Monthly Archives: March 2016

Behind the firewall at papalimabravo.com

This entry was posted in Plans on by

A blog detailing every step during the hundreds of hours required to build an airplane generally makes for some rather dry reading.  Most of this site is simply a journal of how I’m going about building a kit airplane.  That being said, I have learned a fair amount about blogging software and other useful applications in the process. Here is the quick down and dirty on the software I’ve used throughout the history of my blog.

Wordpress posting

Posting to WordPress

I chose to use a content management system called WordPress for my site. WordPress is currently the most popular and widespread CMS in the world. Examples of sites using the software include TechCrunch, The New Yorker, BBC America, Variety, Google Ventures and many many others. WordPress is easy to use and highly customizable. You can customize it straight out of the box with easy settings and thousands of themes to choose from. Slightly more advanced users can install plugins that add or alter functionality. And finally, the most advanced users can write code directly to alter the system to their needs. I have done all three at papalimabravo.com. Eventually, papalimabravo.com will host more than this build log, and with WordPress I can rest comfortably knowing that 20 years from now, I can easily maintain the latest features and browser compatibilities. More importantly, I can re-design my site to suit my needs as I please.

So why WordPress? Well, first off its open source and completely free. Its huge popularity means there is a ton of expertise to lean on, and thousands of plugins, alterations, themes, and the like available. With over 14% of the world’s top one million websites running WordPress, you know its here to stay. If you use WordPress, development isn’t going to become a thing of the past. A recent survey showed that 22% of new websites in 2015 chose WordPress as their CMS. Its not just a blogging site. With WordPress, you can create any site of any format you use, and hook into the powerful baked in features of the CMS, and its worldwide community of support. For me the most important task in development of any site is to avoid recreating the wheel. Solving problems already solved is a waste of time. WordPress provides intuitive management of users, posts, pages, metadata, themes, comments, and everything you can possibly imagine. Its flexibility and power cannot be overstated.

Here’s a quick snapshot of a portion of the site’s admin page. You can see here, all the fields for adding a post. I can enter the title, format the text, and add media. These features are available straight out of the box. You’ll note at the bottom I have a segment called “excerpt” this powers the short descriptions of the site seen on the first page. This is a customization I have added that is part plugin, and part custom modification. Finally, you’ll see I can enter the time associated with the post in the categories of “Build Hours”, “Maintenance” and “Flying.” These are automatically computed and added to the counters across the site, and this section is completely custom coded.

That’s just a small snap shot of the dashboard. The dashboard gives you easy to use configuration of the site’s navigation structure, posts, pages, users, tags, categories and more.

 

WordPress Mobile App – Published Posts

WordPress Mobile App – Post Edit Page

Another excellent feature of WordPress is the native app for iOS. All of the photographs on papalimabravo.com have been taken with an iPhone and uploaded directly using the WordPress App. And I can do it directly from the workbench!  The WordPress App has numerous great features, including allowing you to set a future date for a post to publishing, saving drafts, and configuring site settings. For anyone looking to chronicle a project this is about as simple as it can get.

Skitch Edit Page

Skitch Edit Page

Skitch for iOS, from Evernote, is another fantastic and free app.  Simple and quick, Skitch allows me to draw arrows, smiley faces, and much more. All of the graphics in any photograph on the site have been added right from my iPhone using this quick and easy app.

I use many plugins and tools in my WordPress install, but I’m only going to mention a few. I track website data with Google Analytics. Google Analytics is among the most powerful tools available for website statistics.  I can view visitors by location, referral source, time, operating system, browser and much much more. Several plugins for WordPress allow easy integration of Google Analytics, including step by step instructions on setup. For Google Analytics I use this plugin available here. 

On occasion I share my blog posts via Facebook or Twitter. I use a plugin named Social Networks Auto Poster, or SNAP for short.  SNAP allows me to automatically post to numerous social networks but it does require a little bit of legwork to get up and running. For most social networking sites, you’ll need to create a developer app via their api’s. Its a simple process, but it does take several steps.

There are services out there designed specifically for kit builders.  Unfortunately, these sites are dinosaurs among modern mammals. They offer little customization, poor photo handling, and limited feature sets.  For anyone looking to host their own build log online, I cannot recommend WordPress highly enough. Its easy enough for even the most computer illiterate, yet powerful enough for advanced users.  Gorgeous themes and powerful layout options make for beautiful and attractive websites that are easy to navigate and mobile responsive.

And the icing on the cake?  The software is free!

 

Fastback 14

This entry was posted in Fuselage Showplanes Fastback on by

I’ve started using Trello to keep track of the miscellaneous tasks I need to complete. At this point in the build, I don’t have a lot of structural elements remaining other than the bottom wing skins, the front upper fuselage skin, and the canopy. All of the major body parts for the plane are compete. If I wanted to, I could wheel this puppy into the middle of the hangar, put the already drilled gear legs on, attach the wings and the empennage and have something that actually resembles a plane. But, I’m not going to do that just yet. There is still a ton of work, and a lot of dependencies. Right now I have two remaining fuselage projects. First I need to get the majority of the interior painted. This needs to be done before I install the forward fuselage upper skin. Next, I need to install that skin, and then as the spring time is rolling around, it will be time to work on the canopy. With that in mind, there was only one significant portion of the cockpit that had not yet been riveted, and thats the rear seat back. So, that brings us to today.

The Show Planes fastback kit includes a new seat top for the rear passenger made from fiberglass. It looks much better than the stock metal seat back provided by Van’s. However, there are, as I discovered, some symmetry issues with the fiberglass. The first step is fitting the fiberglass into the opening and adjust the height. In order to do this you’ll need to trim the fiberglass just slightly at the corners (marked below).

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Here you can see I trimmed the part twice. Once to intersect with the rear seat back, and again to fit between the cockpit rails.

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I carefully adjusted the fit of the seat back in terms of height so as to not unduly rub the edges of the baggage compartment. I marked the mating points for reference and began drilling the seat back top. This is where I noticed my first asymmetry. The curve on the right side was higher than the left side. I didn’t notice by looking from the front, but rather by examining the rivet line in the rear. I went over to my buddy Mike’s hangar to see if he could notice. He was able to notice the difference when I held it to him straight on and told him to look for something off. With him able to notice the error, I resolved to fix it.

But wait. As I started to examine the part more carefully, I realized this wasn’t the only thing that was off. The left curve and the right curve don’t match. That is the left curve extends further in than the right. (You can see it slightly in the photo below). Additionally, the center of the raised center plane is actually offset to the right (shown by the arrow). These two things exaggerate the discrepancy. What to do? Well, I can tell you, I’m not intending to compete this plane for Oshkosh Grand Champion. And while I will fix anything that is even remotely structural all day, I’m not as keen to fix hardly noticeable cosmetic defects! As I really worked on trimming the part to fit, I noticed other discrepancies. Many of the measurements were not exactly the same from side to side.

What I wound up doing is this. I made darn sure the curves of both sides, both in height and distance are symmetrical, and I left it at that. If you look directly at the part, you can notice a few of the symmetry issues. Having show it to a couple people, most people notice the center offset, not the curves. Since the center offset is an issue with the part, and not my workmanship, it doesn’t bother me as much. Furthermore, I firmly believe no-one will ever notice this small asymmetry unless they 1) know about, and 2) look at it fairly straight on.

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Here is the final part after all trimming and edge clean up.

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And here it is installed. Can you see an issue?

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I had to have some fun so I put my seat cushions in, and took a selfie. img_9787.jpg img_9805.jpg

Two other small projects today. First I prepped the pilot’s air vent for attachment. I’m going to attach with proseal and two rivets. One fore and one aft. I scuffed and cleaned both surfaces and then primed the inside of the vent. Not pictured, but I also applied a second coat of proseal to my static vents. I’m extremely confident that those will neither leak, nor come loose!

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On a side note, my buddy Mike recently got wifi is his hangar. Not to be outdone, I had to follow suit. Mike was nice enough to lend a hand, and we installed the Ubiquiti locoM2. (www.ubnt.com/products)

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I placed it as discreetly as possible.

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It was pouring rain, so I added a makeshift cover (its meant for outdoors, but I figured keeping the flood off the room from running down the device couldn’t hurt) I’ll put a more permanent solution in place soon.

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Finally, the test. 18.83 Mbps! Thats awesome! The next project will be an arduino powered humidity and temperature sensor that relays the data to me on my iPhone!

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Service Bulletin 14-01-31 (8)

This entry was posted in Empennage Horizontal Stab on by

Last night I left off with one rib in progress. Tonight I set up the second rib, using the same method. I then removed the ribs, deburred, trimmed, and riveted to the HS-0002 angles.


Then it was just a matter of riveting. I started with the skin rivets that would not be accessible once the ribs were in place. I then riveted the rib to the spar. Mike was on hand, and we made quick work of it.

Squeezing the remaining rivets to the skin was quick and easy work.

I’m very happy with how this turned out. It wasn’t as much of a horror as people made it out to be, although it certainly was one of the more challenging projects I’ve completed.