Lots of progress since the last update. Might not seem that way, but it was fun. I will go in the order of newest to oldest since I remember the newest first 🙂
Elevators. With help from a friend, I made elevator balance weights and installed them to the elevator. I also final installed the trim servo and wired the servo to the previously ran wire in the fuselage. After that I installed the elevators permanently. Today I also did some initial work on rigging the elevators, but I still have another day of work to do on that.
I wired both of the control sticks. I bought a new grip for the right side in order to have a push to talk switch on the stick. The wiring was annoying mostly because the pilot side is trying to fit 13 wires into a very small space. Also, if you forget to put the grip on the stick before wiring, you have to desolder and then solder 5 wires on again. Not the end of the world, but super annoying. I got connectors on the end of every wire and then final installed them into the airplane. That was a step that had been in limbo for at least 2 years. With that done, I can complete the rigging of the elevators.
I added connectors to my wingtip lights in preparation for working on the wing tips this week.
I ran some conduit and wire through the wings for the lights, pitot tube, and the magnetometer.
On the painting front, I took quite a few interior parts to get powder coated including the panel. Hope to get them back in a few days. Once they’re back, I’ll start installing avionics and begin some wiring. The biggest headaches currently are locating a spot for my fuse blocks that are maintainer friendly once the panel is installed. I have a few ideas, so we will see what wins out. I also finally bit the bullet and painted the remaining interior of the aircraft so you don’t have to look at the inside of fabric and over spray 🙂 I masked off the fuselage and then used some high quality spray paint to do the covering. We will see how it turns out in the long run, but I should be able to do touch ups if it gets bad.
The rudder is rigged and final installed. Only thing left in that system is to check the cable tension.
We also got the aft baggage installed.
Till next time I remember what I’ve done…
(60 hrs)
