Today was dedicated to getting the panel finished so I can send it out for lettering.  It has the longest lead time to get back to me.    The radio cans were positioned and the nuts were bonded to the side boxes to hold everything in alignment after disassemble.

Next was milling the backside of the .200″ thick carbon panel down to .125″ thick in for some of the switches.   Some areas were milled to .060″ for LED lights.

Two “Data Ports” were machined into the panel.  These ports will allow the pilot to upload flight plans, software, maps, etc to the Grand Rapids Flight system, as well as down load recorded flight data (air and engine) to be analyzed after landing.

The switch at the bottom of the panel is actual an air valve which will allow the pilot to have an ”alternate static” port in case the fuselage port gets plugged.   I think I may look for some different knobs.  I don’t like the size of these all that much.  I think they are a somewhat big.

I started laying out the wiring for the GTR system.  All these wires are in addition to the ones in the back of the plane which are for the engine monitor.    This doesn’t come close to what needs to go into the plane.    When I was a kid I used to think it was fun to unravel a mess of tangled string.    This wiring rats nest makes me think of those days long ago…..

Finished installing the cans for the radios today and wanted to see how the panel looked together (for the most part).  Found a minor lettering issue I’ll need to resolve before it is sent off.  This is certainly the most advanced LongEZ panel in the world.  I have never seen an EZ or Berkut with this much electronics.  It is going to be a blast to learn to fly this bird with all the computers on board….

Wow, I sure have a lot of conectors to hook up to wire the panel….. should be fun!

I finished up the work on the WVO car controller.    I built a test stand to simulate all the connections and switches of the car and dang it, the thing worked as I originally designed it.  I dont know why I thought it was a bad design.  After a few hours work on the timer circuit it now works perfectly.  

Basically, in AUTO, the WVO system now waits for the coolant water to get up to 60C, turns on the oil supply valves, turns on an electric oil heater to keep the oil a minimum of 50C (it cycles as necessary). 

If the fuel in the supply tank gets to 1 gal, it shuts everything down. 

When the car is turned off in AUTO the system closes the oil valves and keeps the engine running for 30 sec to purge out the WVO before it turns the car off.   Very cool…  The next step is to install LED’s and the switch in the dash with some nice lettering to make it look good.  It is amazing to me that a commercial unit which does the same thing this does cost $350.  Mine cost about $25.

The engine is now on the plane.  It really looks good now with the newly painted engine mount and engine.

The is a close up of the firewall penetrations.  After all the wires are run, I will clamp the firestop tubing around the wires.

The insturment panel came back to me unletter but with some nice glass work done around the leg openings and radios.  I spent all day fitting the radios to the panel so they would have exactly 1/4″ exposure from the panel.

 Tommorow, I’ll finish screwing the radio boxes to the panel and some other detail work which needs to be done prior to sending it off to be lettered.

Today I put in some long hours and got a lot of things done. 

While sanding the engine mount to prep it for painting, I found an vent hole which had never been closed off because a support rod was in the way.  I just drilled a second hole, welded it closed, filled the tube full of linseed oil and closed it off.

Since I had the engine mount off, I took the opportunity to close off any unnecessary hole in the fire wall.  This was a big one the original owner had cut to allow for a DB-25 plug for the ignition system. 

I tired welding, but the metal is so thin I just couldnt get a stable arc, the fiberfax just vaporizes and blows holes in the weld.  Hum…what to do??

I decided to install cover plates over the holes with SS rivets.  It worked out much better. 

this plate closes off some holes used for the ignition system high tension leads.

There was a couple of big ones just below the cable pulley.   Closed off too.

I finished painting the engine mount.  Hopefully I’ll install it tomorrow if the paint is hard enough.

This is a one of four firewall bushing I machined out of a high temp fiberglass rod.  I am using these bushing to for all wires going through the firewall to prevent any contact (shorting) of the wires.  They are made long on the engine side so I can put a firestop sleeve over the exposed bushing and clamp it to the wires.

Most of today was spent researching, planning and ordering materials for the “blended winglet” modification I want to do on the wings.   What is it?    The blended winglet design was first introduced to the canard community by Jack Morrision on his E-Racer about 3 yrs ago.  A beautiful plane which was later destroyed in a fire.    Jack is working on a new plane which looks just as incredible!  His a very innovative guy!

The blended winglet is the latest “craze” in the canard community.  Once you see on on a plane, you’ll know why and will have to have on. 

 The interesting thing I found out from the ordering/research,  is that  if you were building new wings from scratch the blended winglet would only add about $50 or so to the cost of each new wing.    It makes the wings look much sleeker, reduces drag, and provides a real and permanent speed improvement.

In a retrofit situation, the rebuild will cost around $250 or so (less epoxy) per wing.  As I proceed into this phase of the project, I’ll refine the numbers for a more accurate cost of the mod.

I spent some time working on the fire suppression system.  Had to scratch my head a few time on exactly how it was to be done.  As usual, I give myself a seemingly impossible challenges for which in the most part can eventually be worked out.  After an hour or so of fitting, I was able to solve the problems such as routing of the discharge line, activation cable, mounting, having access to the spar wing bolts, viewing the tank level,  etc.  The bottle will limit the storage capacity of the spar area, but if I need more baggage space for a trip,  I can put on some of  beautiful carbon graphite baggage pods P1 Cmposites is now building.

 The cable is routed through a soda straw to allow it to be removed.  I need to go the movies shortly as I find they have the best straws for glass work.  I usually grab 3 or 4 at a time.  The straws are really long and have a large diameter t0 guzzle down those super sized drinks you have to mortgage the house to buy (along with the popcorn).

After the plane work I tested out the next phase of my grease car project.  The filter system I made out of  some bag type filters I purchased at Duda Diesel.  Buying this kind of filter (bag type) is much cheaper than buying cartridge type filters.  For this test I have a 1 micron filter (size of bacteria)  which is smaller than the 10 micron filter in the car.  Worked great!

I am finding I hate the filter and pump stuff in the shop.  The next step is to buy 2 plastic 50 gal drums ($20 ea)  and install a underground pipe line from the front driveway to the back shed (the pipe is free) and move all the filter/storage crap to my shed.   I’ll have to disassemble my cart, but I can reuse all the hardware. 

 Then I’ll just pump the dirty oil from the drum in the truck  (via the pipeline) to the shed , filter it, store it,  then pump the clean oil back to my driveway (via the same pipeline) and into the car.   Clean, neat and out of sight when not needed.  Sweet.

This afternoon while emailing DURING A THUNDERSTORM, my computer crashed….  Big time crashed.    I know,  you have always been told turn off all your electrical stuff during a storm.  I THOUGHT I was protected with a UPS and an isolated system, but no, a big crack of lightening,  computer crashed and next thing I know there was the “Hard disk not found” during boot up.  Yikes! 

As recommended I had made a “Recovery Disk” (imagine that)  when I installed the operating system and as annoying as the daily backup is (slowing down the computer) for some reason, I had let it run to completion this morning.   I booted up on the recovery disk, had to do a complete re-image of the computer “C” hard drive (from this morning’s back up) and wala! the computer is working perfectly again.   I keep all my data on the “D” drive (a second drive)  so I didnt lose a single file.   Windows 7 is terrific in my book!   Now I just need to turn off my computer during the next storm.

I had the fuel caps engraved.  Actually they look very cool.  I’ll paint the lettering a suitable color when the plane is painted the plane in Calif.    Polished up and lettered I am sure they will look great!

Disassembly of the plane to prepare it for painting continued today.  I have a huge pile of parts now.  I want to weigh everything added to the plane (such as the heating system) to see how much my work affected the weight of the plane.

The HID landing light installation gave me a bit of trouble. At first, I didnt think it could be installed.  The HID bulb is much taller and a little larger in diameter by 0.015″.  Doesn’t seem like much but the bulb would not sit flush to the bracket . 

Careful, extensive filing and bending of the aft brace bracket was required to get it installed.     The HID light is incredibly bright and requires much less power than the standard 150 watt ligth that was installed. 

Installation of the Halon fire suppression system was stared.  If a fire is sensed in the engine compartment (there will be an alarm on the EFIS),  the pilot can pull a handle on the dash which will flood the engine compartment with halon and quickly put out any potential fire.

I had a little time during the week or so of not working on the plane to work on some fun projects.  I finished a roll around fueling station for my waste oil car.  It is a complete system for pumping/filtering waste oil for the car.  I have already come up with another plan to pump the oil from the drive way to a shed, filter it, and pump it back to the driveway for distribution.   This part of the project will have to wait until after the plane is completed.

 The canard is painted, balanced and assembled.  Ready to install.  I am now working on the fuselage removing all interior components to prepare for painting on the exterior and interior of the plane.

I thought you might like to see the work progress on the new Boeing 787 Dreamline plant being built at our airport.  You can see two DreamLifters (converted 747′s)  parked on the ramp which are used to carry components of the new plane to and from Charleston.  Eventually the entire plane will be built here.

HUGE hangers/work areas are being built to assemble the planes.  They are even moving the airport perimeter road  to accommodate the construction.

At our latest EAA meeting this week,  we welcomed a new canard owner to Charleston.   There are now 5 builder/fliers in the area.  3 longez’s and 2 cozy’s. 

Ed (the pilot in blue) recently flew his plane from Washington state to Charleston.  He had lots of problems and adventures on the trip and his presentation was most entertaining.  I ended up missing a Spoleto performance which turned to be one of the most talked about show of the season. 

Jack Wilhelmson (cozy 3), Me, Ed Hensel (longez), and Glen Phelps (cozy 4), unfortunately Tony Cole (longe ez) was out of town for this picture.

Once again I am sanding on the plane… and I HATE it.  Boring, dusty, my fingers don’t like it but it needs to be done.  

Today, I finished the fuselage and by COB tomorrow the canard will be done which completes all the epoxy rough sanding.  The parts will be primed, block sanded, then re-primer for the trip to CA where the plane will receive the final paint job. 

The interior paint has been ordered and should arrive next Tuesday from Calif.   The interior should be painted by the end of next week.  Pat should have the instrument  panel completed  next week.    Things are starting to move along much more quickly now. 

I am getting excited about wiring because it is the wiring that gives a plane a real personality and is when it comes alive.   As important as the structure and engine are, if the wiring is well done then the plane relatively trouble free.   Over the years, most of my maintenance issues have been mechanical (engine, brakes, etc) and very little to do with wiring.  I was lucky, because at the time I knew nothing about plane wiring.    I am planing to installmy Grand Rapids HX in my plane which means I’ll have to re-wire Tweety.  I”ll be able to install a nose lift, blending winglets and correct my mediocre wiring  job, and make a bunch of improvements similar to the ones installed in Pats plane.

Today was spent on epoxy coating the canard, elevators and micro repairs on the fuselage.  I put 5 coat of west on the uppers surfaces.  It is amazing how well it fills pinholes and scratches.  Tomorrow the bottom surfaces will be coated.    After the epoxy hardens, I’ll be able to sand the surfaces and prime them. 

Fuselage repairs have been coated too.

Between the epoxy applications the mounting of the electrics has begun.  Before the plane is wired, locations most of the equipment  needs to be found.   Clearances checked so you can get the components out if it needs to be serviced (when the plane is fully assembled).    The problem with a LongEZis  how tight everything is.   Without the instrument panel (with the radios installed), it is becoming hard for me to imagine where all the stuff is going to go.   This plane is PACKED with goodies and space is really tight.    One has to imagine electrical interferences (high power lines, transmitter cables, magnetic interferences, ground planes, etc) so everything will work without “cross talk” or noise in the audio system.  What a PITA.

The rotary canopy latch system was installed today.  It required the construction of a new main latch hook because I wanted to keep the rotary latch as far away from the instrument panel as possible.  I’ll paint it black to match the anodized parts.  When the plane is in Calif it can be taken off black anodized there.

After a bit of frustration adjusting the remaining half latching hooks everything is working smoothly now.   I temporarily installed the RAM mount (with my iTouch).  Almost anything can be installed on this mount (696, iPad, Droid, whatever) since it was glassed into the plane with a large backing plate.   All the wires are submerged in the foam so they will not be seen.   The LED spot light was also installed to check the clearances.  Everything ‘just’ fits as planned.

Two small canopy spacer hardpoints were constructed to control the crush of the canopy on the seals.  This prevents over-crushing of the seals thus causing a permanent of the seals.  These hardpoints also keep the alignment of the canopy and fuselage from changing when closed.   I think every plane should have them, but few do.