My first task of the day not only is a critical crosscheck, in my opinion, for dialing in the strake configuration in regards to how it aligns with the wing –specifically at the BL55 jutout– but also a big qualifier regarding if I plan to fly at least with some of my plane (eg strakes) in primer or not.

The task I’m referring to is checking the wing incidence of both wings and comparing to get a good idea how the wings are set to each other. In other words, how are my chances looking of not having to go back and tweak a wing incidence by adding or reducing washers as spacers at the wing bolts?  Well, if Waiter at IflyEZ.com is correct in his method of ascertaining this very thing, then I have to say I’m looking pretty darn good.

If you’ll remember I did this exercise with the wings installed upright and the results were spot on.  With that being the case I guess it’s not surprising that with the wings inverted I got the same excellent result.  With the bubble in level smack dab in the middle, I measured 4.65″ from the top corner of the level to the trailing edge on each side.  The key to this of course is that the level be positioned at 0° by using the wood block… the idea being that if one wing incidence is off from the other, its 0° “level” will result in a different measurement from level top aft corner to trailing edge: clearly either more or less depending which way the incidence is off.

With my incidence confirmed, I did one final check of my right strake outboard edge and leading edge intersection with the right wing.  I did do a bit of final tweaking.

I then started on the right strake bottom skin layup by spending well over an hour laying up the 2 different Kevlar layups: leading edge 4″ strip and rectangular protective patch over tank fuel line feed in the sidewall.  I then laid up the 1 ply of reinforcement BID for the GIB window lip (this time I added peel ply, but on both sides I used NO micro to make the glass cleanup a lot easier).

You can see I had also created a quick template for a NACA scoop just forward of the GIB window. For this I simply used the plans template for the NACA scoop that goes on the front canopy skirt. I added the teardrop section on the aft side for the in-strake air transition to the inside scoop-to-air tube that will need to take place.

Finally, you can see a small couple concentric half-circle plies of BID I laid up on the LE just forward of the blue foam. I had a pretty good depression here so I just put this in to minimize the amount of micro fill I would need later on.  Speaking of micro, at this point I’ve slathered in drier micro into the seams so that it will cure as much as possible before the glass goes on.  I actually prefer a bit wetter micro, but with the EZ-Poxy that I’m using up on the bottom strake layups (I’ll use MGS for the top strake skins), it just blows out wetter micro/flox and leaves me with a lot of air bubbles.

Here’s a closer up and wider angle shot of the 4″ Kevlar strip I laid up along the leading edge of the fuel tank… from the BL23 kink to the outboard strake edge.

With my prerequisite layups out of the way, I then whipped up a bunch more micro and applied it to all the bare foam surfaces. I also applied a small fillet down the inboard edge along the fuselage sidewall and used a bit more drier micro to fill some decent sized imperfections in the strake LE from the BL23 kink inboard.  At this point of the layup I’m over 3 hours into it and haven’t laid up any of the actual strake skin!

I then laid up the first ply of UNI on the strake.  This UNI ply bias is with its fibers running parallel to the fuel tank leading edge… in other words, not parallel to the strake LE at BL23 inboard.

The first ply took about twice as long to glass than did UNI ply #2, which has its bias with fibers running parallel to the aircraft’s centerline.

I should not fail to note UNI layup #3 per plans, which is a 5″ wide strip of UNI that is laid up from the aft outboard corner coming inboard at an angle over what would be the OD rib. I don’t have a traditional OD rib, nor does this layup run along what in the plans has as the initial outboard edge of the strake before it gets filled in… still, I added this ply and simply estimated the angle inboard, aiming for the front of the R45 rib. To be clear, I did this layup on the left bottom strake skin as well.

And another shot of the bottom right strake skin layup, completed and peel plied.

Tomorrow I’ll spend a bit of time cleaning up this layup, but most likely after I layup my last ply of Kevlar on this plane… on the bottom of the fuselage under the GIB thigh support sump tanks.

Today I started off with cleaning up the left strake layup.  I began by lightly scoring the glass overlapping on the duct tape on the top part of the leading edge (bottom with fuselage inverted) using my Fein saw.

I then used my razor knife to finish cutting the glass right at the edge of the underlying duct tape, which then allowed me to remove the unwanted overlapping glass edge and the protective duct tape as well.

And Voila! A nice clean strake leading edges awaiting the top strake glass layup.

One thing I failed to mention previously and if you look closely below you can see that along the leading edge, from the BL23 kink to the furthest outboard edge, I laid up a 4″ ply of Kevlar first before laying up the 2 plies of UNI.  Again, since I have a wet strake leading edge with no “crush zone” as the plans strakes do, I wanted to ensure that if I had a bird strike, or something like it, the strake leading edge along the fuel tank portion has added strength to rebuff such an event.

I then ran my Fein saw down the intersection of the outboard strake glass I just laid up and the wing inside edge at BL55.  As you can also see, I cut and trimmed the glass that had covered up the strake/spar wing bolt access hole.

I then cut out the glass in the interior area where the GIB strake window will get installed, and also drilled and cleaned up the fuel drain hard point which allowed me to re-install the fuel drain valve for a good fit check.

The rectangular Kevlar layup on the fuselage sidewall, situated just left of the GIB window in the pic below, is a protective ply for the tank fuel line feed that is internal to the fuselage sidewall for about 6″ before it exits into the cabin under the armrest. To ensure that the fuel line is protected from any damage or some type of puncture event, I simply added a ply of Kevlar to cover it.  Moreover, I peel plied the Kevlar and will cover it with a final ply of BID that will overlap over it when I glass in the hell hole and aft bottom fuselage.

Here we have the completed left bottom strake skin layup, with peel ply pulled and all the areas cleaned up.

I then focused on the outboard end of the right strake.  I failed to grab a pic of it, but you can see where I micro’d in a foam strip along the bottom (top here) edge to fill in that void (about 1 inch on the blue foam side, you can see my black Sharpie mark).

In addition, you can see my black Sharpie mark on the top inside edge denoting the trim line for the top edge.

Which I did here.  At this point the right outboard strake, while not perfect, was definitely in a good workable state to proceed with glassing the bottom strake skin.

I then spent a good couple of hours cutting all the Kevlar, BID and UNI for the right bottom strake layup.  Here is the 1-ply BID reinforcement that will get added to the bottom skin 2-ply UNI layup for strengthening the lip around where the GIB window will get installed.

At this point it was getting late in the evening… with my glass cut I’m prepared to knock out this 7+ hour layup tomorrow.

Today I finally got the all the sanding and contouring completed on the left bottom strake. With the wing mounted I was also able to dial in the interface of the left strake leading edge and the outboard strake to the wing at the BL55 jutout.  Although not perfect, I got a good match that will allow me to dial it in pretty darn close with micro when I get to the finishing stage.

I then pulled down my roll of UNI glass and laid it out to cut the 2 plies of UNI that make up the bottom strake skin layup.  I actually started by cutting the the top ply UNI since I had a jagged edge on my UNI stock.

Here it is ready to be laid up.  Of course I added a little extra all the way around to account for any adjustments I may have to make.

I then cut the first ply of UNI that will get laid up.  This ply runs parallel to the fuel tank leading edge.

It really doesn’t seem possible, even after the fact, that this layup –from start to finish– took nearly 8 hours all told.  But it’s finished and I’m very pleased with the outcome!

Here’s another shot from the side of the completed left bottom strake skin layup.

Tomorrow I plan to at least finish the prep tasks for the right bottom strake skin layup to get it glassed as soon as possible.

To start off today, here are a couple of shots of the left side bottom strake leading edge to blue foam core junction.  Again, note the leading edge foam is 1/4″ thick whereas the blue foam is 3/8″ thick.

In some areas such as at the BL23 “dogleg” this difference in foam core thickness is a bit more pronounced.

Admittedly, if I had been able to mount the bottom blue foam cores with the fuselage inverted I could have weighed down the foam and compressed it a bit tighter against the leading edge lip and the ribs and baffles.  But, considering I have no leaks thus far it turned out in acceptable fashion, just more a blue foam core lip I need to contend with than maybe had I mounted the blue foam core with fuselage inverted.

I try to incorporate all my build tasks so that they get accomplished in a concurrent fashion.  Although this often results in each step taking a bit longer, I really feel that in the long run it saves both time and effort, and provides a cleaner install on all the components involved.

Thus, I’m working the GIB strake window install as part of the bottom strake skin layup. Here I’ve drilled the significant corners of the GIB strake windows using the outline on the inside of the strake as my guide.

I then slid my template in place (sorry, didn’t get a pic of that) and marked both the internal and external outline of the strake window glass piece.  The reason why I’m focusing on this at this point is that I will add a ply of BID around the perimeter of the window –in between the lines– to reinforce the 2-ply UNI skin layup.  In my opinion I want at least a ply of BID more to strengthen the lip that the window plate will get floxed into to secure it in place.

I then did the same on the right side.

I then spent a bit of time getting everything set up to allow me to mount the left wing to the CS spar/strake… obviously inverted.  This will allow me to dial in the strake leading edge and outboard interface with the BL55 jutout of the wing.

I will note that my mod of the inboard wing bolt bracket to capture the nut on the inside of the CS spar to allow for installing the inboard wing bolt from aft going forward, opposite of the outboard bolts, worked a treat and really made installing the wing much easier than having all 3 wings bolts sticking aft out of the CS spar.  I highly suspect that that the wing will be infinitely easier to remove as well.  In addition, this round of wing install also highlighted that I need AN8-23A bolts on the outboard side vs the AN8-22As I currently have in there (which just replaced AN8-21As).  The AN8-22As are just long enough, but don’t give me the minimum 2-threads-showing standard that we strive for.

Although it’s probably not apparent or overly visible from this distance, but at this point I had done quite a bit of sanding and shaping the left bottom strake in preparation for glassing it.

Another worthy point of note today is that my Hooker Harness front seat belt was delivered.  I’ll note that the royal blue trim does not exactly match the darker navy-ish (at least in comparison) blue on my seats, but it’s eye-catching and pops a little extra bling into an otherwise conservative cockpit color scheme.  I will see about getting some matching pads made up for the back seat belts as well.

Tomorrow I plan on continuing to work the bottom strake contours to get them prepped to glass.

Starting off, my buddy Brian Ashton (of famed Alaskan twin-engine Long-EZ) asked me to get a pic of the eyebolt setup I used in the nose of my bird to flip it inverted, so here’s a shot of that along with my embedded landing light.

I then tackled the issue regarding my wing bolt bracket and the problem I had with the bolt head twisting inside the bracket with the resulting gouging of the interior U-bracket sides.

In discussing this issue with Marco, he pointed out that my configuration was different than the “standard” wing bolt bracket mod since my bolt heads don’t seat all the way into the U-channel as does his and virtually every other builder who has implemented this mod… as in this pic below.

Normally the sides of the U-channel are trimmed down so that there’s only enough depth required to contain the bolt head.  Again, the side areas denoted by the red X’s are usually trimmed away.  That allows the corners of the channel (blue arrows) to really help strengthen the bracket to resist any spinning force of the bolt head.

Due to my wire/cable conduit that runs through my CS spar from internal bulkhead to exterior spar end plate, I needed a “bridged” bracket to work around and over that conduit.  This means that each bolt head is positioned in the untrimmed U-channel bracket at the furthest point from the corners.  This configuration clearly has the bolt head positioned in the weakest part of the aluminum U-channel, so any serious torque could cause the sides of the U-channel to splay out enough to allow the bolt head to spin.

This is exactly what happened when I didn’t have enough washers on the bolt and the nut caught the unthreaded portion of the bolt shank.  Since I had a fairly long 3/4″ wrench to torque on that nut, it didn’t take a lot of pressure once the nut had bottomed out and locked on the shoulder of the unthreaded shank portion to then put all that force directly on the bolt head, which in turn splayed out the U-channel sides and then stripped out the softer aluminum in the internal walls of the bracket.

After pondering it for a good day, my idea to fix this issue was actually fairly simple: keep the U-channel bracket sides from splaying outwards.  To do that, I simply drilled a hole through both sides of the U-channel and installed an AN3 “anti-splay bolt” adjacent and as close as reasonably possible to each bolt head.

Here’s the left side bracket with the anti-splay bolt mod.

On the right side bracket I then cut new U-channel bracket sections, drilled out the internal U-channel (that sits reversed inside the larger U-channel) rivets to reinstall this smaller spacer U-channel, and then remounted the U-channel sections to replace the damaged ones.  I then drilled and mounted the new “anti-splay bolts” to complete the repair and modification of the right wing bolt bracket.

Here’s the new and improved right wing bolt bracket installed…. the repair and mod seem to be working just fine.

After spending a good portion of the day on the wing bolt brackets, it was time to get busy shaping the bottom strake foam cores prior to glassing the bottom strake skins.

The configuration of the foam cores is that the leading edge foam is 1/4″ thick, whereas the blue bottom strake foam is 3/8″ thick.  This clearly leaves about a 1/8″ thick difference at the seam of these foam cores.

There’s approximately a 1/8″ difference between the surface of the blue foam core and the surface of the CS spar as well, with the blue foam being a hair higher (which is obviously fine and much better than the other way around!).

There’s also a good bit of flox that needs to be cleaned up, like this area with flox securing the foam to fuselage sidewall.

So I got to work… funny how cleaning up the foam cores can be such a messy job!

I got a good round of knocking down the excess flox and cleaning up the seams.  Tomorrow I’ll focus on shaping the foam cores to their final configuration for glassing.

Well, today is the big day… one of those huge milestone events in the life of a build. Obviously I’ve flipped this bird over before, but that was still quite a task and was also pre-nose (IIRC), pre-gear install (essentially permanent), certainly pre-CS spar install, and most definitely pre-strakes.  All these additions clearly make flipping the bird much more of a challenge.

And at the risk of repeating myself, I don’t know enough able-bodied people to help me flip this fuselage via the man-handling grunt method, and thus I looked for a technical solution that would allow me to flip it on my own.

I started out today by getting the nose as elevated as possible so that it would not only have a good starting position and less airframe stress (not that I’m overly concerned about that), but a better angle of pull for the winch cable.

I simply lifted the nose up by hand and placed this portable work table underneath the nose gear.  Then added a couple of tires and 2x10s to get it up a bit higher.

Looking good here to start the winch ops . . .

The concept here is simple.  Winch cable pulls the nose up and over while the tie-down strap –connected to the trailer hitch on my truck– provides a failsafe to secure the fuselage from free falling onto its topside.

A few key things happened once the fuselage was vertical.

⇒ First, I quickly mixed up (is there any other way?) a batch of pour foam and from atop the ladder poured it into the dam and onto the face of the F28 bulkhead.
⇒ Next, confident in the ensuing flip process, I decided it would be easier to remove the roll bar at this point then when the fuselage was just about to be positioned onto the fuselage dolly.  This also gave the pour foam more than enough time to set.
⇒ Finally, the control source for flipping the bird transitioned from the winch cable (pulling up) to the truck-mounted tie-down strap (lowering).

Just another shot of the fuselage in the vertical position… not something you see every day.

And the money shot.  This is definitely my favorite shot, as the fuselage in this vertical position looks like some type of space shuttle, ready for launch!

I should note that the weather forecast just prior to me going to bed called for rain around 1100.  I got up at 0700, figuring that would give me a good few hours to get this thing flipped before the rain started.  Well, upon checking the weather forecast first thing in morning the rain had moved up to start at 0800. And was forecasted to last all day and well into the night.

Needless to say, I was scrambling.  And it did start raining while I was flipping the fuselage.  In my mad dash I failed to get the last half of the flip on video…. the lowering via truck-mounted tie-down strap.

I think the pic below is me hitting what I thought was the record button, but it only taking a single still framed pic…. oops!

Here’s the video footage I do have of the flip:

Here we are post flip, with the fuselage inside the shop and out of the rain.

Clearly the half moon structures are still attached and need to be removed.

I wiped down the fuselage and the strake bottom skins to get it all drying as soon as possible.

Here’s a shot of the pour foam I used while the fuselage was in the vertical “launch” position.  I’m impressed with how it looks like the exact right amount for the dam I poured it into, although it is certainly way more than I need for my application here of simply smoothing out and cleaning up the front face of the F28 bulkhead.

I will say that the removal of the right half moon structure was not drama-free, but the serious serendipitous lesson I learned during this process was absolutely necessary and critical in my book.

You see, in the low light situation during the install of the half moon structures last night, I was a washer shy on each of the right wing bolts.  Thus, when the nut got to the shoulder of the bolt, where there are no threads, it locked against the bolt.  And when I applied just enough torque, it caused the mounted wing bolt bracket inside the CS spar to spread apart just enough that the steel bolt head slipped… and gouged the softer aluminum internal sidewalls of the U-bracket.

Now, in this scenario I had access to the end of the wing bolts, so I simple Dremelled a slot in each one and used a large flat tip screwdriver to secure the now “loose”, free spinning but inaccessible (due to the damaged yet secured-in-place wing bolt bracket) wing bolts. I had the bolts free in a fairly short amount of time…. but what if this had been a mounted wing??  With my setup, over-torqueing a wing bolt could be very serious if the head were to slip in the bracket again.

This was, again, very serendipitous that it occurred at this point –when fairly easily recoverable– so that I can tweak the bracket design to ensure that this doesn’t happen during an actual wing install!

The first pic is of the damaged right wing bolt bracket… the other pic of the undamaged left wing bolt bracket.

With wing bolt bracket lesson learned in my pocket, I pressed forward removing the half moon structures.

Here are a couple shots of my officially flipped fuselage.

Ok, now let’s get to work!

I started off today by trimming the glass around the aft nose sub-structure large avionics access hole.  I then gave it a good sanding and ensured the top and bottom edges were NOT sharp! Note the micro in edges of the CAMLOC and hinge tab slots.

I then did a fair amount of sanding and even a little Dremel work on the interior surfaces of the elevator fairings and the interfacing fuselage sidewall to get the fairings to seat properly and all the hardpoints (re)aligned after disturbing everything with these screw- tab-securing internal plies of BID.

I also drilled the counter sinks in each of the holes for the CS screw heads to sit flush into.  Here’s a shot of the screws installed and secured by the inside nutplate assemblies.

I grabbed these shots to show the flush fit of the screws.  Although I did hit the left screw hole (right pic) again with the counter sink bit to remove just a hair more material.

I then removed the outboard wing bolts and swapped them out with the much longer bolts I inexplicably bought years ago.  These bolts are definitely long enough to mount a 2×4 on.

I wanted to take advantage of the fuselage being in a straight nose-up position during the flip to add some pour foam to the face of F28.  The face of F28 has some differences in elevation and is not even nor symmetrical, so I just want to clean that up a bit. Obviously much easier if the typically vertical-situated F28 is in the flat/horizontal position, and with pour foam it will literally take just a few minutes to add it.  I created a dam around the perimeter of F28 with duct taped cardboard to allow for this quick aside during the fuselage flip.

I went to Harbor Freight (after hunting awhile to get some gas!) and picked up a remote control 2500 lb. winch.  I then spent a good 45 minutes cutting 2×6 reinforcement plates to allow me to mount the winch about as high up as possible on the front of the shop.

I then spent another good hour+ finishing up the right half moon structure.

I then did the musical chairs dance of moving all my tools, equipment and wings on dolly around to allow for extricating the fuselage from the shop.

I then spent almost another hour mounting the half moons to the wing mounting hard points on the CS spar.

Of course these pics of the plane ready for flip remind me of the TIE fighters in the movie Star Wars!

It was fairly late, so I threw a tarp over the fuselage and called it a night.

Tomorrow will be the big fuselage flip day!

Today was all about trying to finish up those nagging tasks prior to flipping the bird on its back.

To start off, I needed to remove all the avionics, instruments, components, switches, etc. from the panel and then remove the aluminum panel overlay itself.  I proceeded to remove everything out of the panel except for the HXr EFIS and the row of Korey indicator lights above the HXr.

I then removed the right 2 Korey lights and taped up the upper right corner of the HXr EFIS to protect it.  I filed and sanded the top edge of the right outboard hole to remove about 0.020″ worth of material.

I then tested the rightmost outboard Korey light install, which previously didn’t sit flush with the face of the aluminum panel overlay, and Voila!  It fit a treat!

Now the entire row of Korey indicator lights above the HXr fit fine, looking nice and aligned.

I then grabbed one last shot of the labeled and clear coated aluminum panel overlay before I removed it.  The next time it sees the cockpit is when the instruments, avionics, switches, etc. will be getting installed pre-first flight!

I then floxed the right nutplate assembly in place for the elevator fairing screw tab.

The left elevator fairing screw tab nutplate assembly install is a bit more entailed since it can’t sit on the sidewall inside surface due to interference with the Garmin GNS-480 GPS mounting tube.  There’s maybe about 0.2″ clearance, but of course I want to allow for any vibration and flexing that may go on.

Thus I decided to sink the nutplate assembly into the sidewall a bit.  I marked and cut out the perimeter of the nutplate phenolic piece, then used the Fein saw to cut out the sidewall glass.  I then created flox corners and laid in 2 plies of BID to add back any inherent strength I might be affecting by an indention here.

I then applied grease to the end of the securing bolt . . .

And mounted the nutplate assembly after slathering it with a good amount of flox, and then left it to cure.

I had planned on working on the right half moon structure for flipping the bird, but it’s raining today so all outdoor activities are delayed…. I’ll try to get back on it tomorrow.

To knock some more ancillary tasks that will need to be done before this bird is finished, I went ahead and focused on the foam edges in the aft nose/avionics area sub-structure. I created and filled a flox edge on the top and bottom of the foam edge in the large avionics access hole opening, then laid up 1 continuous ply of BID that overlapped onto itself for a couple of inches.

I also dug out the foam on the sides of the interlocking hinge halve slots and the 4 CAMLOC tab slots along the top front of the panel, and filled all the edges with micro. I then left all that to cure overnight.

Yesterday I made a command decision to add 2 more attach points to the aft nose/avionics cover.  Yes, it may seem like this cover is an endless endeavor, but after a fair amount of consideration, pondering, and even some soul-searching (grin) I just felt that for my own peace of mind —especially if I’m going to carry passengers— I wanted a way to positively pin down those fairings to the sidewall other than CAMLOCs.  This way should a CAMLOC fail or separate from the aircraft, I know that the likelihood of the wind wreaking havoc on the fairing and jamming it into elevator is vastly minimized.

Although in my haste (modus operandi apparently) I failed to get a shot of the 1/16″ G10 phenolic tabs I cut, floxed and glassed with 2 plies of BID on the bottom forward side of the fairing.

Today I started out by trimming up the 2 ply BID layup on the external side of these new screw tabs. I then marked the locations to drill for the screws.

I then drilled the screw holes on each side and test fitted a CS #10 screw.

I glassed the interior side of these added screw tabs with 2 plies of BID overlapping onto the interior wall of the aft nose/avionics cover.  In hindsight I think 1 ply would have provided enough strength, because I ended up needing to sand these layups fairly aggressively, along with the nose side of the equation, to get the cover to fit back into place correctly.

After a fair bit of sanding, I finished the cleanup and drilling of the added fairing screw tabs.

Later in the evening my final task was making up 2x K1000-3 phenolic nutplate assemblies for the screws that will secure the newly created elevator fairing screw tabs to the fuselage sidewall.

I did get a bit done on the right half moon today (no pics), but tomorrow I do plan on getting back to work full bore on it to allow me to get the fuselage flipped over.

I’m starting off today with just a couple of gee-whiz shots of the nose with both the nose hatch and aft nose/avionics cover open.

I’m not sure when, but at some point today I decided I should test out my Oregon Aero upholstered front seat core… before the plane is inverted for a good month or so. I also was curious about the panel, and wanted to try them both out.

I have to say at this point I wouldn’t change a thing, on either the seat core or the panel. I was in there about 30 minutes, and to be honest, I didn’t want to get out… it was so comfortable and a nice break to do some mental armchair flying that I had to force myself to get out and get back to work!

Today’s major task at hand was finishing up the half moons for the quickly upcoming fuselage flip.  As per usual I had lofty goals of getting both of them completed, but only ended up getting the left side done.

Here I’m creating the internal “spokes” of this half wheel . . . if you will.

I then tried out the fitting to ensure all was good before pressing forward.

As you can see, I installed a decent-sized 45° brace from the inboard face of the half moon to the inboard support arm that bolts to the inboard wing bolt hard point.

And here we have the left side half moon complete!

Tomorrow I’ll continue my quest to finish the right half moon to allow me to flip the fuselage and shape/glass the bottom strake skins.