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.

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 This casing is originally made for 1900cc and 2100cc displacement, and obviously can accept at least 2700cc (97 mm bore and 90 mm stroke).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 It is originally made of aluminum (I think), at least the Sauer and Limbachs are aluminum, but they make their own cases.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.

    

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.

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.

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.

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.

Aft fuselage

Cut the inspection holes and started clecoing together.

F20-F22

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

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.