OK, so its not in my shop but my son’s latest business venture has made a trotec speedy 400 co2 laser cutter and engraver readily available for the RV project. Judy and I dropped over to his place for a demo yesterday. The engraver has a 24″ by 39″ work area and the front and back access panels drop down to accept larger items such as doors or large counter tops. He had a number of granite and quartz countertop samples on hand so we grabbed an image from the Vans Aircraft web site, did a bit of Corel magic on it and then down loaded it to the printer (laser). It took a couple of minutes to 
produce this nice coaster. The laser is pretty cool to watch in action. Its quite a step forward from the Roland graphics cutter we have in the shop for doing vinyl graphic work. I am glad I didn’t farm out all the placard work in the project. Now I can do up the art work myself and then send it over to the production shop. Its funny how things turnaround overtime. Used to be he was borrowing my tools….
Transition Training Booked!
Yes, this is the year the RV9A will fly. To make it so, I have booked 10 hours of transition training with Mike Seager, one of Van’s Aircraft recognized trainers. He has over 18,000 hours of flying time, of which 12,000 is doing Vans Aircraft transition training. I am booked for July 9,10,11th at his Oregon facility. Looking very forward to that trip south! While in the area I plan to attend the EAA Arlington Fly-in on the 12th/13th on the road home.
If all goes to plan, aircraft final assembly at the hanger will happen in June, transition training in July and final inspection in last week of July. Its my plan to start flying the 9A in August if it all comes together between now and then.
Flap Position Feedback
Yes, its been a long break from the build, every year Christmas and getway trips take their toll on the building process, but what the heck, its a hobby not a job, right?
Before Christmas I finished adding a flap position sensor system. I did mine a little different than the other examples I have seen on the web. I used the standard Ray Allen position sensor which is a linear motion potentiometer of 0 to 4k ohms. The circuit uses a regulated 0-10 volt source and I use 10 volts as my 0 degree setting and 0 volts as my 40 degree setting. If the circuit has a problem, I’ll know right away when my flap position indicates 40 degrees. I used a .5 inch travel sensor in place of the usual 1 inch travel model. I used a couple of links to divide the motion of the flap actuator in half and linearize the travel/voltage reading as much as possible. It took a bit of trial and error to get the links length correct but I’m happy with what I see now as an indicated position on the TC7 Engine and Flight System Manager (EFSM). That’s the new accro dreamed up for the new box I have created for the panel. More on that in subsequent posts.
Plasti-Dip test
My son suggested I try using a spray on rubberized finish on the fiberglass parts. There is a product that is quite popular in the car world for finishing wheels and entire cars called Plasti-dip. Its the aerosal verson of the stuff we used to dip plier handles in to make them non slip. I was concerned the black would be too dull end up with a matte black finish. It actually turned out quite well on the two test areas I did. The canopy skirt and windscreen skirt were primed grey. I applied the spray in 4 light coats at 30 minute intervals. The results are quite satisfactory. Time will tell if this finish holds up. I have oredered up a gallon of the black dip paint, a gallon of naptha thinner and a Earlex HVLP sprayer. The plan is to try painting the wing tips and then see how the larger pieces turn out. I am going to a before and after weigh-in to see how much this finish adds to the aircraft. Don’t expect much of a gain, we’ll see. The other cool thing about this finish is the ablity to peel it off and not leave a residual behind if you want to change color or finish paint the whole aircraft. The real test will be 200 mph airflow with rain. It takes a pressure washer on the U-Tube videos, but you can’t trust everything you see on the internet you know…….
First polishing session completed
I’ll fill in the words shortly, the pictures say it though. All metal pieces now polished except the belly. I’ll finish that once I wrap up the landing gear fairings.