe I’m going to buy it (that’s the project manager in me coming out!).  So, in my spreadsheet I list everything under 6 main categories:

• Bought
• Phase I – Materials (required for building: wood, metal, foam, etc)
• Phase II – Parts (metal aircraft parts, hinges, etc)
• Phase III – Major Components/Finish (electrical, engine, prop, avionics, paint, etc)
• Phase IV – Post Build Items (AC Cover, Anti-static spray, gust locks, etc)
• Tools

After my inventory spree, I drew out my initial plans for lo-vaccing the armrests and rollover assembly.

I also checked the 7-ply BID layups on the seatbelt bracket hard points and they looked good so I pulled the peel ply off and called it a night.

Today I have at least one more controversial mod to make.  I’ve been discussing these with a number of people, so here goes.

First, I’m planning on running my brake lines down the outside of the fuselage, imbedded just under the skin, like I did my rudder cable conduits.  The only difference is that the brake lines would A) run along the bottom of the fuselage, one on each side of the landing brake, and B) be encased in Nylaflow for their entire journey through the length of the fuselage.  Since I’m running 1/8″ aluminum brake lines, the ability to withstand pressure is high and I have a security blanket, almost literally, with the Nylaflow.  [Note: I was originally going to go with Dick Rutan’s idea of stainless steel: but too hard to bend & also just found out the wall thickness is too great—so it won’t allow enough brake fluid to travel back & forth enough to recharge the brakes]. Continue reading →

Before it got too late at night (that noise ordinance thing again!) I started out the evening by cutting 4 pieces of 1/4″ Finnish Birch plywood for the hard points that will be glassed into each side of the interior fuselage corners where the seatbelt brackets will mount.  There is a 7-ply BID layup that goes over these 1/4″ ply hard points, so the seatbelt mounts are designed impressively robust & strong.  Since the pads that will be made up of the 7-ply BID aren’t that large, I scrounged together some scrap BID to throw into some “Poor Man’s” pre-preg set-ups.  Once I got the set-ups ready, I set them aside to use in the next few days.  (Sorry, no pics just yet)

I then checked and cleaned up the 3 threaded bungs: 2 BDCL and 1 interior R-side aft cockpit.  I double-checked the fit & finish of the bolt going into the Right side fuselage wall insert and it fit great and threaded in/out fine.

I marked and drilled out a foam hole on the Left side to mount an insert on the interior fuselage wall opposite the one on the right.

I whipped up some micro and micro’d in the Left fuselage wall threaded insert (from the outside of the fuselage).

Since I had a fair amount of micro left over, I also filled in some fairly deep gouges in various places on the fuselage.

Today I removed the few remaining toothpicks holding the Nylaflow conduit in place.  I trimmed the rudder cable channel of any excess & high micro, and then razor cut any excess foam & micro from the main gear extrusion bolt hole plugs.  I then sanded the newly emplaced foam/micro bolt hole covers to finish.

On the fuselage bottom I used 2 long AN3 (3/16″) bolts threaded into 2 aluminum threaded inserts (Note:  These inserts, or ‘bungs’, are also used to mount the bomb-looking baggage pods to the wings.) that would be mounted into the fuselage foam on the underside fuselage centerline.

Continue reading →

I checked the micro now embedding the rudder cable conduit that I laid into the channel along the Left-side fuselage last night.  I knocked off a couple of errant spots of micro that intruded into the airspace above the surface of the foam.  I also checked the foam chips micro’d into the main gear bolt holes and snapped a picture of them after I cleaned up the area and sanded down the bolt hole inserts.

It all looks really good.  The only downside is that 3 of the 4 pictures for today’s post are of the Left side of the fuselage.  Regardless, the Right side was merely a repeat of the left.

Continue reading →

Today was an amazingly busy day for the Long-EZ project.

I made the initial cuts on the seat belt aluminum angle extrusion, and also planned and marked the bolt hole positions for the seatbelt/bracket attachments.

I dismantled the Fuselage Bottom’s sled and reclaimed the three 2x3s for the UNI glass stand that I designed last night.  Then I went to the woodshop on Ramstein to cut the wood for the UNI glass stand.  Being an avid wanna-be consolidator, or maybe opportunist, I also cut 4 each 1″x1″x3″ Spruce blocks for the CS spar imbedded hard points (these will come into play A LONG TIME from now!).  I then cut some 1/4″ plywood into 2.4″ and 2.5″ strips for some future templates.

After yet another BAD experience of dealing with the ‘Know-it-all Nazis’ at the base wood shop, I decided I’d had enough.  Besides being a pilot, my Dad was both a contractor and a cabinet maker, so I grew up on just about every wood-working tool known to man.  And these wood shop guys on Ramstein treat every person in their presence as if it’s the first time they’ve ever seen a power tool. Thus, although I have crates of power tools, saws, etc. in storage somewhere in Virginia, I marched my happy butt over to the Base Exchange and bought a small 7-1/4″ chop saw to lessen my interface with those knucklefutzes, and thus lower my build time, decrease my angst, and maintain my sanity!

I went to the German version of, oh, we’ll call it True Value Hardware, Toom, and bought some Dremel bits and then returned home.

Ok, back to work!

I drilled all the holes in the seat belt aluminum angle extrusions, and then cut one bracket completely out and filed down the edges.  Although not a perfect specimen of machining, it looked pretty good!  (Pardon the pic, I know it’s quite blurry)

I then went from metal “machining” mode into woodworking mode and cut out the Dremel Tool templates—for routing the rudder cable Nylaflow conduit channel ‘S’ curve—out of the scrap particle board.

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I got a late start tonight because I went to the German equivalent of Lowe’s, Praktiker, versus the German version of Home Depot, Hornbach.  And yes, they are even Blue vs Orange.  By the time I got home it was past 10 PM and I wasn’t going to test the local noise ordinance, so I went into planning mode.

I planned out, and then drew the lines for the Nylaflow rudder cable conduit runs on the side of the fuselage.  I then traced the ‘S’ curve onto trace paper for templates.  I had some spare particle board from a cheap shoe rack that was damaged in the move, so I used those pieces to glue the templates to using 3M’s 77 spray adhesive.  I would cut those out first thing the next day (Saturday).

Since I would be in wood working mode, I also quickly designed and set up cuts on some particle board I had shipped over to make a UNI glass stand to use when glassing the fuselage.  Once the stand is built, I can simply bring a whole roll of UNI out to the garage and cut right off the roll as I need it.

Knowing that I was going to be installing the brackets for the seat belts in the not-too-distant future, I marked up a 2024T3 aluminum angle piece for all 4 seatbelt brackets for the interior of the fuselage.  I planned to cut those as soon as I got the chance.

Lastly, in prep for the upcoming fuselage skinning, I put together a small metal workbench about 20″ deep by about 30″ wide with a top bench surface and two shelves for my garage shop epoxy station.  The time was coming where I would need to make a lot of epoxy, micro and flox without hauling it out to the garage from the shop inside the house.