Wings
2018: Weight and Balance
Total Build Time: 1350 Hours To begin the Weight and Balance measurements and calculations, I positioned the main wheels on an existing straight crack in the concrete floor and then leveled the tail of the plane. I then used a plumb bob to measure the various required parts of the aircraft that needed to … Continue reading
FINAL RIVET
Total Build Time: 1342 Hours Today the Final Rivet was set on the aircraft. I saved it for my wife and daughter, who did the honors:
2017 Painting and Polishing
Total Build Time: 1331 Hours The paint color I decided to use on all my fiberglass/plastic parts was a basic rattle-can Rustoleum paint+primer in a blue color called Seaside. For all the aluminum parts, I also used Rustoleum self-etching primer as a base coat. My first parts to be painted were the tail … Continue reading
Sept 2017 Update (Wings, Stabilators, Paint and more)
Total Build Time: 1245 Hours Here is the very short story of why I haven’t made a blog post in over a year and a half: I got married and had a daughter. In other words, life happened! However, I’m finally back at the project and rolling towards completion. I’ll be following up this post … Continue reading
Time-lapse Video, 900 hours of work and move to airport.
This video includes all the time-lapse footage I have from January 2014 until August 2015. It’s essentially the entire build of the airframe. It’s missing the first 200 hours of the project because I didn’t have the camera setup for that portion of the build.
730 Hour Project Update (Timelapse Video)
It’s now been 11 months since I took delivery of my Waiex kit last November. I took off 3 months of building during the summer, so I essentially have spent 8 months of actual building time on the project. I previously made an update at 500 hours and included a time-lapse video that showed the … Continue reading
Fuselage Completion #8 (Flight Control pre-rigging, VIDEO)
Total Build Time: 730 Hours. With my wings still attached, I decided to do as much as I could before removing them once again. Space in my basement is limited, so eventually I will need to remove the wings both to continue working, and to get the plane out of the basement at the end … Continue reading
Fuselage Completion #7 (Wing Rigging)
Total Build Time: 722 Hours. Finally, the big day has come. My wings have been sitting on a rack in the corner of my basement for the last 7 months. Now I will finally be able to pull them off the rack put them onto the plane for the first time. To prepare the fuselage … Continue reading
Fuselage Completion #4 (Rear spar carry-though assembly)
Total Build Time: 691 Hours. I pulled out some of the last remaining aluminum laser-cut parts from my aircraft kit that arrived last November. It was nice to be working with aluminum again after having done so much work recently with steel and titanium. Once I had these parts on my workbench I realized how … Continue reading
500-hour project update (Videos)
My wings, aft fuselage and empennage are as complete as they can be until the whole aircraft comes together and rigging takes place. I decided this would be a good time to stop and look back at my progress so far. To do so I made several videos. These first 2 short videos I made … Continue reading
Wings #19 (Right wing completion)
Total build time: 493 hours. Finally, time to skin the right wing! The same method as the left wing was used, and there were no surprises. Again I ran conduit for wingtip lighting wires if I so desired, as well as the pitot/static lines. Then on goes the leading edge skin. … Continue reading
Wings #18 (Balancing Ailerons)
Total build time: 486 hours. The ailerons must be balanced for 2 reasons: control feel, and flutter. The plans for the aerobatic ailerons call for both ailerons to be balanced to each other by hanging them by their hinge point and comparing the trailing edges. The lead counterweight is the ballast that provides the balancing, … Continue reading
Wings #17 (Right flap and aileron)
Total build time: 483 hours. Right-side flap and ailerons went together much like the left. Ends trimmed to fit, aileron first. Again I liked having the wing substructure open (no skins) while building the flap and aileron, as I can verify fitment as I go, such as testing the location of the aileron … Continue reading
Wings #16 (Pitot tube)
Total build time: 465 hours. The plans call for the fabrication of the pitot tube, or to buy a pre-made tube from Aircraft Spruce. I used the pre-made tube. It combines pitot and static sensors in the same assembly. The tubes were pretty close where the connections will be made, I used some shims … Continue reading
Wings #15 (Right wing skinning)
Total build time: 450 hours. The skinning of the right wing went much like the left with one small difference. My right wing spar had a slight bow in it, which is a common occurance for Sonex spars and the bow is generally taken out during the skinning process. When fitting the forward skin though … Continue reading