Germany I (Mar-Oct 2012)

I arrived in Germany in late July 2011.  I spent the first 5 weeks looking for a place to live and then was deployed shortly afterwards to Vicenza, Italy for another 5 weeks.  By the time I moved into my place in October 2011, the weather was getting much cooler and my garage was unheated and had no power.  So I decided to hold off on the build and enjoy the holidays build-free.

I shipped most of my shop to Germany thinking that I would add more weight to the project and to my return household goods shipment by building the airplane bits ‘n pieces (epoxy adds weight), and then getting rid of a bunch of shop stuff.  By ridding myself of all the shop table frames, foldaway glass-cutting table, raw particle board (for center section spar jig), etc., I hope it all would equalize out as a zero sum weight gain.  We’ll see!

I spent March & April 2012 prepping the garage and a utility room as the two primary workshops.  I had to outfit (read: buy) the shops with 220V lights and extension cords.  For the garage, I ran extensions cords from the back of the house and my front kitchen window.  Also, any specialized US-spec tool had to be run through a transformer… as you can see, a lot of plugging/unplugging just to finish the simplest tasks.  And since Germany is cold/cool most of the year, I had 2-3 heaters that I ran A LOT (electric bill was HIGH!).

In Germany I, the chapter build order does NOT follow the plans since I was prioritizing the build based on which sections would use the most epoxy (more on that in the posts).

• Feather Lite Order – Inventory

• Shop Preparation – “Chapter 3 Prep Round 2”

• Chapter 6 Part 2 – Fuselage Repair & Assembly

• Chapter 7 – Fuselage Exterior

• Chapter 8 – Rollover Structure & Seat Belts

• Section VI – Landing Brake

• Chapter 9 – Main Gear

• Chapter 16 & 24 – Covers, Fairings & Consoles

• Chapter 19 – Wings Build Prep

.                        Right Wing Build

.                        Left Wing Build

• Chapter 20 – Winglets

• Chapter 14 – Center Section Spar: Spar Box

.                        Center Section Spar: Shear Web & Spar Caps

.                        Center Section Spar: Final Steps

 

 

 

 

 

 

Recent Posts

Project Update

Hey Guys, 

I’m currently WELL into the final micro-finishing stage of this project, with really only the outboard underside of the wings and the top of the nose forward of the canard that remains to be done (ok, and the wheel pants). 

I set the canopy into its final position which allowed me to complete the final canopy latch install.  With that, I am finishing the final fit and finish of both the aft nose/avionics cover and nose hatch door onto the nose.

I have still yet to pull the engine off the bird, but that will be coming soon.  At which point I’ll finish making/installing the forward heat shields in the wing roots, and then move on to cut and install the Titanium firewall. 

  1. Chapter 13/25 – Yes… more sanding Leave a reply
  2. Chapter 18/25 – Canopy latch installed Leave a reply
  3. Chapter 18/25 – Final canopy lock tasks Leave a reply
  4. Chapter 18/25 – Another milestone Leave a reply
  5. Chapter 13/21/25 – More nose jobs! Leave a reply
  6. Chapter 25 – Miscellaneous tidbits Leave a reply
  7. Chapter 13/18/25 – More odds & ends Leave a reply
  8. Chapter 25 – Canard finishing stuff Leave a reply
  9. Chapter 10/25 – Fixing past sin… Leave a reply