|
Covering the fuselage...and appreciating the RANSstands!!! 12/25/03 - Merry Christmas if you partake, and if not...then Happy Thursday! Our immediate family is gathering this evening, so I took a bit of time today to move out the recently finished left wing and with the help of my wife Marilyn, move the Coyote fuselage into the terrific set of work-stands supplied by Rans. Although I know it is possible, I DO NOT KNOW how I would have managed covering the wings as easily as I did, nor do I think I would be looking forward to the coming process of covering the fuselage without these stands. Thanks again Rans! Here are a few photos of today's minimal tasks (mainly) showing the fuselage in the stands:
From the front:
Rotating the fuselage:
Rotated through 90°:
Ok, I admit I was slightly impressed with how easily the fuselage is moved into whatever working position I'll need. I didn't spend all my time today playing 'spin the fuse'. ;^) After I got over my amazement, I began removing formerly pre-fit items such as the windshield and deck, aileron control tee, etc. I also spent a good deal of time just cleaning the tubes again and removing all part labels that would be directly under fabric. There were more than a few labels to remove and this is a sort of a grunge job made easier with a bit of MEK on the towel. While I had the fuselage rotated to 90°, I applied the template and drilled the antenna ground plane for my new King KA-60 Transponder Antenna:
I'm awaiting delivery on the Comant CI-122 VHF COM antenna from Aircraft Spruce along with a different compass. A week or so ago, I decided to return the Airpath C2400-L4P and replace it with a Precision Vertical Card compass. Aircraft Spruce was gracious enough to allow credit (purchased in mid-July this year) on the return and although the new unit is nearly twice the cost, I feel better with this model, (not having a DG in the panel). Also this week, I received the long awaited LAST ITEM for my panel, the eGYRO3 from PCFlightSystems, meaning I can begin thinking about pulling these items together for a bench-build while the fabric covered components are out for primer and paint (hopefully by the end of January). Regarding the primer/paint topic, I have been speaking with a painter who is interested in doing that work on this project. I am very interested in this as I KNOW the guy can do the job, whereas I do not KNOW that I can do acceptable work. This will be determined in the coming weeks....stay tuned! Next trip out, I have to put rudder cable hardware in place, route the trim cable system, install and remove a couple of other items before I'm REALLY READY to begin covering the fuselage, but it won't be long now! More updates soon... |
|
Last Update: 12/25/2003 |
