With every step it starts to look more like an airplane, however there are still many pieces missing.

We start by positioning the Horizontal Stabilizers in the center of the Fuselage as close as we can by just looking.

We clamp the Horizontal Stabilizers both on the main spar and rear spar to the aft deck.

To position the Horizontal Stabilizers perpendicular to the Fuselage, we measure the distance from the corner of the Firewall to the Horizontal Stabilizer tip.

We did this several times and also measured it with a traditional measuring tape.

Now we can drill the main spar of the Horizontal Stabilizers to the aft deck. First a small drill and after double checking increasing it to the final size.

With the main spar attached, we need to insert shims under the aft spar to set the correct angle between the Horizontal Stabilizers and the Fuselage. With the shims temporarily installed, we can drill the aft spar to the Fuselage.

ALL SET!
Now continue with the Vertical Stabilizer.

Raising the tail-wheel, so the Fuselage is level. This way we can make the Vertical Stabilizer perpendicular to the Fuselage.

The Vertical Stabilizer is attached with a plate to the main spar and to the most aft bulkhead.

Once correctly measured, we can saw the forward attach spar of the Vertical Stabilizer to the correct size.

Before drilling the Hole, we need to be sure the Vertical Stabilizer is not only perpendicular to the Fuselage, but also to the Horizontal Stabilizers. We measured it with the laser and the old fashioned way.

Woo-Hoo, It looks great with the Rudder. Only the missing Rudder Horn looks a little sad.

Time: 4 Hours, Rivets:  0/0 (2020-05-16)

Time: 6 Hours, Rivets:  0/0 (2020-05-17)

Time: 2 Hours, Rivets:  0/0 (2020-05-18)

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Riveting plastic parts is a problem, because it easily cracks. But ‘normal’ rivets and even blind rivets can crack the material. The trick is to place a dimpled aluminum square at the plastic side with the dimple outward. Thus provides enough flexibility to rivet the part.

Because I use flush rivets I dimple the Fuselage skin and countersink the plastic Air Vent.

After dimpling the Fuselage skin, we can apply the sealant kit to the Air Vent and also a few drops on the back to keep the small aluminum squares in place.

Initially I installed the Air Vents with cleco’s to keep it in place and let the sealant cure.

After a few hours we riveted the Air Vents. If you don’t use the small aluminum squares the pressure of the rivet by the bucking bar will break the plastic.

From the inside you can see these small aluminum squares on the Air Vent flange. I’m installing the hose which transports the air to the internal Vents in the cockpit.

The ‘standard’ plastic internal Vents from Van’s are said to be no good. I’ve never checked it, but believe the rumors and ordered nice aluminum Vents from the get go.

Some modifications are required, as the Van’s panel does not provide a four hole bracket. There are only three holes and you have to carefully trim one corner away.

While the glue sealing the Air Vents is curing, we start on the battery casing. The plans from Van’s show how to build the battery casing/bracket. However the online store where I bought the battery is targeted to race cars, which mean they sell a light weight aluminum bracket that I can use.

I modified it very slightly, so the battery won’t pop out at heavy negative G’s and I grue some rubber strips in the bracket to prevent vibrations.

A nice view on the inside of the forward fuselage. You can see the finished Brake Lines (including the connections to the Brake Fluid Cylinder. Also the final construction of the Air Vents including the hose looks good. According to the Van’s manual, we should use the Royco 782 brake fluid. Since that is hard to get here, I hesitated to use race bike fluids, but I couldn’t get details on the flash point. So I decided to order a few quarts in Germany.

This is the other side of the firewall, where we placed the battery casing at the same place that Van’s advocates in its plans. Since I’m going to place the Firewall recess on this side, I made a small shim at the bottom of the Battery bracket to fill the gap. Actually I don’t need the firewall recess as my ULPower engine is so light I have to place it 8 inches forward. But since the heating fits connected to the recess I just install it.

Time: 5 Hours, Rivets:  27/0 (2020-05-13)

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Because the left and right pedal are on different axis, they can’t be parallel. I decided to align the in the middle of the axis (not sure if that’s a smart idea.
Also as you can see I installed a dual Brake system, so you can also control the Rudder and apply Brakes from the right seat.

I figured out that I could align the pedals much better, by clamping an angle against them, instead of trusting the (untrained) eye.

With the Pedals aligned, I used the Brake Cylinders as a guide to mark the place where to drill. So now I can drill the holes where the Brake Cylinder is bolted to the pedal.

There is quite a distance between the pedal and the Rudder pedal frame. According to the drawings, this space is filled with washers. But the distance is too wide to my taste for washers. So I decided to create a nice spacer from Aluminum tubing.

Takes a little more time instead of just washers, but the result is much better.

Now I can screw the bulkheads into the Brake Cylinders to attach the Brake lines.

There are two types of Brake Lines. The Pilot Brake Lines to the Firewall have a metal casing. The others are just plastic.

Now I can insert the whole contraption into the forward Fuselage. Good thing I didn’t rivet the top skin yet. Would be really hard if not impossible to get it in there.

The last part is the Brake Line to the Brake Fluid reservoir. The reservoir itself is not installed yet, but it should be on the engine side of the Firewall.

This is how it looks from the inside. The lines are not yet clamped to the axis with tie-wraps. I decided to cut a grommet and use that to route the Brake Lines and put a Grommet part over it for the tie-wrap. This way the wrap doesn’t cut into the Brake Line.

Good thing I didn’t insert the Firewall Recess yet. Now it is easy to attach the Brake Lines to the bulkheads in the Firewall.

Time: 3 Hours, Rivets:  0/0 (2020-05-09)

Time: 3 Hours, Rivets:  0/0 (2020-05-10)

Time: 2 Hours, Rivets:  0/0 (2020-05-11)

Video

While my dad is grinding the air intake bulkhead, I’m enlarging the pilot holes in the bottom for these bulkheads. I decided to NOT take a normal bulkhead and grind it to 45 degrees, but take a 45 degree bulkhead and make it a little smaller. This allows to insert a nice filter.

We are inserting the Rudder pedals to check that the Vent Lines are not preventing the Pedals in their movement.

I used some old Fuel Lines from my first attempt and crudely bend them as if they were the Vent Lines. This gives us a nice template for the real Vent Lines.

Here you can see the creazy routing the Vent Lines take and the hard part is to NOT forget to insert the bulkhead fitting before tapering the end. Also the last bend is hard, because it is so close to the end of the Vent Line.

With the right side finished, the left is easier.

We now know all the pitfalls and tricks to create a nice Vent Line.

Whooohooo, really excited and pleased with the result. Especially with the frustration of doing the Fuel Lines all over again. The Vent Lines went way better.

WOOHOO!

You can see the curve around the Rudder cables and toward the bulkhead to the wings. The red color on the bottom is NOT my blood, but ink of the type numbers on the Aluminum. Somehow these get more pronounced after priming.

Last part is finishing of the intake of the Vent Lines.

I use normal water tap filters, modify them and insert them in the bulkhead. This prevents the Vent Lines of sucking up dirt and contaminating my Fuel Tanks.

Time: 4 Hours, Rivets:  0/0 (2020-05-05)

Time: 3 Hours, Rivets:  0/0 (2020-05-07)

Video

There is no way you can insert the lines clean through the brackets. So I decided to make part of the bracket removable. Now I can insert the Fuel Lines easy in the brackets.

After yet another day of messing with Fuel Lines, the result looked great.

Time: 4 Hours, Rivets: 36/4 (2020-04-27)

Time: 3 Hours, Rivets:  0/0 (2020-04-28)

Time: 3 Hours, Rivets:  0/0 (2020-04-29)

Time: 3 Hours, Rivets:  0/0 (2020-04-30)

Time: 4 Hours, Rivets:  0/0 (2020-05-02)

Time: 3 Hours, Rivets:  0/0 (2020-05-02)

I did some initial bending of sample lines, but somehow couldn’t find out how the ‘hand tubeing bender’ works. After this experience I actually did RTFM!
And I watched several YouTube video’s that explained it. It always seems so simple when experts do it.

The bigger the frustration when you try it and you mangle a piece of Aluminum until it’s FUBAR.
First step is measuring the tube and cutting of the part you need for a specific Fuel line.

We need two feed lines (left and right) and a single return line. The ULPower 520 iSA is an electronic injected engine and requires a return line.
I decided to make a single return line to the left wing. The Sport Cruiser has a similar approach.

While my Dad uses a electric wire to bend a template, I’m widening the holes, so the Fuel lines and the grommet fit the hole.

The Fuel line cover plate needs to fit exactly in the corner of the ‘bend’.

We discuss how the routing of the left feed line relates to the return line. I figured that we should use different routing, but it is now too late. Good thing I had to redo everything

Next day, I concentrated on the Elevator tips.

The lead counter balance weight at the forward side of the elevator tab is trimmed aft as per the drawing. However in hind-side I think it would be better to trim it at the front.

At least then there is enough room for some glass fiber covering. Now I did create the glass fiber cover, only to grind it all away in the finishing.

In order to ‘connect’ he tip to the glass fiber front, I also put some resin on the tip itself.

The fit is good and no I can let it cure (dry) for some time.

After clecoing the tips to the Elevator, I can start riveting them together.

Because I don’t need ‘entry’ to the Elevator and Rudder tips, I use blind rivets to attach them. There is no way you can use ‘normal’ rivets. You could install screws, but that is overkill.

While the tips dry, I use the remaining epoxy resin (you always make too much), to fill the gap between the Elevator and the trim tab. The gap widens at the end and I want a consistent gap. Nothing a little resin can’t solve.

And while we’re at it, we also apply it to the blind rivets and the Glass Fiber – Aluminum connection.

Of course as a noob with resin, I apply too much and I regret it the next day when I have to grind all the excess resin away.
Oh well, learned yet some more.

Time: 5 Hours, Rivets: 11/3 (2020-04-11)

Time: 6 Hours, Rivets:  0/0 (2020-04-18)

Time: 4 Hours, Rivets: 19/0 (2020-04-19)

Time: 3 Hours, Rivets:  0/0 (2020-04-22)

Time: 3 Hours, Rivets:  0/0 (2020-04-23)

Time: 2 Hours, Rivets:  0/0 (2020-04-25)

Time: 2 Hours, Rivets:  0/0 (2020-04-26)

Video

The disadvantages of this design is that I need to move the fuel selector position and some pilots claim the pedestal connecting the Console to the Panel minimizes leg room.

This is how it would look if I can ‘extrude’ the fuel selector and mount it in the pedestal.
I’ve also drawn the switches on the Console and Pedestal.

This second design eliminates the moved fuel selector and it keeps the leg room. Of course the Pedestal is gone.

Here’s the side view of the same design. The fuel selector is at it’s original location.
Now check what I did with the Throttle handle.

I created a slit in the handle and tapped thread in it. Then I use a slightly bigger bolt and insert it on the hollow side of the handle. I sawed the bolt, so it is flush with the handle. Took me half a day, but I think it’s worth it.

Tricky part is to insert the different control push rods and fasten them to the Control Column. Mainly removing the spaces between hinges and eyebolts by filling the space with washers. This isn’t easy, because there is not much room to operate.

Here is the control column pushrod that connects both the control sticks to each other.

Finished and it looks great to see both control sticks work with no tolerance.

Time: 3 Hours, Rivets:  0/0 (2020-03-11)

Video

I clecoed the skin to the bulkheads and stringers and just like the previous aft top skin, we start at one side to enable working from the other side.

This strategy worked fine for the previous most aft top skin, but turned out useless for this one.
The goal of this strategy is preventing having to crouch into the tail cone. However with this second top skin it’s impossible to reach the rivets and in the end you have to crawl in anyway.

Turned out I also made a mistake riveting the attach angle to the top rib and the aft bulkhead. The manual clearly stated to keep it clecoed, but just before placing the skin I thought it was due time to rivet it.
Turns out it wasn’t!

After riveting the skin to the left longeron, we can safely route the static air forward.

Continuing riveting the aft top skin to the bulkheads.

The forward bulkhead just fits. It requires a little fluting.

And there I found the reason why I should have had the angle clecoed. There is no way we can reach the rivet of the skin with the bucking bar. Only solution is to crawl in, drill out the rivet and reset it. That takes at least 15 minutes.

Oh well it turns out I had to crawl in anyway to rivet the right longeron. So we continued and did both in one swoop.

And this is why you don’t want to crawl into a tail cone. It’s really small, very uncomfortable and it’s easy to break stuff.

Last few rivets in the right longeron and then I can crawl out again.

Time: 4 Hours, Rivets:  46/0 (2020-03-07)

Time: 5 Hours, Rivets: 241/3 (2020-03-08)

Video

The parts are still not primed and it is just an initial fitting and match drilling all the holes. I just drew some instruments on the panel to see how it could look.

First of it MUST be as symmetric as possible. I’m working on my own avionics, so the middle three ‘screens’ will be Android Tablets, for which I will develop the software myself. To make my avionics development not impede my first flight I will also insert ‘standard’ avionics, that later can be used as backup. This setup assumes there is a center console with a bridge going up to the panel.

The Top Skin fits nicely around the Panel. It is not bend yet and after priming I decided it would be easier to bend it so there is less tension in the aluminum.

The middle rib has an extra angle to stiffen it and it connects to the brace bar of the Canopy roll bar later.

Ok let’s fit the skin. Just as with the Aft Top Skins, I start on one side and work my way over the top to the other side.

The ribs need some extra cleco’s to adjust to the correct placement. Later I can drill the holes without the cleco’s and then move the cleco’s and repeat the process.

The skin on the right side didn’t really fit nicely. Or maybe I should say the skins are very tight. Anyway, I will probably rivet the skin first to the longerons and then insert the ribs.

This is dangerous, because it could mean I’m not able to insert the ribs. But I’ll figure that out later.

Time: 4 Hours, Rivets: 12/0 (2020-02-29)

Time: 5 Hours, Rivets:  0/0 (2020-03-01)

Time: 4 Hours, Rivets:  0/0 (2020-03-04)

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