Happiness is building aeroplanes, obviously. So my wife gave me a kit for Christmas:
My Christmas plane-building project.
I have to say that Lego instruction manuals are brilliant: very clear and well put together. The kit is also excellent, with all the parts correct. This plane has ailerons and elevator controlled by the stick, as well as a neat hatch to drop water on fires.
Winter came. I lost the urge. Whatever. Nothing happened from June until October.
The blog stalled for a while because of winter, mostly. I’m back to building, and will try to bring the blog up to date over the next few weeks. I’m nearly finished with the fuselage, just need to fill some rivets and I’m done. I’ve started with firewall forward and undercarriage, which is all interesting.
More to follow . . .
An inspector from the factory came around to look at the fuselage, so that I could close the outer skins on the cockpit. He identified a number of minor issues:
Inspection findings
That was the minor stuff. Unfortunately, there was one major problem:
Rib 2 cracked on the join to its lower section.
Where rib 2 (the rib that forms the rear of the arch behind the pilot) was joined to the lower part of the rib, it had cracked, probably because where the rib went wide it was too tight against the longeron and other structures there. This is going to be a major pain, because it is already installed, so lots of rivets to come out. But, at least it isn’t going to fail in flight! Also, well spotted by the inspector. I built the plane, and I didn’t notice this.
I have an older firewall, so I’m going to replace it with a a current one, because the current firewall supports my 912is engine.
… for quite a long time. I did nothing on the plane in October or November. I guess I just wasn’t in the mood. The fuselage just stood there and collected dust.
| Hours today: | 5.1 | Hours fuse: | 167.0 | Hours total: | 583.8 |
| Rivets today: | 148 | Rivets fuse: | 2452 | Rivets total: | 10 755 |
Today was a seat building day. I put the plates in that reinforce the headrest in the first seat, so that’s now complete. Then I turned this kit of parts:
Ikea aircraft seat flat-pack. Some assembly required.
Into this seat base:
Seat base internals
That needed degreasing, priming and assembly. Assembly got as far as the bottom skin of the seat. I still need to assemble the mechanism, which in turn awaits a missing part, but it shouldn’t be long.
While the seat base was drying, I also unwrapped, deburred and roughened the internal parts of the seat back:
Seat back parts. Skins were prepared earlier.
So once the seat base was ready for assembly, I could degrease and prime the seat back parts. Tomorrow, I can assemble the seat back, and then I’m nearly done with both seats. I am also intending to paint them white:
Headrest painted
It doesn’t really matter what colour they are, as mostly they’re hidden by their upholstery. Something else I’ll have to think about.
| Hours today: | 3.3 | Hours fuse: | 161.9 | Hours total: | 578.7 |
| Rivets today: | 185 | Rivets fuse: | 2304 | Rivets total: | 10 607 |
Today I went to the factory to collect some parts. While I was there, I took a look at how they assemble the bit I’m currently working on. I learnt a few things:
All in all, it was good to see that I’m largely on track, and most of the assumptions I’d made are correct.
Once I got home, it was time for a rivet fest. I started with the rear portion of the console, where I assembled the upright, the horizontal plate and one of the covers. I left the other cover off in case I might need access while assembling the rudder cables.
Rear portion of console
I also riveted in place some bits and pieces that have been sitting on clecos, mostly stop plates for controls.
Stop plates riveted
It is a tricky job, and I used the hand riveter. Even so, you can see damage to the priming, because everything is fairly close together, and riveting needs a bit of power.
I also riveted the outside cockpit floor to the inside floor:
Outside cockpit floor, riveted to inside cockpit floor.
The instructions suggest putting the outside floor onto the main spar structure portion, then putting on the inside floor. I’ve chosen to join them first, then attach to the main spar structure.
I had collected the missing reinforcing plates for the headrests from the factory, so I prepped and primed them, then complete the seat. Then I started on the second seat, unwrapping and deburring parts. During this process, I found the reinforcing plates! They were in the packing with the small parts, and not with the aluminium parts. I’ll return them to the factory, as I need to go and chat to them again.
Work is going well. I have ordered the undercarriage, and it is scheduled for delivery on the 15th, two weeks from now. So my ambition, perhaps misplaced, is to try to have the fuselage ready to go on the wheels by the time they arrive. But we’ll see.
| Hours today: | 2.5 | Hours fuse: | 158.6 | Hours total: | 575.4 |
| Rivets today: | 52 | Rivets fuse: | 2119 | Rivets total: | 10 422 |
I painted the triangular console skin. Then I deburred the headrest parts, and test fitted them into the seat that is built. This gave me enough help that I could drill the sticks that hold the headrest up. It was a bit experimental: set up, drill one hole, test, drill next hole, test, etc, but it all worked nicely in the end. Both headrests fit in the existing seat. Once I was confident I had it all correct, I riveted the headrests together.
One of the two headrests after riveting.
| Hours today: | 3.8 | Hours fuse: | 156.1 | Hours total: | 572.9 |
| Rivets today: | 191 | Rivets fuse: | 2067 | Rivets total: | 10 370 |
The plan for today was to assemble a seat. Unfortunately, I discovered that I’d missed a couple of parts when priming, so first I had to do those. I also finished priming the two triangular skins from the console:
The triangle panel
A close look raised some interesting questions. The panel on the left hand side of the console, the one in the photo, is mounted on rivnuts along the bottom. But it appears to be riveted to the panel behind it (on the far right in the photo. That can’t be right. It turns out, it isn’t – it should also go onto rivnuts at its rear edge.
At the end of the day, I had a seat:
Seat, nearly finished
It isn’t quite finished – I need the plates that go within the top channel of the seat to reinforce the headrest mounts, so that bit is missing right now. I test fitted the headrest, just to see how it looks. Quite nice!
| Hours today: | 2.8 | Hours fuse: | 152.3 | Hours total: | 569.1 |
| Rivets today: | 0 | Rivets fuse: | 1876 | Rivets total: | 10 179 |
Today I find myself unemployed for the first time in my life. Actually, it’s not that bad, I’m between jobs. I thought I’d take a month off before starting the next job, and that gives me some time to make some progress on the Sling.
There are two long, thin triangular skins that go on the sides of the centre console in the cockpit. They’re the last cockpit skins that need to be primed and painted, so I started work on them. For some reason, I don’t have any pictures. I’ll try and rectify that next week sometime.
I also got the seat back parts to the point where they could be assembled. Here they are during priming.
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Seat back parts during priming
Two of the seat back panels got damaged when something heavy fell on them, and it turned out they were the two that I had started to prepare. So I quickly prepared the other two as well. Three of the four are visible in the picture, together with the parts for one frame. My plan is to use the damaged parts for the side of the seat that carries the upholstery. The damage is superficial, and turned out to be almost invisible after priming.
I discovered two parts missing – reinforcing plates for the headrest. So I chatted to the factory, and arranged to go and fetch those parts and a few other bits and pieces on Monday.
sling056 