Feb 20, 2023     Ready to fly! - (5 hours)       Category: Parachute

Wrapped up a few last things and also had my Special Airworthiness Certificate issued!! Ready to fly! The winds have been rough the last few days (up to 65mph) and tomorrow the forecast is -3 and snowing. First flight will have to wait a little.

The parachute trigger is now connected and live. That was a little scary - cutting off the storage / shipping safety wire and getting my hands and face pretty close to the business end of a rocket.

I also took care of a small issue - I fueled the plane on a very cold day to the top to calibrate the fuel senders and a tank dipstick, then pushed the plane back into a warm heated hangar. Had a bit of an overflow issue when the gas expanded and dripped out onto the fuel leg. The standard vent position should have dripped clear, but some aerodynamic covers I put on the vents pushed the drips just far enough back to hit the legs. Unfortunately, since the legs have vinyl coverings, the drips saturated the vinyl and couldn't be washed off. I removed the top and bottom intersection fairings, removed all the vinyl, and painted the fiberglass legs gloss black to match the fairings. Probably will do the same for the nosewheel at some point to make it look consistent.

Loaded software updates for G3x, G5, GTN 650 xi. Loaded current data sets for all screens.

  Sep 12, 2022     Edges on fairings - (1 hour)       Category: Parachute

Finished taping off the big plate and the last strap fairing. Filled the edge with the first pass of epoxy and pulled the tape to leave a clean edge.

In some testing of the panel, I found that when the avionics came on, the compass (mounted to the roll bar just above the glareshield) would deviate about 5 degrees. It is held in place by mounting tape and zip ties. I clipped the zip ties and moved it to a high position. Not sure how easy it will be to see in flight, but shouldn't have as much of a problem with magnetism.

  Sep 11, 2022     Main BRS fairings on - (3 hours)       Category: Parachute

Now that the parachute is in and the rocket is installed, time to cover it up. Did a few short stints, sanding down some rough edges, gluing on the main box cover, gluing on the last strap cover, and starting to prep for epoxy on the edges.

  Sep 06, 2022     Parachute installation - (13 hours)       Category: Parachute

Sorry to my loyal followers, if there are any. Between a family vacation and non-stop work on a home remodel that has gone a bit sideways, I haven't been to the hangar much. Maybe 3 days since my last entry. But the good news is that the parachute system arrived. The parachute itself has been installed into the box in the plane. All straps have been hooked up to the plane. The rocket has been assembled and is installed, save for one screw that I broke and is on the way.

I also have re-drilled and replaced one of the carbon fiber tunnel side pieces that I wrecked a few months ago. The emergency air door pull cable has been attached. Next up is attaching the parking brake and this part will be done.

  Jul 01, 2022     BRS Fairings and Magnetometer - (3 hours)       Category: Parachute

I installed the Van's ADAHRS bracket on the first bulkhead in the tail, as designed. I riveted the Garmin mounting bracket to the underside of bracket, screwed the magnetometer in place, connected the wire, and zip tied the bundle of too long wire to a vertical support to take any strain off the wire.

I added epoxy paste to one of the left side BRS fairings and a few other spots where the finish was not quite perfect. Finally, I glued three of the remaining four BRS fairings in place along the right side. One fairing has been left loose for the final installation of the parachute and rocket.

  Jan 02, 2022     Parachute straps and other stuff - (8 hours)       Category: Parachute

The fairings that cover the parachute straps have been mostly installed along the left side. One piece covers a rivet hole that attaches the instrument panel, so I have to wait on that one. For the right side, I have glued on one of the four fairings - the others need to wait until the parachute has been installed and the parachute box cover is on. I glued the four pieces with RTV and held them in place for 48 hours with duct tape. After removing the tape and cleaning up any silicone that squeezed out, I filled again any spots where it looked like the RTV wasn't perfect. At some point, I will fill and taper the edges of the fairings with epoxy / micro "mud".
I also drilled the holes for the top comm antenna, sanded the doorways again to a straight line, sanded the sections I've been building up around the doorways, sanded and painted again the intersection fairings, covered the top baggage bulkhead with white vinyl and labeled it with letter stickers, and shortened both wingtip wire bundles by about a foot to reduce slack wires moving around in the wings.
For Christmas, I received a tow bar and I tried it out - works great!

  Dec 27, 2021     BRS Straps and Fairings - (5 hours)       Category: Parachute

I shortened the top cowl pins to the new distance per the hinge loops that were removed for the BRS exit hole.
Spent most of the evening working on taping the BRS straps into the exact position I need with a combination of Tesa tape (permanent) and red duct tape (temporary). I did cut the end off the front two fairings and Tesa taped them to the cowl in the final position.
Where the BRS straps exit the cowl, the red tape is a silicone rescue tape to protect against chafing on the edge. I sanded all the edges smooth to prevent the straps wearing out, but the rescue tape should act as an extra protection.

  Aug 03, 2020     Parachute cannister mostly installed - (3 hours)       Category: Parachute

I riveted all the nutplates for the rear baggage compartment wall in place, and then riveted the parachute cannister into the fuselage. The fiberglass tunnel that holds the rocket is screwed to the cannister and the skin of the plane, and the screws kept breaking. I don't know what these lousy screws are that BRS supplied, but the heads strip easily and the nuts are garbage. So, I've ordered a bunch of NAS514 screws from Spruce with a 125,000 PSI tensile strength to replace them, and some proper AN365 stop nuts. Other than that, the parachute cannister has been riveted to the skin with a combination of AN426 3 and 4 flush rivets (it's possible that this was supposed to be installed with just 3- rivets, but the countersunk holes in the case were rather wide and could fit a 4- rivet, so I just went with that), and about 20 cherrymax rivets to the floor. Any concerns that I had about loss of strength in the plane due to the removal of the mid-side stringer are pretty much gone. The new stringer gives a lot of strength, although it is slightly lower gauge than the one that was removed, and the case is made of metal that is thicker than the longerons. So, there should be some strength coming from that, too.

A word to the wise, though. If an RV-10 is your first build, the BRS instructions are not at the same level as Van's instructions. This reminds me a lot of what I've been hearing from Dave about his RV-3 build. There are some basic ideas of what to do, but you are kind of on your own. Drilling your own holes for rivets, modifying parts on the fly, etc etc etc. This is NOT a simple plug and play drop-in modification to the RV-10 and I'm glad I'm doing it after 500 hours of building. At least I'm starting to get a clue for how to build without proper instructions.

  Aug 02, 2020     Parachute case work - (12 hours)       Category: Parachute

Lots of work on the baggage compartment and parachute system. The stringer along the right side has been removed and new one installed, lower, to fit the case for the parachute. All the holes to the skin have been match drilled and dimpled. The shape of the new hole in the side of the plane has been finished and sanded smooth. I'm holding off on installing the parachute system until I wrap up the work on the wall / nutplates along the rear of the baggage area. It will be a tight fit to get all those nutplates drilled and installed with the parachute box in the way.

  Jul 30, 2020     Installing rear mounting brackets - (2 hours)       Category: Parachute

This weekend looks like it will be spent mostly on parachute stuff. Worked today on bolting in place the piece that goes along the underside of the plane, then riveting it in place. I also put about a tablespoon of JB Weld Marine Weld on the plate to hold it to the body and weatherproof the gaps a little. Also started match drilling holes to rivet the parachute and rocket cannisters to the external skin. One piece looks especially troublesome - the rear piece screws into nutplates in the floor. Well, the floor is in already. There are some lightening holes I can reach through, but not enough to install all the nutplates. I don't know if there are really necessary, at least not all of them. Will experiment a little and see if I can reach where maybe 2 or 3 would be and see if that is enough.