G-UFOX - C C C Cold
Last weekend, Ian and I didn't go to the hangar. I was quite sure that even if my crappy car made it down the snow covered woodland track leading to it, it certainly wouldn't get back. Instead I stayed at home and worked on the instrument panel.
George
and Tom managed using George's 4WD. Although, by the look of this picture, they
did get a little distracted (unless it was just Tom got very cold).
On
the subject of cold - the water pipe to the tap had frozen up and George had
to thaw it out with a hairdryer before they could have some tea.
The door lock/release mechanism have been fitted to the doors along with the fresh air vents. They're pretty much done (except the stickers), but not fitted yet, so that they don't get in the way.
The instrument
panel has progressed. Now that it is all fettled, I can fit all the switches
and breakers etc. I have also fitted the instruments, although the larger ones
are only temporarily fitted, in case I need to remove them. Next, I need to
put some wires on them!
I have fitted 4 posts with screwdowns so that each pilot can fit their own GPS, mounted on a removable panel that attaches to these posts.
Limited
success today. George and Tom started balancing the prop and found the main
bolts wouldn't fit through. Unfortunately, this meant disassembly so the previous
effort setting the pitch of the blades has gone to waste.
Ian and I started on adjusting the flapperon
setup. This started well, and we set the neutral position using a wooden batten
strapped to the wing underside and a bolt with a marker at 46 mm down to match
up with the trailing edge of the flapperon. We
then checked the deflections with my homemade inclinometer - made from a printed
sheet protractor I designed, mounted on card, with a pendulum (a couple of washers
on some dental floss). The top profiled to match the flapperon and affixed with
elastic. Seemed to work OK.
However the aileron deflections didn't go so well and we found we didn't have the grubscews to set the limits of joystick movement, so we shelved this for today.
A least we got the rudder cable excess cut off, and these would have been finished if I had remembered the heatshrink heat gun.
So not the best progress, but we are moving on.