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

Hi Folks,

I’ll be heading out to RR23 in a few hours in the back seat of Marco’s beautiful Long-EZ, JT (I will say most likely for the last time!).  Since I’ll be gone for the good part of a week I just wanted to provide an updated update before I head out to fun & frivolity with my fellow Canardians!

I’m happy to report that the major recontouring, reshaping and significant re-glassing (in CF) of the bottom cowling is complete!  I still have the very aft center lip (at the top of the bottom cowl fin) to glass as well as the interfacing left & right sides between top & bottom cowlings.  Once these tasks are completed then the optimized install of the exhaust pipes will begin.

As I’ve stated before, I currently have a plan with my local race car exhaust-making dude, James, to finalize the exhaust pipes’ install configuration.  And I very much intend to optimize the exhaust pipe runs as they should be, in line with Mike Melvill’s exhaust pipe mods that brought the pipes inboard a bit closer to the spinner and focused on the very inboard section of the prop.  He notes all this in CP 83 and the operational improvements of these mods are impressive.  Since I have no choice but to rewicker the exhaust pipes anyway, I might as well make them as near-perfect as possible.

I’m still intent to focus solely on the plane for the next however long it takes to finish this bird… ASAP!  

  1. Chapter 23 – Oil cooler lines in! Leave a reply
  2. Chapter 18 – Cowl Phase II complete Leave a reply
  3. Chapter 23 – Bottom cowl baffles Leave a reply
  4. Chapter 23 – Bottom cowl phase II Leave a reply
  5. Chapter 23 – Cowl Phase I, ditto right Leave a reply
  6. Chapter 23 – Bottom cowl CF phase 1 Leave a reply
  7. Chapter 23 – Top cowl aft edge retrim Leave a reply
  8. Chapter 23 – Flow guide fitting Leave a reply
  9. Chapter 23 – Top cowl aft edge Leave a reply