Steve Melton's
RV-9A
Make: Van's Aircraft
Category: Experimental
A picture of an RV-9A. Not mine.
Canopy
Cockpit
Horizontal Stabilizer
Vertical Stabilizer
Elevator
Rudder
Fairings
Instrument Panel
Firewall
Landing Gear
Fuselage
Main Spar
Wings
Hangar
Installed
fuel pump and fuel flow meter. Accuracy of fuel flow meter may be
compromised because the meter does not have the minimum straight line
length before and after pump. It will most likely require
calibration during the test phase to provide acceptable results.
Installed fuel valve, fuel lines and fuel strainer upstream of the fuel pump and fuel flow meter. Fuel lines are 5052 alum tubing, standard fuel line tubing for production aircraft. I used a $15 tubing bender tool for these and it was adequate but making greater than 90 degree bends with this tool required some thinking.
HS fairing. Epoxy and flox troweled to 0.25 inch chamfer cut in the balsa to provide surface area for adhesion. Fillets nicely to edges giving 0.50 inch deep surface for adhesion.
Fiberglass
layup. You can't see it in this picture but the balsa is concave
and the surface is 3D. Best to use a bias fiberglass to contour to
this area.
More
homemade pizza!
Carole
makes great pizza and it is especially good after a long day.
Elevator trim servo is installed. This is the Ray Allen servo and can be operated for travel check with 9 or 12 V drill battery.
Rudder is installed. Rudder travel check and lower rudder fairing cap fit are yet to do. VS tip fairing trimmed to fit. 3/16 inch gap set between vertical stab and rudder. Not shown in picture because of epoxy cure.
Some builder set control surface to fairing clearances very tight to minimize drag. There is a report of an RV at 15K ft exposed to icing and the elevator becoming locked by ice. Only by hammering his fist on the stick was he able to break free while in a 20 degree descent. An exposed control surface horn will accumulate ice quickly. All control surfaces to fairing clearance are 3/16 inch for this airplane.
What is this? It is a picture of a plastic zip tie mount bonded under a longeron. It will be used to support the pitot static line. These are epoxy bonded to the left side of the aircraft. You cannot break them free by hand force so I think they are sufficiently strong. Prep to bond is simple, acetone clean, no scuffing of the longeron is required. West Coast epoxy and allowed to set for 7 days. Cool temperatures.
DTM
Deutsch 6 pin connector to be used for elevator electric trim servo. DTM
connectors are elegant water resistant pin connectors with internal
socket springs, gold plated. Light weight and simple to crimp. After
looking at many connector types, I am satisfied with these. The are easy
to disassemble. Pins click into place in plastic housing.The plan is to feed the pins thru the hor stab (hole size limited) and then insert the pins in the male connector and clamp the connector to the aft deck
Elevator
tip cap removed to restore alignment. Tip cap doubler applied
(.032 alum) at rivet line and redrilled.
Alignment is good. Elevator tip caps may cause bowing of the elevator horn. Best to install the tip caps during final fit of the elevator.
.032 alum doubler at rivet line. I bonded the hor. stab fairing
doubler with epoxy.
Fitting
horizontal stab. Final check of alignment and torqued bolts.
LH elevator fairing caused the horn to twist inboard on the lower side
creating an uneven edge gap between the stab. Required drilling
out the rivets and removing the fairing and replacing the .032 alum
support backing on the lower edge. Counter weight bolt torque checked
and remain good. Need to torque mark the bolts.
First day at the airport. Working to get the hangar
ready for the airplane. Assembled for show.
There is plenty of room to work in the hangar.
Sept 6, 2011
Added lights and tried to get things organized.
Instrument panel. Thinking about connectors....