Yearly Archives: 2015

A few website changes

This entry was posted in Uncategorized on September 21, 2015 by Peter

Recently I made a few changes to the website, that I had been meaning to do since day one, but I was either too lazy, or stumbled in figuring out how to make it work. Previously, all my hours were added up by hand. I kept track by putting the hours in the title. The index page was also manually built, and I frequently got far behind in my updates to the index.

So now, I have the hours totaling automatically. This is done both as a total value, and by individual category. I was also able to get the index page to be dynamically created. The end result is that when I now create a new post, all my total hour calculations are made and updated for me, and the post is added automatically to the index page. Its pretty transparent to anyone reading the site, but for me, its a HUGE timesaver!

Fuselage 19 – Priming multiple parts

This entry was posted in Fuselage Main Fuselage on September 20, 2015 by Peter

I have a substantial pile of parts that are awaiting priming. The first three photos are all the parts I brought to the paint booth to paint. Both the forward and aft upper fuselage skins, and a large number of additional interior parts are in the queue.

I stapled some wire to the ceiling in a couple places to hold the larger skins for priming.

I wasn’t able to get to every part I had as my wife called just before I mixed the primer to tell me she had locked her keys in the car. Well 3 hours later I was back to finish what I started.

There isn’t much else to say. Here are the results.

Finish Kit Arrives

This entry was posted in Finishing on September 18, 2015 by Peter

On Monday of this week, my finishing kit arrived. Unfortunately, I was so busy at work, I wasn’t even able to meet them at the airport. I had to send my wife! It wasn’t until today (Friday) that I was able to make it to the airport for the unboxing. Here is the hangar mascot excited for the big unveiling.

Between the fastback conversion kit, and the multiple items I’ve bought from other sources, there isn’t a whole lot to this kit.

The majority of the box is the canopy and the engine mount.

I also ordered a set of the seat foam that Van’s provides. A bit pricey for a bit of foam, but this will be far cheaper than the expensive seats from Oregon Aero and the like. I intend to use the plans Van’s includes with the kits, but I will either have my wife put them together (she can sew when properly motivated) or a local auto upholster-er. I intend it to be two shades, light grey and dark grey with bright orange stitching to match the internal accents I will be doing. The headrest will likely have something embroidered on it. Maybe my name or experimental or the n-number if I ever figure out what that will be. For the time being though, I’m going to wrap them in trash bags and duct tape so that I can test out the cockpit ergonomics. I might even keep that setup until after the first flight. I’m a little vertically challenged, so I want to see if adding any height to the seats will be beneficial before I put final covers on them.