Week 79 - 26 May 2004

I see by the week number that tonight marks the 1-1/2 year mark since we started this project. A lot of you have been asking if we are going to be done by the two year mark. The answer is no! The 2 year mark would be around Thanksgiving time. Since this is winter time we see no problem. Our new goal is to fly her next spring!

Tonight Greg was out of town on business. Rick and I decided, since it was going to be a low stress night, we would work on the motors. We had three remaining weed-eaters which needed the motors liberated. Once that was accomplished, the crankshaft backing plates needed cut out of the plastic shroud. Next the motor mounts were installed.

Now for the fun part? Trying to figure out what we had in our minds when building the nacelles. Hint: we should of put notes on the plans.  In spite of ourselves, we figured it out then made rough sketches for the motor spacers needed and the prop hubs. After modifying the carb housing on one motor we called it a night. We are not happy about the carb yet, as it will stick outside of the cowl.
--
Gary Himes

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Week 80 - 2 June 2004

Well, yet another night of no great accomplishments, at least not visible ones. First we brought Greg up to speed with what we are doing with the motors. Gary had the drawings made for our prop hub and motor spacers and acquired the needed aluminum stock. We checked over the drawings, and approved them for production. Gary will take the drawings, aluminum stock, and flywheels to our machinist friend this weekend to get the work done.

Next we turned to the ailerons and settled in for more discussion. Don Smith Plans shows, what we believe, is scale type aileron hinging. To this point we have all controls buried in the aircraft and do not show externally. We do not feel we can do this with scale style setup.  Therefore we are going to deviate from scale. (I am not saying that again out loud). We are going to go with the Hobby Lobby actuators and will build the ailerons more like the elevator with 1/64 ply air seals.

Now with a plan we don't have the required balsa needed for the leading edge of the aileron, so off to NRC Hobby Shop we go. We get back home and build one aileron. Even though it is still early we call it a night. All three of us have more on our plates than we can handle right now.The pictures will show the completed aileron then a mock up using scrap and the Hobby Lobby actuator.

-- Gary Himes

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