Bushed

I turned the lap belt bushings tonight and I drilled and inserted the control stick bushing into the torque tube.

Number of hours:  0.6
Total hours:  170.5

Torque Tube

I cut the control stick, torque tube, torque tube inserts, and the various 8mm diameter X 6mm diameter tubes today.  It was so cold in the garage that the circuit breaker tripped when I turned on the lathe.

Number of hours:  0.7
Total hours:  169.9

Some Random Holes

I drilled the holes for the wing attach fittings and temporarily mounted them with some 10-32 bolts, washers, and nuts.  Next I drilled the counterbores for the lap belt bolts.  Then I moved forward and drilled the holes for the canard torque tube.  If you look close enough, you'll see that I have a bonus hole above the right side torque tube.  Lastly I drilled and temporarily mounted the wing attach fittings to F3.  It's too cold to do any metal work in the garage right now so I'm running out of options for what to do next.

Number of hours:  0.9
Total hours:  169.2

Making Some Holes

Happy 100th post and 3,000th page view!

I drilled my pilot holes to mount the main wing spar fittings on F2 and I drilled holes for the lap belt mounts.  I couldn't resist the urge, so I sat in the fuselage after I took the clamps off the seat bottom.  Zoom zoom zoom...

Number of hours:  0.6
Total hours:  168.3

Something You Can Do With Your Butt

I now have a place to put my butt.  I glued the seat bottom in place tonight.  The big lesson learned here is that cross braces should be glued to plywood before gluing them in place in the structure.  I glued the cross braces in the fuselage first and one must have been slightly long and was bowed so I had to shim it up to the seat bottom.  I spent some time studying pulleys and noticed that the callout for the pullies that are for the aileron cables at the side of the stick is incorrect.  It says that the pulley is 72mm diameter but the center to center distance with the safety hole is 36mm leaving room for a 68mm diameter pulley; and the pulley scales closer to 60mm than 72mm.

Number of hours:  0.5
Total hours:  167.7

Floor and Seat Bottom

I glued the floor in place this morning.  I would have got more done today but I had to drop my truck back off at the mechanic's shop to fix the misfire that it developed.  I had some other errands to run today and picked up my truck around 6 this evening.   Of course, nothing is ever simple and I hit a deer on the way home.  So I spent the rest of my evening dealing with the police and gutting the deer.  It was really cold and windy here tonight.  Temperature was 8 degrees F and the wind was 30 - 35 MPH gusting to 45 / 50 MPH this makes wind chill at -15 degrees F conservatively.   After that adventure I rewarded myself by putting a second coat of varnish on the bottom of the seat bottom.

Number of hours:  0.7
Total hours:  167.2

Seat Bottom

I machined the seat bottom at work today and put a coat of varnish on the bottom side after dinner this evening.   I was able to log 1.9 hours of flight in this afternoon working on the pts maneuvers and a lot of touch and goes.  My instructor said that I would have soloed tonight if I had my medical so I need to start leaning on the good folks in OKC a little harder.  What beautiful weather for flying!

Number of hours:  0.4
Total hours:  166.5