NACA Vents, Antennas, Roll Servo, and Strobe Power Pack

Last few days of work included installing NACA vents, mounting both comm antennas and transponder antenna, installing strobe power pack, and roll servo.  Also drilled holes for headsets and ran headset wires.

NACA Vent - Cockpit View

NACA Vent - Exterior View

.

Strobe Power Pack

Roll Servo

Installed VHF comm antennas and bracket for pilot headset jack mount.

VHF Antenna

Headset Jack Mount

Mike remounted transponder tray and drilled VHF antenna mounting holes.  Transponder was previously mounted under the floor panels which would have made access difficult once the floor panels were installed.  (2hrs)

Spent about two hours cleaning up the wiring in the tower so now it looks pretty.  Next step is figuring out where the headset jacks will go and get those in. 

Next steps – mounting the comm antennas, remounting the GTX33 higher so it slides out of the tray above the comm antenna, making a mounting bracket and mounting the Navworx behind the panel, then adding the grounding block/forest of tabs to the structure.

Painted Interior Panels

Moe, Larry, and Curly

John Branchaw did his magic today painting the interior parts.  Philip and I served as meager apprentices.  We started the long day around noon working on parts prep and wrapped up the clear coat by ten pm.

First step was to finish scuffing all the remaining parts, filling in fiberglass chips on the seat back, and placing all panels on racks for painting.  As is always the case with painting, the prep work took about 80% of the time.  Once all the parts were suspended from the paint racks or placed on the paint table we did a final cleaning with wax & grease remover.

Philip scuffing the seat back for primer.

Prep work completed, we began the painting.  First a good coat of epoxy primer, then panted the Chrysler CDM Mineral Gray Metallic paint, and finally a couple of good passes with the clear coat.

Parts hung; Primer application.

 

Wrapping up the clear coat at 10:30pm.

The end result was fantastic.  The Mineral Gray Metallic seems to dynamically shift colors as ones angle changes.  The clear coat went on really smooth and glassy.  On Tuesday we'll stop in to the hangar to see how things are binding and run the buffer over the parts.

Attached Wings for Alignment

Big day for the RV build.  With the help of a few fellow airport rats, we very carefully attached each wing by inserting the wing spars into the fuselage attach channel.  The fuselage was leveled along its longitudinal and lateral axis.    Wing sweep, dihedral, and incidence was meticulously measured and re-measured to ensure that the alignment was exact.

Once all measurements were verified we marked 5/8" distances from each edge of the rear wing attach point.  This determined the minimum distances from the hole center to each edge.  After the hole location was verified we step drilled #40, #30, and #19 holes for the AN3 attach bolt.

Task complete!

Fuel Pump Bracket Mounts

Drilled holes in fuselage floor and installed attach point for the fuel pump bracket mounting screws. The fuel pump will be installed just behind the firewall on the left side floor.