I’m back in the States for a couple of weeks before I head over to the Sandbox.

Today I pulled the trigger on my Lycoming O-320 engine case along with an ECi IOX-340S strokered crankshaft, balanced connecting rods, and camshaft from Tom Schwietz at Aero Engines in Winchester, VA at Winchester Regional Airport (OKV).  I met Tom at his shop and talked with him at length on various engine options, the build, etc. and toured his shop.  Tom was incredibly knowledgeable and the facility was quite impressive.

However, since I apparently had a huge brain fart and failed to get a picture of my new engine components, I tried to find a good representative picture online but couldn’t find anything fitting.

Yesterday, I got to spend all afternoon/evening with my buddy Marco down in Virginia Beach and tour his build facilities as well (impressive garage my friend! ha!).  He showed me his Long-EZ project and of course we talked Ad nauseam.  I also dropped off my TIG Welder for him to try out, evaluate & use while I’m gone this next year.  If he likes it he’ll most likely use it build his rollover assembly.  It was great to visit with him and get some good Long-EZ shop talk in with my fellow Canardian.  Build on my friend!

Today I pulled out all the stops . . . or should I say I pulled out all the pieces of the build so far.  Before I am separated from my project while I spend a year in the Middle East for Uncle Sam, I wanted to get an idea of what this thing looks like put all together.

So I pulled the fuselage out into the front yard, and kept it covered while I collected the other components.  Next up was the Centersection Spar which I placed into the fuselage for the first time since I completed it about 8 months ago.

You can see in the pic below that I got the measurements correct for running the rudder cable conduit through the fuselage sidewall, then through the CS Spar and positioned just off the edge of firewall (the curved metal conduit bracket that the Nylaflo will run through will get mounted to the firewall).

I’m jumping ahead with the following pics below since they were at the tail end of the this grand mock-up as I was tearing it all apart, but I wanted to keep like pics together.

After I got the CS spar & firewall in place, I added both of the wings next.  Again, besides the measurements provided to me in the plans, and of course a couple dozen confirmation measurements, I had not lined up either wing with the CS Spar to confirm that the hard points (aluminum extrusions) lined up with each other.  Obviously, I was very relieved to confirm I hadn’t jacked any of my measurements up!  Also, as you can see I had to throw on at least one winglet just to get an idea of how it would look.  Although it was a little awkward to get it on the end of the wing so it looked half-way normal, I think I got in the ballpark.  Well, and of course we can’t forget the canard… yes, it’s on there too!

Once I got the pics above taken, now it was time to fill in what gaps I could to make it look at least a little like it had some mass to it.  Next came the engine cowlings.

The wind had picked up a little bit and I didn’t want to damage anything just to get some pictures, so I removed the Left winglet & put it inside the garage.  “What about the Canard?!”  You may ask.  Well, no worries of the wind playing havoc with the canard dear readers, for I clamped the mounting tabs to the front fuselage bulkhead, F22.

In the next couple of shots you can see how the lower cowling hangs down 4 inches below the stock/plans firewall.  Again, since Mike Melvill had built a NACA inlet for his engine air intake the back end of his fuselage–and subsequently the firewall–was 4 inches lower than plans [in essence making the bottom line of the fuselage continue straight until aft of the firewall].

And then the following pics are more close-up shots of the upper cowling.

Finally, after I broke everything down and got the wings, canard, cowling & firewall back inside out of the sun, I spent some time looking at the CS spar, taking some measurements and looking at how square it was to the fuselage (this was a quick mock up to keep all the parts in the sun as little as possible–about an hour total time . . . and if you actually look at the shadow of the house on the mock-up from start to finish, there’s not that much movement).  At this point the CS spar and the fuselage were in the shade provided by the sun going down on the other side of the house.

I was busy working move stuff much of the day, so I left the elevators bondo’d to the table to cure even more.

My buddy Marco asked me to take some pics of my Landing Brake Switch that came with the landing brake setup I got from Jack Wilhelmson at eznoselift.com.

I took a pic of the switch & its wiring, and the microswitch that is used in the system as well.

And since we had been discussing the process of researching Long-EZ construction, I shared a picture of my project documentation binders & research.

I made it back to Germany a few days ago.  Below is conglomeration of orders I put in with Stein Aviation (Tefzel wire, switches & electrical stuff), ACS (3″ UNI tape for the canard) and B&C (90° oil filter mount).