Left Wing

Started with the left wing, and the angle bracket was wrong there too. Had to make a new one. Starting to have some brackets now :-) 7 in total, only two of them are correct.

Radio and Transponder

The stash arrived today. Very nice and main unit is tiny. Much smaller than what I had perceived from photos. Both are Trig units, TY91 and TT21, came from AirworldUK.

Right Wing

Drilling, dimpling, countersinking ....

Outer right wing skin

Drilled 1/2 of the outer right wing skin.

Outer wing skin

Started with skinning the wing while waiting for parts from ACS. The new angle for the aft spar/inner rib was wrong as I anticipated. The original was wrong, and a new one had to be made. Today I made a third, and drilled the holes when the skin was laid out. Hopefully this will be correct.

MGL instrument received

The MGL Explorer lite and all the other goodies came today from MGL in England, Parts For Aircraft. A very good experience doing business with them. I also order the ECB with the switch kit, so no I have to do some soldiering as well.

Windshield

Finished all the controls, those in the cockpit at least. Then continued on with the windshield. One thing I didn't do was to read the drawing update close enough. The brackets for the windshield bow is too far aft originally (pilots holes are wrong). So this has to be fixed. This also means the throttle will be further forward, and I have to make a new throttle bracket as well, because the holes will be wrong. I can re-use one hole, but not the other.

Ordered all the instruments. MGL Explorer lite and Trig radio and transponders. It's all coming within a week.

Fuel valve, part II

Decided to simply fix the Airward solution so the moment only goes to turning the valve, not bending it sideways. It should work if I handle the valve with care, and if it starts leaking somewhere down the line, I have "installed" the Airward kit for removing the glareshield and wind shield, and can fix things IF that happens.

One thing I saw when I was finished, was that the weight of the fittings would close the valve during high G maneuvers. It would go to a half closed position (theoretically, I doubt it would actually do it due to the friction in the valve). I thought, oh no, gonna do it all over again, but then I remembered the big, red "Airward knob". It balances the fittings almost perfectly and acts in the opposite direction. So everything looks good (hopefully, unless the fuel level probe crashes).

I also primed the whole thing. Things just looks much nicer and "aircrafty" when primed.

  

Trim knob and tank valve

Riveted on the trim knob holder. The tank main shut off valve kit from Airward looked OK, but the design is not good. The idea is good, but the way it is done it creates way too much lateral moment on the valve to my liking. The valve itself is fastened to the tank by "fusing" the fittings somehow into the plastic of the tank and can't possibly take much forces before it starts to leak. It is really an incredibly poor design. First the fastening of the valve to the tank through the fittings, then the position of the valve itself that in the original layout is impossible to reach with the belts on, and impossible to see if it's on or off.

What I can do is to modify the Airward kit so that it creates no lateral moment. That is an easy fix, but it would still create lots of "tangential" moment on the fittings in the plastic. The best thing is to install a real shut off valve mounted on the airframe, but that will also create more head loss, and where to put it? Have to think about this a bit.