08/22/2005 [14] Weighed the Plane for Weight and Balance, Wing Sanding - Curtis and John
We sanded the wing and checked with a very straight edge for minor filling. Welded the aluminum intake scoop.

08/21/2005 [6] Weight and Balance info. - Curtis
I measured points for data entry for doing the weights and balance docs. and some misc. work. Filled out paperwork for Airworthiness.

08/20/2005 [22.5] Wing, Weight and Balance info. - Curtis, Ray and John
We sanded the wing and did some weight and balance calcs on the computer.

08/19/2005 [31.4] Wing, Baffles, Seat Back. - Curtis, Ray and John
We sanded the wing and used some filler that turned out not to cure and never got past soft rubber stage so we scraped off all of it and had to let it off-gas overnight. Worked on installing all of the skins. Baffle securing and seals. Painted the seat back support. Modified and installed the aluminum seat back.

08/18/2005 [28] Seat Back Support, Wiring, Electronics, Seat Pan. - Curtis, Ray and John
We sanded the wing. Sanded the leading edge of the horizontal stabilizer where it had been repaired with carbon. We lubed the rudder and elevator hinges. Installed locking nuts on the instruments and added blanks where there are no instruments. Did some electrical wiring and worked on the telemetry systems. finished the seat pan supports, made and welded the seat back support.

08/17/2005 [19.6] Fuel Hoses and Wing - Curtis and John
We sanded the wing, made and installed fuel hoses and the fuel shut-off lever, and made the seat pan out of .040 2024-T3 aluminum.

08/16/2005 [42] Painted all of the Skins/Cowl and Wing. - Curtis, Ray, Charlie and John
We added filler to the wing and skins. We finished sanding and painted all of the skins, cowl, scoop, canopy frame. Lubed the elevator linkages/pivots. Patched a small area on the leading edge of the horizontal stab.

08/15/2005 [34] Wing and Wing Templates, Cowl Scoop. - Curtis, Ray, Charlie and John
Glued full size wing templates to some tempered hardboard and cut them out. Worked on the skins and more on the wing. Finished sanded the cowl scoop.

08/14/2005 [36] Wing, Welding, and Wing Templates. - Curtis, Ray, Charlie and John
Painted blocking on the wing and sanded it. Finished welding the cross brace support on the fuselage. Drilled aileron control arm holes at the wing root. Made wing templates on the computer and printed them out.

08/13/2005 [28] Wing, Welding, and Attached Ailerons. - Curtis, Ray and John
More welding, installation of the cross brace behind the pilot. Finished welding the diagonal support on the fuselage. Baffles, attached ailerons to the torque tube.

08/12/2005 [31] Wing, Skins, Welding, and Linkage. - Curtis, Ray and John
We welded more on the brace for the tail, aileron stops, sanded the wing and skins, and checked the elevator linkage for tightness.

08/11/2005 [26.5] Wing, Diagonal Brace Welding, Cowl Scoop. - Curtis, Ray and John
We welded the brace for the tail and sanded the wing and worked on finishing the cowl scoop air inlet.

08/10/2005 [10] Wing, Diagonal Bracing - Curtis
I looked at bracing for the tail and sanded the wing.

08/09/2005 [29] Wing Sanding, Mixture Control, Scoop, Remove Plastic from Firewall. - Curtis, Ray, John, and Jacob
Ray and John sanded the wing and adder filler in the low spots. Jacob removed the plastic from the inside of the firewall (it is stuck on really well) and Curtis moved all of the engine parts and tools out of the area that the wing is being sanded.

08/08/2005 [10] Wingtips and Canopy - Curtis and Ray
Ray sanded/polished out a few scratches that were in the canopy and we installed the wingtips on the wing.

08/07/2005 [14.6] Diagonal Bracing, Seat, ToDo List, and Mag Cooling Vents - Curtis and Ray
We installed mag cooling tubes in the back of the baffles. Looked how we are going to stiffen up the tail. And we looked at making a new seat and where we had to make changes.

08/06/2005 [8.2] Carb Linkage and Turtledeck Repair - Curtis and Ray
Give carb linkage yoke a 15 degree bend so cable enters smoothly to arm. It took cutting off one side of the yoke and rewelding it. Also Ray cut out a small section of the turtledeck that didn't get wetted out enough during assembly.

08/01/2005 [2.0] Scotty Inspects Fuselage - Scotty Crandlemire and Ray Debs
I had asked Scotty Crandlemire if he would inspect the fuselage to point out things I might have missed or done wrong so that I would have a chance to fix them before Dave Morss inspected the airplane. He called this morning because he was in the neighborhood. I would have liked to clean up the garage before he got there, but I didn't have the chance. He was kind and didn't pick on me about it too much :). His hangar/shop is immaculate, and it is so nice to work in there where you aren't tripping over things, and you could eat off the floor (Buck does...). Anyway, his initial impression was that I have a lot to do to get the plane done. He said it will be really tight to get the plane airworthy and fly off the test flight time. However, he said it looks really fast, and he liked the shape of the fuselage. Later he said that if we could get 3 or 4 people to help, it would be possible, but we can't waste any time. Also, you typically can't put 4 hours of test-flying on in a day because you go fly, you come back and try to debug squawks, you think about it for a while, you do some work, then you can go up again. I said I understand that we may not make it to the race, but that I still want to work on it and get as much done as possible. Then if we only take Plane Mantis, at least Carbon Slipper is that much closer. If we don't work on Carbon Slipper, it will never get done.

Here are the squawks he noted:

• Most important was that the flex in the empennage seems to be too much. His tail hardle flexes at all, and where it does is in the horizontal stab, not the steel tubing. He said that if it is too much flex, it needs to be fixed, but that fixing it should be a relatively easy job of installing a couple of gussets. He said that Dave Morss would be the person who would really know how much is acceptable, and if he says it is OK, then no problem. He said something about if the flex is distributed evenly, it may not be a problem, but he isn't sure.
• Cylinder baffling needs to be finished
• baffle covers should only need about 3 or 4 screws per side as the cowling will hold it in place
• The wire and tubes ahead of the firewall need to be secured
• The brake system needs to be filled, leak tested, and bled.
• The fillets around the wing need to be made
• The fillets under the stab need to be made. He said tape would be OK until the stab incidence is determined.
• The bottom of the fuselage aft of the firewall needs to be secured and if it is moved up a 1/2 inch or so, it would improve the cooling.
• The ducting for the oil cooler needs to be installed and secured
• The exhaust pipes need to be installed and holes cut in the cowling, and the pipes should protrude about 1/2" from the cowl. Also need to make a heat shield so we don't burn the cowl. The pipes could be cut at an angle to match the cowling. He has some long pipes with a curve at the end, but if we used something like that, we'd have to cut larger holes in the cowl, and getting the cowl on and off over them is more difficult.
• The front of the cowling near the spinner could be filled with flox and shaped to a bull-nose so that when the engine drops under G-load the air doesn't get tripped so hard. You don't want a very smooth slope because when in level flight the air would be tripping over the trailing edge of spinner. Finding a good shape here may take some experimentation. He said we'd probably want about 1/8" space between spinner and cowl.
• The wheel pants have a lot more work to get them mounted. We need one or two people to just focust on that.
• The canopy needs to be polished and then covered back up to protect it from future scratches.
• The fuel vent line being on the gear leg has caused a couple of accidents, and that we need to be very careful about that. I asked him why and he didn't give me details. We moved Plane Mantis' vent from the top of the cowl to the gear leg and it seemed to clear up problems we were having with fuel delivery, so I'll try to get some more opinions on the matter just to be safe.
• The gear leg cuffs need to be made.

• He thought the canopy latches should work fine
• He said we did a nice job on the carbon skin work. I was surprized at this as I see all the little defects and things I would do better, but it was really nice of him to say that.
• This is going to be a FAST airplane because it is so clean and light.
• He liked the gear leg with the groove in the trailing edge for the brake lines
• Don't worry about painting the fuel tank as most people won't even see it.

08/01/2005 [5.0] Carb Intake Tube, Oil Cooler Ducting, Tail - Ray Debs
I put all the skins and cowlings on to make sure everything was held in alignment. Then I cut the intake diffuser tube to the right length and opening size, and put it in place in the aluminum 90deg tube attached to the carburetor. After installing the intake cowl on the engine cowl, I aligned the intake tube to check for fit. Everything looked good, so I took off the intake cowling and intake tube and put a big glob of silicone around the intake tube and around the inside of the intake cowling. I put the intake tube back in place, and as I put the intake cowling back on, I made sure the silicone was joining really well. I smoothed it all out with a tongue depressor, and left it to cure overnight.

I sanded down the excess micro/epoxy lip on the oil cooler duct so the 3" scat tubing would fit around it, and held it in place with tubing clamps. Now it is ready to install (with the oil cooler).

I sanded the micro/epoxy slurry on the tail of the skin so it was mostly smooth, then I marked straight lines and trimmed it to a hard edge. Connie and I taped up the skin, and I sanded the fin so it would stick to a micro/epoxy slurry, then I clecoed the skin back on the fin. Connie mixed up some epoxy/micro, and we slathered it on the fin to blend in with the shape of the skin trailing edge. After it cures it will get sanded smooth. It looks really good right now.

07/31/2005 [11.0] Wheel Pants II, Mask Connector - Ray Debs
First, I started getting the ducting for the oil cooler figured out. It turns out the output tubes on the duct are tapered too much to hold a clamp. So I set it aside to build up a lip.

I marked the screw placement for the wheel pants, and drilled and countersunk the holes. Then I cut the small tabs holding the wheel pant cutouts to the wheel pant bodies, and popped them off. The lip turned out really nice. Finally, I riveted on the nutplates (marked, drilled, countersunk, riveted). Then I used some thin CA to temporarily hold the halves of the wheel pants together. Now that there is an opening that I can get my arm into, the wheel pants are ready to be joined.

I found a fitting that will work well for connecting my air hose with the fresh-air intake. It needed some adjustment (with a dremel tool), but seems to work well. I attached it to the tubing with CA, so it shouldn't come loose.

After taking a break for church and dinner, I talked Connie into helping me out with bonding the halves of the wheel pants together. We started a bit late (11pm) but I thought it would take less than an hour. First, while Connie was holding the wheel pants up so I didn't have to touch the outsides with messy gloves, I filled the seam with micro and smoothed it out. Some of the micro squeezed out around the edges and got on Connie's hands, but it wasn't too bad. It is interesting working with your head inside a wheel pant. Your world gets really small... It really helped to have a lightbulb inside so I could see what I was doing, and having Connie move them to whatever position made it easier to get inside. After applying the micro, I put 1-1/2" strips of 2bid glass across the seams to bond them together. This went relatively well except for the tail which was really hard to get into. I tried using sticks and long plastic rods, but I really needed a micro hand and long arm. We finished around 1:30am! It took quite a bit longer than I estimated. I really couldn't have done it without Connies help, though. After the wheel pants were put to bed for the night, I used the excess micro to built up a bit of a lip on the oil cooler duct exhaust holes. Then I went to bed.

07/30/2005 [13.0] Wheel Pants, Misc Hardware - Ray Debs
I had previously (a year or so ago) marked the wheel pants with where I thought would be a good place for the cut-outs. Today, I double checked that and it looks like it will work just fine. I used a thin dremel cut-off wheel to mostly cut them out (leaving small tabs so the parts are still aligned). Then I built up patches of glass mat where the screws will go, and I put 2 bid. glass around the edge of the cutout to strengthen it.

I put that in the sun so it would cure quickly, and went on to put in all of the nutplates for the cowling and canopy frame. This took quite a while as there were a lot of them to put in.

Once I had finished the nutplates, I took the throttle cable bracket that David Hoover had made and I made a replacement for the part that was cracked. Then I bolted it all together and mounted it on the engine. I also made a clamp for the mixture cable and mounted that also.

I traced shapes on micarta for the prop extension insulators, and tried to cut one of them out with my flying cutter head. It was just a bit too small, so I have to find something else to cut out the 5-1/2" disks.

After about 5 hours, I checked the patches on the wheel pants and found that it had cured (normally it takes about 24 hours). So I cleaned the area up, put tape over the cutout side, and layed up a lip of 3 layers of carbon around the cutout. I put that outside, but the sun was blocked by some clouds, so it didn't cure nearly as fast as the patches.

07/28/2005 [3.5] Pilot Intake, Fuel Vent - Ray Debs
First, I cleaned up the cowling bulkhead by sanding off all the sharp pointy carbon threads around the edges of the layup. Then I cleaned up the pilot intake cutout and duct and bonded the duct to the canopy frame. I bent the fuel vent tubing to shape and put it in place. Now I have to make the gear leg cuffs and will bond the fuel vent tube into the left cuff.

07/27/2005 [5.5] Cowl Front Bulkhead - Ray Debs
I am satisfied with the placement of the cowl and canopy frame, so I drilled out all of the screw holes to the correct size and put in larger clecoes, and went back and countersunk all of the holes. Now I need to install nutplates for all of those holes...

I cut the mag vent tubes to the right size, and drilled open the holes in the back of the baffles for mounting them. I also trimmed the baffle covers a bit so they fit better.

Finally I installed the cowling front bulkhead by making a fillet of micro/epoxy, and covering the fillet with 2 layers of carbon.

07/26/2005 [5.5] Baffle Covers, Pilot Intake, and Cowl - Ray Debs
I cleaned up the scoop for the Pilot Intake that I unmolded this morning. It fits pretty well, but the output tube is a bit weak and needs reinforcement. Then I popped the baffle cover parts off their molds and trimmed the edges and cleaned off the stuck primer and mold-release with a scotch-brite pad and some Fast-Orange hand soap (that stuff works great for cleaning up molds!). They look pretty good and fit well. Now they need reinforcements where the nutplates attach and at the intake lip. Then I made sure the cowling was fitting right and marked where the front bulkhead should go. I pulled them off and screwed them back together, then carefully trimmed the bulkhead to fit inside. Then I spent about an hour trying to sand off the high-temp silver paint that Curtis sprayed inside the cowl. That stuff is tough! Finally, I positioned the bulkhead and tacked it in place w/ some CA so I could test the fit before permanently bonding it together.

07/26/2005 [1.0] Pilot Air Intake Unmolded - Ray Debs
This morning I couldn't wait to see how the intake came out. It seemed pretty set up, so I peeled it off the canopy frame and carved out as much clay as I could. It looks great, but maybe a bit large. I'll have to make a valve to adjust the intake pressure so I don't have problems breathing (like I have on Plane Mantis at times). Then I made sure the shape was still good and put it back on the canopy frame. Next I'll trim it down so the front is flush with the top skin, make sure the air hose will fit on the end, and bond it to the canopy frame.

07/25/2005 [4.5] Pilot Air Intake - Ray Debs
Tonight, I took the NACA duct measurements from Tony Bingelis' Sport Plane Construction book and reduced it 78% and looked for a place on the fuselage to put it where it wouldn't be taking in the engine exhaust, and wouldn't be in a low pressure zone (sucking the air out of my lungs). It was difficult because the fuel tank is right up against the skin aft of the firewall and where it isn't near the skin looks like it would be in a low pressure area. Finally I found out it would fit right in front of the canopy, and that is a high pressure area. I cut out the NACA shape, then filled it with clay and carved that to be the inside shape of the duct, including the output to a hose. Then I fiberglassed over that. After it is cured, I'll clean out the clay and bond it to the canopy frame.

I also layed up the baffle covers over the male molds I made previously. I used 1/2 oz and 2 layers of 6 oz glass cloth. After they are cured, I'll bond on border strips for attaching the nut plates.

07/24/2005 [3.0] Constructing Flight Test Program - Ray Debs
In order to be as prepared as possible, I spent some time doing research on flight test programs, and started putting one together for Carbon Slipper. Also, I organized all the paperwork and various data sheets and user manuals.

07/24/2005 [5.0] Cowling/Baffling adjustments - Ray Debs
I found out that the reason the cowling was off center was because the left cooling intake was pressing on the aluminum baffling. After trimming the baffling back, the cowling fits really well. After that I cut holes in the rear wall of the baffles for the plug wire holders. Then, I drilled holes in the firewall for the safety cable to go through, around the frame, and back forward. I threaded the cable all around to complete its installation. Now to install the front bulkhead in the cowl.

07/23/2005 [13.0] Baffle Cover Molds and Electrical - Ray Debs
Connie and I sanded the baffle cover molds, primed them, and sanded them again until they were pretty smooth, then I covered them with Johnson's paste wax as a mold release. Now they are ready for making parts.

I figured out the placement of the throttle cable and drilled a hole through the firewall and installed the cable with a rubber grommet. I held the throttle cable in place with a bracket that David Hoover had made (and gave us with the fuselage) and connected it to the carburetor. Now the throttle control works!

I picked up some tubing benders from Home Depot and made the fuel tank vent intake, and the two mag cooling vent tubes. I also made the mag vent tube clamps that go through the rear wall of the baffles.

I made the battery harness out of velcro strips so the battery is lashed to the spar. I removed the inline DC-to-DC regulator and am now running all the electrical system directly off the batteries. Then I tested the transmitter and it works much better! Then I installed wire bundle covers to clean up the installation.

Finally, for the heel plate under the rudder pedals, I drilled open the holes and countersunk them to fit the cherry-max rivets and riveted it in place.

07/22/2005 [11.0] Fuselage to Skin Stabilizers - Ray Debs
For stabilizing the skin, I fabricated tabs and bonded them to the lower skin, then with tube clamps w/ silicon liners, clamped the skin to the fuse. Now it is quite solid. I will also add some for the turtledeck later.

As a test, I used clear silicone to glue two pieces of carbon together to see how secure and flexible it would be. I am planning on doing this with the intake tube inside of the cowling so when the engine moves, it doesn't crack the cowling.

I also cleaned the bottom corner of the rudder up a bit, scraped out some foam, and filled with flox/epoxy mix. This should make it a bit less susceptible to runway rash.

07/21/2005 [9.0] Fairings - Ray Debs
Today I layed up the tailwheel and rudder cable fairings, and then worked on smoothing out the skin to fin transition by adding micro/epoxy slurry to the skin. After I sand that smooth on the skin side, I'll put tape on it and do the same to the fin/fuselage side to match. This should provide a good, smooth transition.

After much thought on how to make the fuel sight gauge visible, I decided to abandon it. If it becomes a problem later, we can rethink it. The problems I encountered were that with the addition of the inline tap, the fuel line from the tank to the firewall will be really short and probably have a lot of stress on it (it has to bend a bit to go down to the carb), the instrument panel covers up most of the fuel tank, so I wouldn't be able to see any more than the top 1 inch of the gauge (making it useless), if I tried to put the gauge in front of the panel/spar, it would have dips and bends that might trap air bubbles (making it useless). I suppose as a (absolute) last resort we could just make a wire with a cork on it like my dad's cub had...

07/20/2005 [11.0] Fairing Molds, Fuel Sight Gauge - Ray Debs
I popped off the mold for the rudder cable and tailwheel fairings and cleaned out the clay. I cut it apart into 3 separate pieces so it would be easier to deal with, then I sanded and filled them to make them as smooth as possible. I sprayed them with primer, and sanded again a couple of times. Finally, I coated them all with Johnson's Paste Wax as mold release. Now they are ready to make parts.

I started laying out the fuel sight gauge by first installing the inline tap and the hose fitting, then I pulled some clear Tygon tubing around from the bottom of the tank at the tap around the spar so I could see it from the pilot's seat, up and back to a tee fitting at the tank vent port. I don't see a good way to hold the gauge in place, and it will be a pain to take the wing on and off. Not real happy with this idea...

07/19/2005 [11.0] Fairing Plugs - Ray Debs
I installed the rudder control horn fairings with tape, and borrowed some tubes from my wife's Shark vacuum (she didn't really need them), cut them in half, and used them as the basic shape for the rudder cable fairings. I taped them in place and filled around them with clay. Then I spent a couple of hours shaping and smoothing them until they looked right. Then I taped around the tailwheel and filled around it with clay and spent even more time shaping it and trying to get a nice shape. Instead of making 3 separate molds, I decided to do it all as a single piece so I wouldn't have to worry about messing up other pieces while working on one (at least that was the idea). It actually went pretty well. After a couple more hours, I had a fully encased rear fuselage. This was a lot more work than it sounds like...

07/18/2005 [10.5] Skin Mounting Tabs - Ray Debs
Today I fabricated tabs to attach the skin to the frame with tube clamps. This is in addition to the primary attachments of bulkheads directly screwed to the frame. The idea is to stabilize the skin a bit more. First, I place the tube clamps on the frame at the desired placements, then I made templates with manilla folder stock. I cut the tabs out of a board of carbon-glassmat-carbon that I made yesterday and sanded them so they would bond well with the skin. Then I made fillets with micro/epoxy mix and layed wetted out carbon patches over the fillets to hold on the tabs. While it was setting up, I held them in place with a bit of tape. Next will be drilling holes to match the clamps and inserting AN3-3A bolts.

07/14/2005 [5.0] Tail Fairing Flange - Ray Debs
I decided it would be easier to install the fasteners first and then bond the flange to the tail fairing. This way the flange has a really good fit with the turtledeck.

07/11/2005 [5.0] Tail Fairing Cleanup - Ray Debs
I popped the tail fairing out of the mold and it looks pretty good. I trimmed up the edges a bit and sanded it clean and primed it. Then I made a flange with 4 layers of carbon and pressed it in place against the turtledeck rear end (with plastic between) so it would form a perfect fit.

07/10/2005 [3.5] Tail Fairing Layup - Ray Debs
After applying Johnson's Paste Wax as mold release, I layed up the tail fairing in the mold.

07/9/2005 [4.0] Tail Fairing Mold - Ray Debs
I popped the tail fairing mold off the fuselage and cleaned the clay off the fuselage and mold, then I spent a bit of time sanding and filling the mold to make it as smooth as possible. Then I sprayed it with primer and sanded a couple of times for a nice finish.

07/08/2005 [0.5] Popped tail fairing mold off plane - Ray Debs
Before I went to work this morning, I pryed the tail fairing mold off the plane. It was stuck on good, but only to the tape and clay. I used a tongue depressor to get under the mold and when I finally got the mold off the tail, I used the tongue depressor to scrape the clay off the inside of it. It looks pretty clean inside, but I'll have to do a little bit of filling and sanding before pulling parts out of it. It looks great, but a bit flimsy. I may add a strengthening bulkhead to the outside so the parts don't come out warped.

07/07/2005 [11.5] Canopy Frame and Tail Fairing - Ray Debs
I used a grinder to take away material from the inside of the canopy frame where it was hitting the fuel tank, and ended up with a 4x6" hole I had to patch. I put plastic over the tank and layed up glass and carbon for the patch, then I spread a micro/epoxy slurry over the whole thing to reshape it. I used the little bit of excess micro/epoxy on the molds for the cylinder baffling covers. Then I started working on the tail fairing. I started with a couple of pieces of pink foam to block off the majority of the opening between the fin and the stab, then I filled it in with clay and started shaping. At first, I had this really flowing shape with large fillets, but then I was doing some MFD (Mental Fluid Dynamics) and hypothesized that a smaller fairing with less surface area would produce less drag. I guess we won't know unless we build one of each and compare... Anyway, after it was shaped, I layed up .5 oz cloth, then a few layers of 6 oz cloth with polyester resin to make the mold. In the process of making the plug, I ran out of clay, so I went to the store to find some and also picked up the 3/16" steel cable and clamps to hold the engine on the airframe in case the mount were to break. While I was working on glassing the tail-fairing mold, Charlie and Joe Federmann sanded the cyl. baffling molds and the canopy frame where I applied micro/epoxy mix.

07/06/2005 [9.0] Electrical and Canopy Frame - Ray Debs
Today I worked on tidying up the wiring routing behind the panel. It looks a bit better now with zip ties and cable sleeves. I also made a mounting plate for the Braal tach, and wired it to the power bus. It comes on now, but I couldn't attach the sensor because I don't have the right size female pins for the connector. The headset/mic plug is now covered with a black nylon braided sleeve and in place to connect to my mask hose. The Push-To-Talk switch is connected to the wire now and is in place next to the throttle so I can use my left hand to talk while I am flying. After all that, I started working on making the canopy frame clear the fuel tank. I marked where it was hitting the tank, and used an angle grinder that I got at Harbor Freight for about $20 to grind away material. What a mess! There is carbon dust all over the garage. After making it clear the high part of the tank and straps I realized it is still hitting where the fuel cap is. I'll have to fix that tomorrow. Then I spent some time trying to clean up the garage...

07/05/2005 [9.5] Instrument Electrical & misc - Ray Debs
I fiberglassed the cylinder baffle covers (the foam plugs I had made earlier). These are going to be the male plugs for making carbon parts later. I will make the parts with flanges built on so I don't have to do that as a separate step. A little more prep time, but should be less time overall. I routed the shielded cable for the tach sensor through a grommeted hole in the firewall, back to the instrument panel. I made shielded cables for the mags, and pulled them through grommeted holes in the firewall back to the switch box on the panel. I spent a fair amount of time debugging the connections to the mags. It seems simple enough... I also made a bracket for the hobbs meter to mount it under the panel.

07/04/2005 [4] Static ports - Ray Debs
Since it's 4th of July, we had a neighborhood picnic and fireworks, so my working day was cut kind of short. So I thought I'd tackle something I could do in a relatively short amount of time, and the static ports seemed like a well-contained task. I found a location on the fuselage that looks like it wouldn't have either positive or negative pressure (but that remains to be seen), and drilled holes for the static ports. The bond in ports weren't flush with the outside of the fuselage, so I background the inside. Once I was happy with the positioning, I mixed up some micro/epoxy and stuck the ports on with that, then put a layer of carbon over to encapsulate them. I think they look pretty good.

07/02/2005 [12.0] Instrument Wiring - Ray Debs and William Foote
William and Kathy Foote came over to visit and help on the plane today. It was a huge help to have William's help with the electrical work. While we were working on stripping, tinning, soldering, and heat-shrinking, we had lots to talk about. We made a hole in the firewall for the 12 pin molex connector for the engine sensors, placed all of the cht and oil temp probes, and inserted them in the connector body. We pulled all of the wires from the instruments to the back of the firewall and matched them up to the other side of the plug. I used a heat gun to test each sensor and we verified that they do indeed all work. Then we worked on the headset/mic and push-to-talk wiring. We tested the radio and it works great except that when transmitting there is this horrendous feedback signal. Not sure what is causing it yet. I'll have to do some debugging.

07/02/2005 [1.8] Radio Installation - Curtis
The new Micro Air radio we have is really compact and a great looking unit. I installed it in the panel by moving the altimeter down so it will be next to the VSI.

07/01/2005 [3.0] Helmet & Ear Inserts - Ray Debs and William Foote
I made an inline plug for the headset inside my flight helmet so I can plug the ear insert headphones I got from Race Electronics into the helmet which is plugged into the radio. I tested this setup with my handheld radio and it works great. In fact it is almost too loud, but that will be just about right when I am flying.

07/01/2005 [14.5] Engine work - Curtis
I got parts together for having work done on them by others and did some engineering/data gathering for performance related mod's. Ordered parts and delivered parts locally. Gathered and organized engine parts for reassembly.

06/21/2005 [2.5] Mounted Instrument Panel - Ray Debs
After getting the fuselage up to Boise and unloading it from the van, I bolted the instrument panel frame to the dummy spar. Then I removed all the instruments and switches from the carbon panel and made masking tape masks around where the lower attach points are. Using epoxy and flox, I filled in little patches where the panel mates with the lower attach points, clecoed in place and let cure.

06/16/2005 [4.2] Aileron Control Push rods - Curtis
Today I cut two 8.25" L x 1/2" dia. chromoly tubes and drilled the I. D. to a size to accommodate the male threaded push rod ends. I also drilled 8 holes for rosette welds. I welded the ends in place and closed up the rosette holes. Now they need a little clean up and some paint.

06/15/2005 [8.6] Aileron Linkage - Curtis and Ray
Today we modified the lead (for aileron static balance)on the leading edge of the aileron that fits in to the sub-trailing edge pocket and trimmed a little off each one until we had our degrees of movement as needed. We then installed our previously made control arms placed them in the tubes. With the wing now on Carbon Slipper we measured, tested, checked our differential, travel, and stick movement until all of it worked together. We now have a length for making our aileron push rods.

06/14/2005 [5] Ailerons - Curtis
I have started to install the ailerons on the aluminum torque tube. To do this it poses a few challenges such as needing to start with the farthest nutplate being installed inside the tube and working inward. The task also entails removing and replacing the aileron many times. I drilled the clearance sized holes for the 10-32 flathead screws in the left and right ailerons and placed them on the tubes, then drilling through the torque tubes. I removed the ailerons and placed a nutplate on the outside for the layout of the two retention holes and CherryMax riveted (pop-rivet) them in place on the inside of the tubes. I then put the ailerons back in position and attached them in place.

04/18/2005 [4.2] Final Welding of Instrument Panel Support - Curtis
I finished welding all of the plates and tubes for the panel support.

04/17/2005 [4.2] Instrument Panel Welding - Curtis and Ray
We layed out our materials to be welded and measured, then tack welded them in place. Ray and I welded the support tubes in place.

04/16/2005 [6] Instrument Panel Support - Curtis and Ray
We designed and cut chromoly tubing for the support of the carbon fiber instrument panel. We decided to use the top of the wing attach points as our starting place for the brackets. We cut from a sheet of .065 chromoly some plates that are positioned under the wing bolts and from there we made a hoop of 5/8" chromoly tube that goes diagonally to the back of the panel and is welded to another tube that supports the top and back to the other side. We also added another support for the bottom of the panel on each side.

01/01/2005 [1622.5] Carry Forward From 2004 - Aerophile Racing Team
Opening a new log page for 2005.