Today I started out by doing a fair amount of research on my ELT placement, which was why I didn’t want to glass in the outboard thigh support tabs last night.  I’ve planned out my ELT location under the left side of the thigh support, but of course that can change if it doesn’t go in as planned.  I’m installing an ACK E-04 ELT, so I called them today and confirmed the mounting parameters.  I also learned that ACS sells a retrofit kit for this ELT, which is also a “starter” kit with just about everything but the actual ELT module.  I went ahead and ordered the retrofit kit so that I could get my hands on the mounting bracket to install that as early on as possible.

With my ELT info in hand, I then prepregged out another 2 setups of 4 plies of BID + a ply of CF.  I then glassed in the outboard thigh support tabs, placed the cover back on and weighed it down.

Here’s the results a few hours later.

While the outboard thigh support tab layups were curing, I grabbed my 1.25″ thin walled (0.035″) 6061 tubing and cut it in order to make a “T” duct for my heating system.  This “T” duct piece will sit upside down just in front of the left side instrument panel.  The air will flow straight to get to my left foot, and up to get to my upper body (via a vent).

I then entered my data on the online metal calculator, printed off a template, and then taped it to the shorter piece of tubing.

I then used my Dremel Tool to shape the end of the tube.

I then used the shaped tube to mark the longer tube.

I then Dremelled a hole in the longer tube.

My “T” duct fitting is ready to be joined.

With some excess micro, I joined the two pieces of tubing together.  I didn’t glass or rivet it, because these are such light pieces I think micro will do fine to hold them together. Plus, this is also not a critical flight component so I’m more concerned with weight than I am if it happens to break at some point in the future (again, which I highly doubt it will).

I then prepped the tops of both the left & right pilot thigh support ribs.  The task here will be to pile up dry micro and then press it down to the correct height using the thigh support top as a form.  I dug out the foam edges and then vacuumed them, plus all the foam bits scattered all about.

Here’s the whole shebang ready for some micro!

I whipped up a bunch of dry micro –after micro-slurrying the foam edges– and piled it on the top of each thigh support rib.  I then placed the top back on (see a trend here?!) and weighed it down.

A couple of hours later I pulled the pilot seat thigh support top/floor off and was quite surprised at what I found.  The micro was barely touched!  That means A) my ribs are WAY too short! and B) my thigh support top/floor plate is way sturdier than I ever imagined!

So I cleaned up the sides of the micro piles, made them even with the rib sides, and knocked off some rough spots.

I also noted that the epoxy that I had applied to the protective duct tape on the lid wasn’t even touched… I’m still surprised at how low & off these ribs are!

I was wondering a bit on just how to glass the rib sides over the new micro, but now that I have a sense of just how high the ribs need to be (there were a scant few spots of micro that were flattened), I’ll prep the micro first, then glass the sides, then add more micro… tomorrow!  From there, I’ll call it a day on the ribs because I think they’ll be in actual contact and nice and strong.

Another task I did tonight was to cut out an instrument panel blank from a piece of 1/4″ plywood.  I’ll use this as my initial test base for panel instrument placement and wiring.

I also spent a good 45 min working on the placement of my panel components.  Here you can see where I placed the instruments on the back side of the panel.  Also note that I quickly mounted the Triparagon back into place to verify how the instrument panel instruments align with it.

With the Triparagon mounted, I did a quick test fit on the GRT HXr EFIS GADAHRS.  It looks like it will fit in its planned spot nicely.

I then double checked the elevation of the GADARHS unit… also good.

Tomorrow will be more of the same!

This will be my last build post prior to Rough River!  And since I’ll be on the road visiting folks in North Carolina and Virginia, I won’t be home for another 2 weeks…. so quite the break in build action.

Today I pulled off the boards that I had clamped in place to help straighten out a rather wavy looking foam piece that I shaped into a curve for the pilot seat floor piece, which also happens to make up the majority of the pilot thigh support.

I then cleaned up the initial Kevlar layup and test fitted the floor seat piece without the boards in place.  It looks good, but still needs just a bit more persuasion to be close to spot on.

I also rounded the aft edge into a radius that I assessed as a “pleasing shape” since I plan on doing all glass to glass edges on this seat floor piece.

I then did the round #2 top seat floor layups on both the front and aft side of the piece, overlapping onto the initial Kevlar layup.  The duct tape squares you see in these pics that you might be curious about are 2 pieces of 1.1″ x 1.1″ duct tape plies covered by another 2 plies of just slightly wider duct tape.  These duct tape pads are to provide clearance on the underside of the seat floor piece for the 2 ends of the EFII fuel pump frame that juts aft. The foam over these 2 tape pads, and of course the tape itself, will be removed before I layup the underside of the seat floor.

So, at the outset of the round 2 layups, I set a square of peel ply over each of the duct tape pads and then laid up a 2″ x 2″ ply of reinforcement BID over each of the pads.  I then laid up the separate front side single plies of glass (1 BID & 1 CF) to reach aft enough to cover the tape pads.

Once I got the layups completed and peel plied, I then set the seat floor back in place and clamped it again to try and knock out some of the waviness incurred by heating it up in the curve-shaping process.

You may note that I used some carbon fiber over on the left side.  This is due to the fact that I had some scraps of carbon fiber hanging around, and I also wanted to really lock in that corner and tame an indention over on that side.

A few hours later, when the glass was about 90% cured, I removed the clamps and checked out the layups . . . all good!  Moreover, the slight indention on the left side was in fact tamed and is no longer an issue.

I then pulled the peel ply and cleaned up the layups.  Here’s a test fit of the pilot seat floor after round 2 of the top side layups.

Then it was on to round 3.  I micro slurried what little bare foam was left, and made some transitions (as I had on round 2) with thicker micro between the edges of the Kevlar and the foam.  I also filled in the divot created in the upper right hand corner where the clamp piece of wood made a distinct edge.  I actually liked the depression, but glassing it could have been a bit difficult, so I simply filled it in with dry micro.

I then glassed the second and final ply of BID on the seat floor top.  For some reason I felt like going rogue again and did NOT peel ply the entire layup, just the inside edge that will have a mini wall glassed in around the fuel selector valve.

A few hours later, after the final BID layup on the top of the seat floor cured, I then razor trimmed and cleaned up the edges, and set it back in place for a test fit.  So far I’m really happy with how this is turning out.  To be clear, it’s not perfect, but definitely good enough for this combat builder!

With the top done I got on with the task of shaping the front edges and sides of the underside of the foam seat floor.  Just like the top aft edge, these 3 sides will have a radius that will allow the glass to curve around the edge in one continuous piece to make up the edges of the plate.  Thus, every side of this seat floor plate will have micro’d corners for strength.  This obviously mandated that I had to spend a bit of time making the angled trenches along literally every exterior edge (minus the center U-shaped notch) of the seat floor plate.

I then spent a bit of time as well pulling the tape & peel ply out of the divots I created for the fuel pump frame jut-outs that I needed clearance for.  Once all the remnants of the last bit of “clinging-for-dear-life” peel ply was extracted (with much difficulty at times I might add!) I then used my ever trusty and ever awesome Perm-A-Grit tools to shape the foam edges of the 2 divots.

I should note that although the top was glassed with 2 plies, relatively there is so little mass in the U-shaped notched area that wraps around the fuel selector valve & bracket, that it was surprisingly “flimsy” for lack of a better word.  I decided to reinforce the center narrow area with a patch of BID on the bottom side, but alas I didn’t have any scrap pieces big enough . . . but then again, I did have one last piece of scrap CF hanging around.  I figured CF would provide even greater stiffness here so I threw it on there . . .  at the beginning of the 1-ply BID layup on the underside of the seat floor.  I know it may look a little unorthodox (read: nasty) but in my defense it’s the MGS epoxy’s fault, since if I had used EZ-Poxy you would have never known what it looked like!  hahaha!

Also, before I laid up the final large piece of BID on the underside seat floor, I also again laid up a scrap patch of approximately 2″ x 2″ BID over each divot & overlapping onto the foam to add reinforcement to these glass-to-glass only areas (5 plies of glass total when all is done).

It took a bit of time just to micro slurry the foam face, and then stuff thicker micro all along the mini trenches I had created along all 4 sides.  After the micro went on, to be honest, glassing up the large ply of BID was the EZ part.  However, getting the glass around the corners and sticking to the edges was a bit trickier, but in the end I got it all in place.

A number of hours later, after it all cured, I then razor trimmed the glass, sanded and cleaned up all the edges.

I have to say that I’m ecstatic with how the pilot seat floor plate layups came out!  I didn’t want bare foam on the edges that I would simply have to fill in with micro anyways, since if you’ve seen older plastic airplanes with bare foam edges on parts… well, they look really old, dry and unattractive (I guess that’s what folks say about us ‘ol dog pilots too, eh?!).

Anyway, here’s 3 pics showing the front, aft and side edges of the pilot seat floor plate:

I then of course mocked up the finished seat floor.  Ah, it fits great!

Here’s a closeup shot of the right underside divot where you can actually see the fuel pump frame jut-out (bottom pic) through the glass.  As you can tell, there’s plenty of clearance between the fuel pump frame and the seat floor plate.

Well, nothing left to do on this thing at this point other than try ‘er out!  So I set the seat floor in place, threw a towel and some padding on the pilot seat, grabbed my throttle handle quadrant and climbed in.

This first shot is exactly what I was aiming for!  The fuel selector valve is aft enough and high enough that I can actually easily see it and manipulate it during flight!  Hoo-ah!  Also, I should point out that my fuel selector valve bracket is only about 1/2″ max total farther aft than the stock plans fuel valve plate.  The difference: my valve is located at the very aft end of the plate, obviously about an inch higher, and not located center of mass on the valve plate as the plans valve is.

I then mocked up the throttle location to test it out.  I messed about with the throttle for a bit and determined that for me I had in fact picked the optimum location for this throttle quadrant setup.

Here’s a shot of the throttle handle/quadrant, fuel selector valve and control stick. Again, I’m extremely satisfied with the location, ergonomics and functionality of all these controls!

And here’s my parting shot of this post.  The throttle handle and quadrant in its planned left armrest location.

Again, this will be the last build post for the next couple weeks.  When I get back –renewed, refreshed and re-motivated– I will continue my quest to finish up the internal fuselage component configuration and install before starting on the nose & canopy!

I started out today by pulling the peel ply and cleaning up the pilot thigh support ribs. I also cut out the glass from the mouse hole on the aft side of the right rib along with the overhanging glass from the layups.

I then trimmed the bottom of the right armrest to provide clearance and eliminate any rubbing on the fuel lines.

I also notched the bottom center of the left pilot armrest with a triangular opening to allow the armrest wall to fit over the pilot thigh support wedge duct when installed.  I also had to narrow the thickness of the wall on the outboard side of it that was adjacent to the air vent plenum duct in order for it to fit in its planned location.

I then got to work on shaping the pilot thigh support seat floor.  First, I copied the thigh support rib profile onto a template.  Then I used the template to mark up a scrap piece of OSB chipboard to cut out 4 thigh support rib jigs.

I then cut out the pilot seat thigh support floor piece from 3/8″ foam, and then clamped the 4 thigh support rib jigs to the bottom of the floor piece.

I then baked the jigged & clamped pilot seat thigh support floor piece in the oven for an hour at 280°.  In hindsight, it may have a been a bit too long to bake it, but in my defense there was no bake time listed in the plans!

I had to run out for a while after I turned the oven off and the floor piece started cooling down.

When I returned, I noted that there was a bit of waviness in the front & aft edges of the floor piece since the heating of the foam apparently produced some sagging in between the clamped rib jigs.  Moreover, these “scalloped” edges were significant enough that I thought about scrapping this floor piece and remaking another one.  But I don’t like wasting foam and to be honest, I kind of like the challenge of fixing a piece that’s less than perfect and make it work.

I pressed forward with the floor piece install and started working it until it proved to be unworkable, to see if it would . . . but it didn’t.

I wanted to lock in the CORRECT floor piece profile, so I decided to do a multi-part layup starting on the top of the floor piece surface (plans has you layup the bottom surface first). Since I needed to clamp both the front and aft edge to lock in the correct shape, I further decided to start with a large central ply of Kevlar –specifically to add puncture strength to a piece that gets stepped on every ingress & egress of the plane– and then add a strip of BID on both the front and aft edges after the center area floor piece profile was better locked into shape.  After these first pieces are laid up, I’ll of course lay up a ply of BID over the entire top surface of the floor piece.

As for the Kevlar layup, I started out by microing the surface of the floor piece top where the Kevlar ply will get laid up.

I then set the ply of Kevlar in place on the top of the pilot seat floor piece.

I then wet out the Kevlar.

And then peel plied the Kevlar layup.

Tomorrow I’ll continue to glass the pilot seat seat floor piece in my attempt to both get it installed, but also to straighten out some of the front and aft edge waviness that was introduced during my heating of the floor piece foam plate.  Still, I think it should be fine.

Yes, 3 attempts it took bending aluminum tubes to make the fuel selector valve to fuel pump crossover line!!! . . . more on that below.

Today I started out doing some research on how to revive some old Chartpak dry transfer lettering sheet that I have.  Apparently, over long periods of time they lose their transfer ability and they simply don’t work. Well, I tried a few of the home brew remedies of the Web and was able to get the letters off at least, but I just wasn’t overly happy with them.

I wanted to use black characters on my red T-handle that I had designated as the Nose Hatch release handle, but it really didn’t look as good as I had envisioned.  So I punted and simply went with the fresh set of white dry transfer lettering that I have on hand.

As you can possibly imagine, it’s difficult enough to get these letters to line up on a flat smooth surface, and another thing entirely to do it on a curved contoured surface.  This is my excuse for the letter spacing not being perfect, but again –in my world– it’s darn close enough!

After getting the lettering transferred onto the red Nose Hatch handle, I took it down to the shop, taped it up and then shot it with about 6-7 coats total of matte clear.

In between the clear coats I started working on the fuel lines that connect to the Andair fuel selector valve.  Since I swapped out the valve fittings with the ones that I bought from Andair, which stick straight down vertically vs straight out horizontally, I hadn’t touched the fuel line connections since I was waiting until the fuel valve was mounted in it’s final position.

I was praying that I had enough length on each line to get to the fuel valve, since I had to lop off a decent amount of the curly-cue terminations of each fuel line in the craziness that I had undertaken to get them into the stock valve fittings while taking up as little space as possible.

In my new present tubing configuration I needed a decent amount of straight tubing just prior to the termination point to allow me to get the coupling sleeve on the line and still have room to flare it.  Yet just another reason I wanted to go with these new vertical fittings vs the curly-cue terminations… which made it really difficult to get a good flare with the coupling sleeve in place.

Well, apparently I had JUST enough tubing left to get to the new Andair fuel valve fittings. Still, it is all TIGHT and I will need to notch the lower right armrest a tad and contour the right underside edge of the thigh support top to allow for clearance with the right and left fuel feeds coming from the thigh support sump tanks to the Andair fuel selector valve.

I then cut and shaped the left thigh support rib to get it ready for glassing into place. Part of that prep involved pulling peel ply that I had applied when I laid up this piece back in mid-2012 … amazing!

Then, through the requisite trial and error fitting and sanding repeat cycle, I finalized the shape and got it into place.  My original location for this rib was very close to the stock location called for in the plans.

I then removed the fuel selector valve and its bracket to mount the fuel pump in place.  I then remounted the fuel selector valve and bracket.  I taped up the fuel selector valve because it’s a nice looking piece, and as I was mounting and removing it I noted that it was laying in a pile of tools, files, sanding blocks, etc. and for a minute thought that I had scratched it pretty good… I clearly needed to better protect the nice finish during the build process.

The fit of the left side of the fuel selector valve bracket and the inside of the left fuel pump frame is about as exact as could be.  Too close actually and I’ll need to trim the left side of the fuel valve bracket by at least 0.050″ to allow for clearance.  The clearance on both the instrument panel bulkhead attach bolts and the upper bracket attach screws is all good.

I then started the multi-hour process of shaping and terminating the 3/8″ aluminum tubing that makes up the fuel selector valve to fuel pump crossover line.  Amazing how many distinct requirements I had on such a short cross-connect tube.  First, I discovered I needed a distinct dogleg in the lower horizontal section of the tube to curve around the left tank feed line coming into the left side of the fuel valve.  Then there was the curve back, at about a 45° angle, to intersect the fuel pump fitting, which is a distinct angle change in comparison to the other side attached to the fuel selector valve.

Piece of cake, right?!  Yeah, after a couple of hours and definitely getting my tube cutting, bending and flaring practice in for the year!  Obviously I finally got it, and it’s the last bit of fuel line tubing bending I have to do on this plane! (I still have the brake cross-connect lines to do…)

Here are the previous 2 failed attempts  . . .

Another shot of the fuel selector valve to fuel pump crossover line, along with the other fuel valve connections.  Note the heater air SCAT tubing I set in place on the pilot thigh support wedge duct outlet.

I then spent a good hour getting the thigh support ribs configured and set in place.  As I stated previously, I had originally planned on having the left thigh support rib set in place at the plans location.  I even started notching the foam out to allow for the fuel pump’s left side fitting and the cross-connect fuel line to the fuel valve.  After pondering it for a bit I realized that it would just take too much work both in configuring, constructing and glassing the left rib simply to keep it in place at the plan’s location.  By kicking it outboard an inch to the left I eliminated all these issues & headaches…. so, that’s the spot!

On the right side there is simply no way that the rib can connect all the way from the aft side thigh support wedge duct to the bottom of the instrument panel bulkhead.  Not unless I never planned on removing the fuel pump.

Now, obviously hind sight is 20/20, but had I NOT used Clickbonds on the lower fuel pump mounting tabs and instead used embedded nutplates, I could have eliminated a LOT of my fuel pump mounting issues.  First, I could take the right side rib all the way to the bottom of the instrument panel bulkhead since I would have been able to slide the fuel pump in vs drop it in straight down. Even more helpful would be the fact that I wouldn’t have to remove the fuel valve bracket to get the fuel pump in or out…. the saving grace being that I don’t foresee having to be installing and/or removing the fuel pump a lot once the airplane is flying.

Here’s a wider angle shot showing all the fuel line runs in the pilot seat area, pretty much close to the original style as per plans, with some obvious distinct configuration tweaks I made on the fuel pump and fuel valve mounting locations.

I should note that the lonely Clickbond on the fuselage floor just aft of the fuel pump was originally for the 90 micron fuel filter supplied (and required) with the EFII fuel boost pump. I mounted this filter, and thus the Clickbond, prior to making my decision to go with the Holley Hydramat fuel pickups in the thigh support sump tanks.  Since the Hydramats filter to 15 microns, and I have one final 32 micron filter [as required by the Silver Hawk fuel injection system] at the firewall, there is simply no need for this 90 micron filter.  So…. out it went!

Between now and next week I do plan on continuing to knock out these build tasks, but admittedly it will start to slow the closer I get in heading down to Marco’s for our flying out to Rough River.  Hopefully I’ll see a bunch of you there!