Airworthiness Inspection

Well, it's been a very hectic past two years. With the move to Colorado I haven't had any time to work on the plane with all the projects at the ranch. Over the past several months I have managed to free up some time so I could finish up the remaining tasks on the plane. It's done!

One of the tasks was to find a new DAR as the one I had in Phoenix just couldn't make it here for the inspection. After a lot of searching, I found one about an hour and a half away near Denver, that had an airplane and was willing to fly in for the inspection. So, yesterday he flew in, did the inspection and it PASSED!

Many thanks to Robert "Bob" Husted (left) for taking the time and making the effort to come to my remote location for the inspection. That is his beautiful Cessna 206.

Now to get some transition training, and then start flying MY SuperSTOL. It's been a long haul, much longer than I ever anticipated. I will try to catch up on the blog over the next several weeks. I have a lot of pics to post.

Now on to the fun part, flying!

Wing Inspection Covers - Finished

 Here are the inspection covers finished and labeled. 

 

Wing Inspection Covers, Tail Wheel Inspection Cover and Slat Bumpers

I spent the last several days fitting and fabricating the wing inspection covers. There are twelve of them (2 front strut covers, 2 rear strut covers, 2 front jury strut covers, 2 rear jury strut covers, and 4 flap covers). Although basic covers are supplied with the kit, each has to be formed and custom fitted. The factory specifies sheet metal screws to fasten the covers to the wing. I used lock plates and machine screws instead. Actually the lock plates were installed a LONG time ago before I covered the wing. As you can see in the pics below there is a lot of work to making them fit properly, and drilling them for the screws. Then there is filing, sanding and eventually powder coating. Anyway, they are done except for the powder coat.

Left front jury strut after shaping, sanding.

Right inboard flap cover after forming to follow the contour of the wing. There is an extra hole I drilled by mistake. I'll fill it before powder coating.

Flap cover

Front cover with the tie down ring.

Right front strut cover with tie down ring,

Jury strut cover.

Jury strut cover.

Left front strut cover.

Right rear jury strut cover.

Right rear jury strut cover.

Right rear main strut cover.

Flap cover.

Flap cover.

Left rear jury strut cover.

Next, I installed the tail wheel inspection cover. It's located on the bottom of the fuselage between the tail shock and the front attachment of the tail wheel. It's the black cover plate in the pics.

The final task for today was to install the slat bumpers. The factory supplies the bumper material with the kit but it is white. I did not want white, I wanted black. It took me a while to locate a suitable substitute in black. I found it a McMaster-Carr. After cleaning the slats, I installed the bumpers on each of the 4 slats. The lighting was not great for the photos, but you get the idea. Actually, it's what I wanted, hard to see. They blend in nicely.

Cowling Problem

Well, when I fitted the cowling to the plane last time I realized that several of the 1/4 turn fasteners along the boot cowl/top cowl were hitting the firewall. I fiddled with the boot cowl until I was able to get it to fit. However, it was causing some warp-age and stress. As much as I want to finish this airplane, after thinking about it overnight I decided to  re-position all the offending fasteners. Even though this means re-drilling new holes in both the boot cowl and the top cowl, fiber glassing/filling in the old holes, as well as repainting both pieces. The satin black paint does not allow for blending, sanding, buffing, so I'll have to totally repaint both pieces. Truly, a major setback. I'm not totally sure what happened, but obviously I did not lay out the holes properly the first time.

So, Option 1 is to fill all the offending holes with fiber glass, let that cure, then re-drill new holes which would overlap the old holes. This could create structrual issues if the fiberglass isn't done correctly and would potentially thicken both pieces.

Option 2 - I happened to have an extra 1/4 turn fastener laying around. I could add this to the five that I had and re-space them out in order to put all of the fasteners in virgin fiberglass. Then filling all the other holes becomes just a cosmetic issue. This also adds another fastener vs. what I had before.

I chose option 2. When laying out the new spacing I ran into an issue because there is a cutout on the boot cowl flange so I can reach a coolant cap. This made for an uneven, non-standard spacing. Secure nonetheless.

You can see the old holes that need to be filled. There are corresponding holes in the boot cowl that need to be filled as well. Of course, while drilling out the 1/4 turn barrels I managed to break one so I was unable to finish re-installing them all. Now waiting on replacements to show up.

This also allows me to continue on toward getting the plane inspected. Cosmetic issues won't prevent being issued a temporary airworthiness certificate. The plane won't be perfect for the inspection but I can paint it later. It'll fly fine the way it is.

After I got as far as I could with the cowl, I decided to install the prop. I had installed the prop spacer yesterday and installed the prop hub, propellers, and the spinner today. I left the bolts loose as I'll set the prop pitch another time.

Cowling install, decals and prop stuff...

 Finished up mounting the last three 1/4 turn fasteners to the fuselage.

 

 

I needed to level the plane to mount some decals.

 

I used a laser level to help align the decals.

Then I mounted the cowling using the 1/4 turns.

 

 Then more decals...

 

 

 

 
Next up was mounting the boot cowl, the reason I didn't mount it to begin with was I had some road rash from moving the plane from AZ to CO, scratches from the "protective" plastic covering I taped in place for the move. Bad idea. Anyway, I polished the bottom of the windshield and decided it was good enough to go ahead and mount the boot cowl. So, I had to remove the top cowl and then reinstall it afterward. I need a couple of longer screws for the corners of the boot cowl, the short ones I had on hand wouldn't reach the anchor nuts in the dash area.

While I was at it, I used a 3/8" tap and die to clean up the prop spacer and hub lugs and all the prop bolts. They were not very smooth before, now they are. I'll bolt all that together next time. I also have to polish up the side vents and install them.