Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Hinges

Lots of difficulties making this hinge stuff. Had to take the distance blocks to work to cut off 2 mm. The laser cut holes were all skewed. And what is it with all these holes in the angle? Now I also need to ream the bronze bushings on the inside and the aluminum on the outside. 8 and 11 mm approximately. I wonder what people do if they don't have a real machine shop available.

Bought this "Label off" at Biltema. Works real good and does exactly what it says.


Saturday, April 19, 2014

Engines

I have been looking at engines again, set up some matrices to look at bore, stroke and cc. Below is a matrix of bore, stroke (mm) and displacement in cc of all the VW engines I know of.

Stroke [mm]
Bore [mm] 69 78.4 82 84 86 90
85.5 1585 1801 1883 1929 1975 2067
88 1679 1907 1995 2044 2092 2190
90 1756 1995 2087 2138 2188 2290
90.5 1775 2017 2110 2161 2213 2316
92 1835 2085 2180 2234 2287 2393
94 1915 2176 2276 2332 2387 2498
97 2040 2317 2424 2483 2542 2660


Then I substituted the displacement for engines





















Here GP = Great Planes, H = Hummel, S = Sauer, L = Limbach and R = Revmaster. Surely the Sauer 2400 and the Revmaster 2300 with larger bore and larger stroke is more powerful than the AeroVee. The AeroVee is the smallest engine of the bunch. There is more to an engine than displacement, but larger bore and stroke more often than not means more HP and more torque.

The Limbachs and Sauers with 97 mm bore have a different casing than the others (the Sauer 2700 is no longer available, only the 2500). They use the "Wasserboxer" casing. This casing is originally made for 1900cc and 2100cc displacement, and obviously can accept at least 2700cc (97 mm bore and 90 mm stroke). The casing itself is not water cooled, only the cylinders and the top, but the casing is much stronger built than the air cooled casing. It is originally made of aluminum (I think), at least the Sauer and Limbachs are aluminum, but they make their own cases. Limbachs highest powered engines have water cooled top; The 100 HP L 2400 DFI/EFI, and the turbo engines, the 130 HP L2400 DT and the 160 hp L2400 DTX. Below are drawings of the air cooled cooled casing and the Wasserboxer casing.



    

Friday, April 18, 2014

Horizontal surface

Riveted the skin on to the horizontal surface. Used mostly solid rivets because the holes were a tiny bit too large for the pop rivets. On the ribs I used Cherymax.


Thursday, April 10, 2014

Engines (back to basic)

Engines are constantly at the back of my head these days. To be able to run on Avgas UL91 seems to be a "must" judging by how things are developing. The ability to run on mogas becomes less important.

I have narrowed it down to VW engines. I have to mount the engine in the aircraft within a reasonable time. I have also included carb, double ignition, exhaust etc in the price. The list looks like this:

Name Type HP(max) RPM(max) cc kg Price € TBO [H] UL91 Mogas
Revmaster 2300 85 3200 2331 77 € 5 975 1 200 TBD 98*
Hummel 2400 85 3400 2387 76 € 5 380 0 Y 98*
AeroVee 2.1 80 3400 2180 73 € 5 372 0 Y 98*
Great Plains 2300 80 3600 2276 75 € 5 907 0 Y 98*
Sauer 2200 UL 85 3000 2234 66 € 10 506 1 600 Y 98
Sauer 2400 UL 100 3500 2332 75 € 11 442 1 600 Y 95


Revmaster
Pro: Overall excellent quality, TBO, HP, highly recommended by people I have contacted who are using it
Con: Will it run on UL91? That is being tested at this moment.

Hummel
Pro: Largest capacity (2387cc, almost 10% more than AeroVee), HP, UL91
Con: Rather unknown to me, and the website is almost void of info. TBO = 0

AeroVee
Pro: Supported by Sonex, easiest way to get flying, Prop, baffling and everything else fits 100%, UL91, the macho factor of flying around with an engine I have put together myself.
Con: Smallest capacity, HP? TBO = 0, the anxiety factor of flying around with an engine I have put together myself.

GP
Pro: Old and respected company, UL91
Con: Extremely High RPM, TBO = 0

Sauer
Pro: Overall the best engine, HP, Support, TBO, UL91, mogas
Con: Price, probably the most difficult to fit onto the airframe ?


The most desirable is Sauer. Then the Revmaster, more or less a less costly Sauer. I really hope it runs on Avgas UL91. The AeroVee is probably the engine that makes most sense to install, everything considered. The Hummel is the joker of the bunch.

Wednesday, April 09, 2014

Vertical tail skinned

My controller was here yesterday and signed off all the things. Finally I could rivet on the skin on the vertical tail. I am very pleased with the result. A 31 drill (instead of the usual 30) and relaxing a bit on the deburring really makes perfect fit flush rivets with the stem correctly positioned into the rivet.



Monday, April 07, 2014

Aft fuselage

Spent lots of time just studying the drawings. The sequence of assembling is not entirely clear and the it will be impossible to follow when using flush rivets. Things has to be countersunk/dimpled and that cannot be done when half of the skin is already riveted on. On the point about flush rivets the drawings are completely lacking information.

Things are shaping up. The aft fuselage is clecoed together and I started updrilling. I made the rudder pulleys, so they are ready to be riveted on when the time comes. I managed to updrill one pulley so the hole became very skewed, and ordered new ones.



Saturday, April 05, 2014

Thursday, April 03, 2014

F20-F22

Found all the bits and pieces. Two machined angle components were missing, had to make new ones. Chamfered and bent the pieces.


Tuesday, April 01, 2014

Bigger table

Deburred and primed all the parts for the aft middle spar. The spar have to be riveted and bolted together while it's on the fuselage. So the next step is to get a bigger table and start with the fuselage. Have to rivet the skin on the stabs as well, but my controller has to sign it off first.