| day |
notes |
hours |
| 1 |
Morning: 21C, 39% RH; layup cured, turn off heaters. Evening: remove peel-ply from layup. Rub down edge of root rib to remove whiskers. Peel and scrape off masking from W18, taking great care not to scratch the aluminium. Phone Peter Davis and arrange to visit him for another look at his trailer. |
1010.6 |
| 2 |
While taking tailplanes and rudder out of trailer for presentation to Tewkesbury Beaver Scouts, remove a few other things to get a clear view of sides for photos in preparation for next week's visit to Peter Davis. Note that edge of spar clamp is about 590mm from centre of spar root bush on both wings, when clamp is slid onto spar about as far as it will go. The taller clamp bracket is for the starboard wing (LE to spar face 480mm) and the shorter one for the port wing (LE to spar face 510mm). Positioning the spar clamp approximately where it appears in my photos from August 2000 puts the wing tip near the end of the parallel section of the trailer. During the clearout, find box 7 down at the nose of the trailer, with the missing TU21 in it, and also the fin cap. Update parts inventory to match. |
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| 6 |
Visit Peter Davis at his home where he is still working on the airframe mods. Take photos and measurements of his trailer and aircraft. Peter has a couple of eyeball air vents that he is no longer intending to use and gives them to me. |
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| 8 |
Empty trailer contents onto lawn and patio (with Wilma's help for starboard wing). Put wing on sawhorses, fit aileron and try both of the wing dollies for fit. Both seem to be the same (ie not tapered), so just pick one and wheel wing into trailer on it. Spend some time comparing it with the pictures of Peter Davis' setup. The dolly seems much better fit nearer the tip on mine, which means it doesn't line up well with the trailer reinforcing rib (where the securing bungee should go) unless placed further aft (nearer the ramp) in the trailer. Eventually decide on a position that seems to be usable and mark spar clamp location. Drill mounting holes in side frame and floor. Fit M8 bolts with washers as appropriate to take up slight misalignment. Try out tailplanes in their holders; they seem a pretty tight fit, so ease them back out to relieve the pressure and just leave them there without securing them for now. With Wilma's help, get the port wing out of the garage and onto the sawhorses. Fit other wing dolly onto it and wheel it into trailer. It isn't so stable in the stored position as the other one because the dolly does not swivel so far to the vertical. That also means the spar isn't bedding properly in the clamp. Take it out, remove it from the wing and file down a bit of the centre glass rib that the metal part beds against. Now much better, although it could still use a fraction more. Can't see how that would be easily achieved as the other metal parts are meeting the flatter part of the glass structure over a large area. Mark out and drill for spar clamp. Get Wilma's help to tighten bolts on both spar clamps through trailer floor. Getting late and dark now. Put 2 layers of carpet over the wing dollies and drag the fuselage back in on top of that, nose first. Re-load everything else except the flaps which go in the garage. Although tossed in a bit hasty, just about room for it all including the cardboard boxes the wings came in. |
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| 12 |
After lunch phone AFE to see if they have any left of the 50mm Dynafoam seat cushions at the clearance sale price they were offering in April. The person says they should have some but he'll have to check with the Manchester office and get back to me. No reply by the end of the day, though. |
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| 13 |
Phone AFE again and the person this time is able to confirm that they have 4 off 50mm Dynafoam cushions left and they can left me have them at the April sale price, so place the order. Empty trailer again, except for the wings and tailplanes. Fit the flaps to both wings. Try wheeling them out with the flaps fitted - quite unwieldy, and the dollies definitely need the stops that Peter Davis had fitted to prevent them tilting so far beyond the horizontal (TE-down) that the CG gets outside the wheel track. Put a couple of turns of duct tape around the fuselage nose in an attempt to provide some sort of hand-hold for lifting that end. Take some of the heavier wood etc out from the bottom shelf of the layup table to lighten it a bit. After lunch Ian McGugan arrives and helps me to push the layup table out of the garage and up the slope of the drive. It goes fairly easily all the way round to the edge of the lawn. We put the wings back before the table goes in. Once on the grass, the table is hard work to move. Despite the dry weather, the relatively small castors tend to sink into the lawn and we need to keep it moving to avoid it becoming stuck. With significant effort we get it onto the trailer ramp and it's quite easy to push from there. Chock the castors to stop it rolling around. I take the front end and Ian the tail of the fuselage and we carry the awkward bundle from the lawn around to the front and into the garage. The wood I off-loaded goes back onto the table undershelf. I can just squeeze past between the peel-ply rolls (should have unscrewed them first as they'll be needed back in the garage) and the outrigger bracket to put stuff up in the front of the trailer; the tank, panel and transparencies go there. The foam carcass pieces being kept as sanding supports for the tailplane and control surfaces go on top of the table, with the cockpit rear panel and the rudder. The fuselage dolly goes in aft of the table, and the parts boxes come next. We decide to discard some particularly scruffy pieces of carpet, but the rest fits along the sides under and above the wing spars. After Ian leaves, I realise there are still a couple of doors that came out of the trailer last week taking up space in the garage. Philip Paull had promised to come around later, so when he arrives we clear a few tall items out again and take the foam off the table. The doors then go flat on the table and the foam goes back on top. |
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| 15 |
Dynafoam cushion blocks arrive from AFE. |
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| 19 |
Cut the strap securing the fuselage top (serial XS283) to the bottom (serial XS279). Drag the top out of the garage and with Wilma's help take it round to the back lawn. Unscrew the 2 peel-ply dispensers from the side of the layup table, making it a bit easier to get past the port wing outrigger bracket. Move the tank out to the door end of the trailer, and the D-panel, doors and transparencies down to the trailer nose. Slide the foam offcuts being kept as sanding supports further along the layup table towards the nose of the trailer. Put boxes 10 & 11 onto the table. Slide the main pitch tube down between port wing and trailer side. Drape bits of carpet underlay on the flap brackets, and on the corner of the layup table. Carefully turn the fuselage top upside-down, trying not to stress the narrow area at the base of the fin. Pull it into the trailer tail-first, and position the fin between the layup table and the port wing with the main part resting on the corner of the table and the boxes further out. Add another piece of underlay where it's touching one of the doors stored on top of the table. Seems reasonably stable, so close up trailer. The large peel-ply roll will fit neatly onto the tail of the glass cupboard drop-down door (should have put it there in the first place). Position the brackets on it and drill through the door 6mm. Fit brackets with M6 screws and penny washers on the back of the door. Find a piece of aluminium extrusion that is suitable for clamping some polyethylene sheet above the peel-ply roll to keep it clean. Attach it to the door just above the brackets with M4 screws. A piece of 19mm ply salvaged from the scrap in Vince's trailer up the road is just the right size to form a backplate for the 250mm peel-ply roll. Square it up on the bandsaw, drill to fit the brackets. Need to counterbore the fixing holes a bit deeper as can't find any M6 screws quite long enough. Fit the screws from the back, countersunk flush. Some difficulty fitting the plain nuts within the counterbores, so use M6 hex studding joiners instead which are long enough to be held on the end of a long M6 cap-screw while the fixing screw is inserted from the other end. A tap on the capscrew with a plastic mallet sets the hex joiner into the wood a bit to stop it turning when tightened. Add a piece of polyethylene dust protector clamped in the same way as for the other roll. Drill backplate and fix to wall buttress between glass cupboard and resin cupboard with woodscrews and wallplugs. Might put the 70mm roll underneath it if I can think of an easy way to mount it. |
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| 20 |
Make and fit holder for the 70mm peel-ply (should have done that ages ago). Mark fuselage bottom trim line on starboard side with Sharpie felt-tip pen. Have to turn moulding onto its side to get the light at an angle that highlights the line and even then it's difficult. Cut a piece of clear thin plastic about 22mm wide and use that as a spacer from the joggle when the marked line is too faint to see. Mark the FS crosses on the bottom. Start to trim along the line with the padsaw but it's a bit slow. Switch to the diamond wheel in the angle-grinder and that is much faster and easier. Turn moulding onto starboard side and mark the port side trim line. |
1011.8 |
| 22 |
Notice that both 912-engined Kitfoxes at Croft Farm have push-pull vernier throttles. If approved for Kitfox, should be OK for Europa too. Will need to make enquiries whether that would be a mod or "standard aircraft practice". |
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