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Hangar secured and covering continues... 11/22/03 - I executed a lease/option (yearly with buy option) on a tee hangar two days ago and having that off my mind is a BIG RELIEF!!! As I mentioned last time, the hanger is a very nice two year old tee hangar located at Henderson City-County Airport (EHR) and I think it'll be a wonderful place for the Coyote's final assembly process and for initial flight testing and operations. I may have been able to wait another couple of months to sign a lease or rent something, but there was no guarantee that something meeting my requirements (secured, with lights, electrical outlets and a slab floor) would be available and the one that I have now is EXACTLY what I envisioned occupying when I began looking in earnest this spring. Today, I began eleven consecutive days off of work and I hope to be able to put a few hours into the project between bouts of extreme loafing and other activities. Marilyn made the annual Thanksgiving trip to Wisconsin on her own this year (leaving this morning) and for the next week, it's just me, two dogs and the cat! I did have a nice visit from my son today and we're planning to 'do lunch' a couple of times during my time off, then there's Thanksgiving next Thursday. I'm planning to take my dad and step mom out for T-Day dinner along with one of my sisters and her husband. Also, we're having new carpeting installed one day next week and then I wanted to get my wife's car detailed too, so I may not get as much loafing in as I was originally thinking...hmmmm. ;^) In any case, today I got back out to the shop after M left for Wisco and got through the 'final shrink' step on the right wing, applied a few lexan patches, a couple of control exit rings and cut the pinked-edge patches for everything. A few photos follow of the general process from today, starting with a bottom-wing view of the lift-strut attachment plates and jury-strut attachment after I'd cut the fabric and before shrinking:
The next three photos are various stages of the three shrink passes (250, 300 and 350 degrees):
The next two show the aileron (large rectangular ring towards tip) and flap (sort of oval shaped ring towards foreground) exit rings, two inspection rings (near the aileron exit ring) and a few of the pinked-edge patches which cover the rings after they are applied:
The next photo shows a few more of the inspection rings (the right wing gets six of the white rings, left seven) in addition to the aileron and flap exit rings.
The inspection rings get a pinked-edge patch applied over, then after primer and paint, the center is removed and a match-painted inspection plate is installed (except in the area of the fuel tank - these are only opened as necessary - a match-painted inspection plate is kept for future use here). Thanks AGAIN to Ed at Rans for 'cluing me in' on this part of the process. I was getting confused about it and after a session with the guru, I was back on track! Rans Customer Service really is great, believe me!!! I hope to be able to complete installing the inspection rings, patches, etc. tomorrow and then get a good start on the rib riveting process. After that, I believe only the edge-taping would be left to complete the fabric work on this wing. Of course, I'm probably forgetting something. ;^) More updates soon... |
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Last Update: 11/22/2003 |
