Get the lead out

Day Three, and here's how you check the torque on the prop gearbox. With a carefully measured 6' BFS and a fishscale.

 

Every wonder what's inside the gearbox? Once you see everything apart and learn how it's designed, your ability to operate the engine goes up exponentially.

The engine is designed to run on ethanol free autogas, but for convenience people will run 100LL avgas. Problem is, 100LL is not really "low lead", but has a considerable amount of lead in it. You can add Decalin to help the lead from sticking, but once it's in the engine it remains there. Here's some lead fouling a gearbox

And a turbo that had been run for 2,000 hours on pure 100LL, fouling the wastegate. 

Turbo inlet vane. Spins at 70,000+ rpm, makes engine very very happy on a hot day. 

Stacks and stacks of engines, waiting to be shipped. In 1982 Vernon businessman Ron Shelter talked Rotax into producing aircraft engines and created Rotec Research Canada, in 1988 Rotax went into production full time. There are about 3,600 Rotax 912s sold each year, and about 400 914s.

Doing a compression check. Why is the engine on a truck? 

Here's why. In the afternoon the class adjourned to a taxiway and we ran the engine

 

After we had a chance to run the engine, Mike sent us inside and "broke" it, then we came out to troubleshoot it.

"Are you SURE that's the problem??"

 

With a couple hints, we figured it out. This was the end of the 3 day class, tomorrow we start the 2 day Heavy Maintenance class. Cool.

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Nothing like "hands on" to really understand something.

Gives me flashbacks to when I was a kid and Dad gave me a screwdriver and a cast metal airplane, that kept me occupied for days and started my love of working with my hands. I think I wore that thing out taking it apart and putting it back together again.

 

Wait- where are the green, blue and purple parts?

Always fun doing it with a friend.  Mike, another gent, and I are the only homebuilders in the class, the other 7 are professional mechanics sent here by their companies.

Success. Before we started the teardown I was completely lost about how the Bing carb worked, not a word he said during the formal class made sense to me and I didn't want to slow the class down. I went to the instructor during the break, and asked him to explain it in simple "Damn it, Jim, I'm a pilot, not a mechanic." terms. A few minutes later he had explained it to me in a completely different way, the light went on, and I understood it. The mark of a good instructor.

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Suck, squeeze, blow, go. How does the magic happen?

I've got some time off this month, and the house stuff is (finally!!) winding down, so in preparation for getting my engine next year I've escaped for a week to attend a Rotax Service and Maintenance course at Rotech Flight Safety in Vernon, BC.

Beautiful drive up there from Bellingham to Vernon. Hope to fly it sometime. About 6 hours to drive, bet OspRey could do it faster.

Tea, camera, highlighter, note pad. Back to school, Giuliana even packed me a lunch.

Small class size ensures attention. This is something I miss at the airline, our ground schools are now taught via CBTs, which are good for repeating things you're not certain of, or making your own schedule. But you lose the interaction of bouncing questions off the instructor, or hearing someone else explain something better than you understand it. More than once today another student struggled with the same problem I was having, and listening to them I was able to grasp it better. Hopefully I returned the favor with something they struggled with. 

 Hands-on learning is encouraged, there are several engines and lots of parts to look at and play with.

 

Can't say enough about the instructor, Mike. It's easy to know how something works. To teach it, that's a whole 'nother skill.

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Delayed again, but.....

Bachelor pad sold, new house bought, year going well. What could happen?

I grew up in Alameda, CA, and read "Fate is the Hunter" for the first time when I was a kid.  In the mid-80s I learned to fly hang gliders at Dillon Beach, moved on to fixed wing aircraft, and built my time in Santa Rosa and Petaluma. Like Ernie Gann, I started my flying career at Newark Airport and for the last 17 years I've been based there, dodging Fate and learning about flying, and myself.

Recently, my company announced that they were opening a 787 base in San Francisco. When the results came out I was holding a position, and will leave soon for training. I'm going to miss the challenges of flying out of Newark, but after 12 years of commuting from Seattle the 6 hour flight each way has suddenly gotten old this last year.

25 years after my second "first solo"*, I'm coming home...

*Pilots always remember their first solo, the first time they flew an airplane without an instructor. While I solo'd a Piper Tomahawk in October 1989, I consider that my true "first solo" was my first lesson in a hang glider, when I flew a Super Lancer named Betsy by myself. Thanks, Everett.

Gone west....

When a person died in ancient Egypt, their heart was weighed against the feather of truth. If your heart was lighter than the feather, it meant you had lived a good life and could pass on to the Afterlife.

Less than 24 hours after sending this photo, my friend Ken Berger passed on to the Afterlife.

I'll miss you, my friend.

Last gap

Spring, and a young man's dreams to to airplanes. (and with one house sold, he gets a day or two to relax....)

The last thing to do is the stab/fin gap seals, which means reattaching the stabs. Had I known I could have done all this last year when I had everything set up in the hangar, but we were also racing the weather to get the airplane over to Einar's. (BTW, the wings in the background are covered with some cheap sheets I pickup up at the Salvation Army, so even though they're getting direct sunlight on them they're protected from UV damage.)

Test fit the seal with the weather stripping on, and mark.

The "steampunk" reinforcing mods for the stab got marked so I didn't drill into their rivets. Ironically, I recently learned from PA that the reinforcing sleeves were not needed, but they never told us. Had they told me in time they might have caught me before I mounted them, saving some weight. The lack of communication from PA has been one of the most frustrating parts of this build.

As with the other seals, it's all about the alignment. It will probably never be noticed if a seal doesn't perfectly align with a stab, but I'll know, and if there's time to do it, there's time to do it right.

As in the final stages of mounting the aileron gap seals, I did the corners, then filled in the rest afterward.

Here you get a better look at the offset I had to do so I would not drill into the reinforcements. I'll have to get some longer rivets in this area, too.

Mirror, mirror, on the bench. Why do it twice when you can copy the first?

 
And Yes, it's been a pain to remove the Sharpie marks from the painted areas after drilling. Be warned!

Remember to cauterize the holes in the covering after you're done drilling them.

That's not a SeaRey!!!

No it's not, but it explains why I haven't been working on my plane. My house is almost sold, and while OspRey is at Einar's shop we're using my hangar for storage. Stay tuned.....