Sheet Metal Progress

Some progress has been made in finshing the boot cowl and cockpit surround. These pictures were made 5/30/09. Everything is pretty well fitted and fastened so it is time to move on to the challenge of the firewall forward.

Boot Cowl

The boot cowl is beginning to take shape. We plan to use flush riveted hidden hinges to attach the cowl and eliminate most visible fasteners.

Wing Tank Fuel Gauge

The fuel gauge for the wing tank was made by cutting off a "Stearman" style gauge from Aircraft Spruce.

Throttle Quadrant

If you have ever set in the cockpit of a Skyote you know that space is at a premium. In some Skyotes the throttle/mixture controls become knee knockers. I originally considered using panel mounted push/pull controls to keep them out of the way. I finally decided that panel space was too valuable to devote to throttle/mixture so I decided to use quadrant controls but minimize the intrusion into the cockpit. I came up with a compact quadrant design that works on the "pony brake" principle to provide friction adjustment.




In operation the adjustment knob squeezes the split tube down on the cylindrical bodies of the two flanged bushings ( blue and orange parts). A 1/4" flat head through bolt holds it all together but it is not shown as I am just too lazy to do it! The ends of the bushings are machined to receive the flat stock throttle and mixture handles. Moving the handles causes the bushings to independtly rotate against the friction of the split tube. The split tube will be welded to the diagonal fuse tube near the pilot's left hand. The throttle control cable will actually be outside the fuselage tubes in the area provided by the stringers. This will hold the cockpit intrusion to a minimum.



A version with handles rather than knobs.

Turtle Deck Progress

The turtle deck is beginning to shape up. We made the forward deck skin somewhat longer than the plans to accommodate an extended headrest ala Hawkeye's Skyote. I also plan to install the windscreen in the aft position per Hawkeye's recommendations. Dale Doane is responsible for the beautiful woodwork!

Pete's Original Nose Bowl Tooling

This is Pete's original forming block used to form the nose bowl on his personal airplane. Glenn Bridges talked Pete into letting us borrow the tool to form our nose bowls.



Pete included this test part when he sent the tool.



Checking the fit of the spinner backplate with the formed nose bowl. Looks like a good fit.



Time to start making airplane noises!

Interplane Struts Riveted

The interplane struts are riveted. Still have to trim the angles on the ends to clear the brace wires.

Interplane Struts and Drill Fixture

It's time to tackle the interplane struts. This will be another deviation from the plans since we will be using aluminum streamline tubing rather than the squeezed round tubing specified in the plans. The tubing is 6061 and has the same overall dimensions called for in the plans. The streamline shape requires that the aluminum spacer blocks be shaped to compensate for the teardrop shape. We designed and made a precision jig to hold all of the parts for drilling. The tubes were cut to length using a milling machine to achieve the final overall length. The jig is aligned with each end of the tube for match drilling the components.

Panel Layout Update

Installing a foam mock-up of the floor mounted console showed that location to be less than satisfactory. After taking careful measurements, we were surprised to find that there was room to include the Comm and Transponder in the lower center of the main panel. I had assumed that there would be a conflict with the top of the stick but this is not a problem. This may be the final version.

Engine/Cowling Model

I refined the engine/cowling model a little. I still need to add the cooling ram air ducts and some simulation of the 6 into 2 exhaust system. Pete Bartoe is lending us the forming blocks he used to form his nose bowl. The orange part is the battery which needs to go up front to help with the CG. The battery will be supported by a subframe off the engine mount. It looks like most of the exhaust and ram air ducts will be outside the cowling.

Saw and Sand Time

Time to make a few parts by the traditional saw and sand method.

Templates for the Tip Bow Straps.

Floorboards


Seat Bottom

I used 3M adhesive to glue the templates over the protective plastic on the aluminum sheet stock. Just peel the plastic off when you are finished with no messy adhesive clean-up.

Avionics Console

(Ed. note: This idea was discarded in favor of panel mounted units. See post of Jan 2nd.)
This is a CAD model of the avionics console which will house the MicroAir comm. and transponder units. It will be located on the floor between my feet. It will also contain the headphone jacks and the avionics master switch. I will likely need some holes or slots for ventilation.





The second model has the cover removed. The MicroAir comm. and transponder are not actually the same size. I just made up a composite model using the larger of the HxWxL dimensions from the respective units.



This is the flat pattern blank for the face/base plate for the console. Looks like a good prospect for waterjet! Would be much easier to bend up if it were made in two pieces and riveted together

Paint Update

The primer I used initally didn't stand up to the MEK test so I switched to PPG brand DP40-LF. It works well and has good resistance to MEK after it cures a week or so.



I dropped my 30 year old POC touch-up gun and broke it so I was forced to treat myself to a new primer gun. I find myself priming many batches of small parts so I needed a small capacity gun suitable for priming. I bought this little gravity feed gun from Lowe's for $39.95 less a $10.00 off coupon. It works just fine for primer and gets about three times the milage from the paint as the old siphon gun did.

Instrument Panel

It's about time to cut the instrument panel so I now have an excuse to waste endless hours contemplating the panel layout. My first objective is to keep it simple. The King AV80R satisfies this requirement as it can be surface mounted on the panel and only requires a 12 volt power plug to operate. The Grand Rapids EIS 6000 is desirable to help tune and manage the EGT/CHT temps for the Jabiru 3300.




The 3-1/8" instruments will be altimeter and air speed while the small instruments include G-meter, turn & bank, and compass.


The MicroAir comm and transponder will go in a small console on the floor between my legs.

Match Drilling Spar Fittings

Match drilling Spar fittings with the fitttings installed on the spars can be akward leading to inaccurate drillng. We assembled the fittings to a small piece of spar and used a jig to hold it at the 7.2 degree angle. This allowed the fittings to be matched drilled and reamed in the drill press for better accuracy.

Wire Mesh Paint Table

This paint table works very well. I tacked up a 10'x2' frame from 2x4's and covered it with 1/2" mesh hardware cloth. It works much better than painting on a flat table top because the air from the spray gun does not reflect back. This eliminates the tendency for parts to be moved by the blast from the gun. It also improves the paint coverage as the paint tends to wrap around the bottom edge of the part.

AircraftPaintSchemes.com

I am working with AircraftPaintSchemes.com so we can have "paint templates" for the Skyote. I sent them three view drawings of the Skyote for conversion to their template format. They emailed the side view template today and promised the top view next week. The above are "quickie" examples . I highly recommed that anyone who is interested go to www.aircraftpaintschemes.com and down load the free software and instructions. Examples are provided for practice and understanding the software.
Hopefully the Skyote templates will be available by sometime next week.