Warbird Information Exchange

Congratulations to Robin. The honor is well deserved. She is a very hard worker who has her hands in lots of different projects.

This winter has been a tough one for flying. I’ve wanted to get in some ski flying shots but the cold and snow has kept most on the ground.

_________________
The air resounds from the Rolls-Royce roar!
To an enemy the warning is dire: here only eagles soar,
and the last thing he'll see is a mirrored Spitfire!

Eric, yes, very true. There is a ridge of solid ice 16" high in front of my hangar door.

So we've been talking the opportunity to fix a few things. For example, here are 2 photos of the RV6 showing how the cowl halves met up, and the cover for the end of the hinge-pin. Safe, but not pretty.





In my shop at home I got busy with epoxy and tape and built up the cowl edge to close the gap. (Carefully avoiding glueing the two halves together permanently!). Then I installed anchor plates for new machine screw placements. (Bought a rivet gun. Very loud. Terrorized Cleo the dog).

And we bought a pair of cover plates, beautifully made by a fellow in Ottawa, cheap!, and again anchor plates for those screws.

I'd never really rivetted properly before. So last summer I took the "Rivet 101" course at Oshkosh, plus I ordered and watched an excellent home-study video called "Building The RV Rudder", which despite its disclaimers, is a very good tutorial.

Last step was to take the cowl to an auto-body shop, and have the colour scanned for a paint match. Worked out quite well!

End result....





Dave

Looks nice.

_________________
The air resounds from the Rolls-Royce roar!
To an enemy the warning is dire: here only eagles soar,
and the last thing he'll see is a mirrored Spitfire!

That turned out really well Dave!

Maybe one day this ice age will end!

Andy

Andy, I was thinking about you guys the other day. So much for the hope of an early spring. You guys must be itching to go flying like everyone else in the area.

_________________
The air resounds from the Rolls-Royce roar!
To an enemy the warning is dire: here only eagles soar,
and the last thing he'll see is a mirrored Spitfire!

What's "flying"?

(waits for ice age to end)

Andy

"Flying" is what we achieved yesterday, Andy! Mind you, it was a struggle. It took 40 lbs of salt and 3 guys chipping ice to get the sliding doors open, but eventually she rolled out onto the grass. And fired up right away.

I was particularly pleased to see EKC in the sunlight because I'd been stripping and painting. The port struts were losing paint, chipped and peeling with too many touch-up jobs. So I got busy, bought a new respirator, and did this,



And this,



Then I used a recommended primer, a 2-part epoxy from Randolph. What horrible stuff... Why, oh why, are so many modern coatings designed to become tacky in :30 seconds? It was impossible to keep a wet edge. Sure, I know, everybody else always sprays, and doesn't use a brush. But with good prep, and a good brush, and good paint, it is very possible with the right technique to get a very fine result, even on metal. Anyway, you can't see much of it in the photo, but there are brush marks and "overlaps" galore here...



So 2 days later I attacked it again, wet-sanding until my arms ached. It worked, but with a better primer it wouldn't have been necessary. And then I used a topcoat which was the absolute opposite, a lovely polyurethane from the marine world, called Topsides by Interlux. That stuff is gorgeous to work with. I added 10% 333 Brushing liquid to slow down its rate of cure, and the result was exactly what I wanted. As it drys it levels miraculously, and tightens, and all the hills and valleys level out. Very little tendency to drip or run.



You can't see it well in the cellphone image, but it dried glassy smooth with no stroke-marks. (A very good brush, and applying from bare-to-painted, tipping carefully at the end and then not going back.) A couple of guys who viewed it after just naturally assumed it was sprayed. After my frustration with the primer, I was tremendously pleased.

Dave

Then loaded up my toolbox and supplies and some other parts I'd been working on, and flew to Edenvale to work on Robin's airplane. (!!!)



She had found a replacement RV6 rudder. Ours had hangar-rash from before we bought it, a crease on the lower edge. [pre-purchase photo]



Robin found a fin and rudder from an RV6 that unfortunately had had an accident, but since all the damage was at the front end, these tail parts were untouched. A careful inspection showed no stress marks, no cracks or breaks in the paint. The previous owner was quite glad to see it flying again, so he charged her almost nothing.



So, off with the old!

But when I took out the hinge bolts from our rudder, I was disconcerted to find that they weren't threaded in very far. In the photo, you can see that one (it was the middle hinge) was only in 4 threads, if that.





You want these things threaded in as far as you can, for strength, but the rudder must move freely without binding, so there is a limit to how far in you can go. In this case not enough.

So I ordered a slightly longer one. (Good thing I've got Aircraft Spruce on speed-dial!)

Once these were turned in it was a simple matter to hang the rudder.



We haven't flown it yet. Two things to do -- have a second set of eyes go over everything I've done (to check for goofs), plus the new rudder has an electric trim, which we need to either wire-up or set in a different position if it's to be used as a fixed tab.

Dave

A few more photos of yesterday, EKC's first flight in 2014.

It's funny, but after a winter of cowering behind huge snowbanks, getting airborne once again in the Fairchild is like having a huge load lifted.



The newly-painted struts...




Dave

Beautiful Dave look forward to seeing her in Gatineau soon!

_________________
“Try to fly in the middle of the air. The edges are filled with mountains and oceans and rocks and it’s much harder to fly there.”

Your winter wheel pants / mud guards, in orange, look good too Dave.

Maybe by the end of this month we'll be able to get CF-MAD out of hibernation.

Andy

I have heard rumours of snow next week!

The Fairchild looks great Dave!

Yeah, it did indeed snow. I arrived from HKG to find another 3 inches here at home. Oh well, it helps the Lakes. I see the water is forecast to stay above Datum for the rest of the summer -- that's a good thing.

Yesterday I did a couple of small things on the Fairchild, then flew it (and my toolbox) to Edenvale to work on Robin's airplane. (Hmm... becoming a pattern?) The goal was to get it flying today with the new rudder.

Solving the trim tab issue took a lot of time. This new one had an electric tab. (The old one had nothing at all, so I had glued a wedge onto the trailing edge, kind of a Gurney flap.) So, no wiring in the airplane for the electrics, and I wanted to fly it today, so the plan was to use the electric tab as a fixed one. Trouble was, it was at the wrong angle. Which meant I had to apply power to the servo motor.

It had a 6-pin cannon plug.



I thought if I applied power via 2 wires to the right two pins on that connector, the motor would cycle one way or the other. But... it didn't. I couldn't figure it out, and tried every possible connection. So I went and got a 12V power pack, and tried that. Same thing, no fix. I scratched my head...

Then I used my cellphone and got on the internet. What a wondrous data source this internet is becoming! There was no website on the net for the manufacturer. But I found a question about it on the Vans AirForce forum, and that led to the new name (Ray Allan Co.) and site. I called. Ray or Allan answered, and explained that I should revert to the wire bundle itself, and connect using the two main power wires, which he mentioned were the non-coloured ones. (How else would I know that...?)



So, as I was trying, one of those main power wire splices came apart in my hand. (I guess that disconnect explained why the cannon plug didn't work.) And sure enough, when I applied power, the motor fired up and moved the arm to the required position, which was some left displacement for some right trim.

Then, all assembled, I had a professional friend review my work to make sure I hadn't done anything stupid, and got ready.

Off we went, on a gusty windy spring day, blowing 20-plus knots right down the runway. The airplane rolled about 200 ft before becoming airborne -- good fun!

The trim setting was pretty much right on. At 140 IAS the ball was centered, feet-off, although it was quite bumpy.



Had a nice tour of the Georgian Bay shoreline where we sail. The ice is breaking up, finally.



Then back, put it away, and fly the Fairchild back to Alliston. Very pleasant day, tinkering with airplanes, and also pleasant that it was met with success.



Dave