Saturday, March 29, 2014

Do not forget to fly

Finally good weather here, and I have been doing some flying. It is very easy to forget about flying when building, but keeping current is important when the big day arrives. My gliding club has got a new tow plane. We had a Piper Pawnee that was a pure joy to fly, but now we have a Aerospool WT9 Dynamic. The WT9 is still being used for check rides to get enough current tow pilots on the type, so we had to rent a 180 HP Super Cub for a few weeks. I spent a couple of days tugging gliders this weekend. I have also been taking some gliding lessons,.














Saturday, March 22, 2014

Engine

Watched/listened to the webcast from Sonex about the Aerovee engine.Very interesting to see how it became the engine it is today, and why it is a kit, not a finished engine. However, the lack of anything that can be called engineering in that engine, is all too obvious. All in all; a bit disappointing, still I am left with the impression that the engine is well tested in the field, the complete package is well thought through functionality vise, and that the engine will do what it is supposed to do. A good engine for the Onex? Yes.

Avgas UL91 is coming. Basically it is unleaded avgas 100LL and with octane numbers of 91 MON, 96 RON (whatever that actually means). Statoil is starting to sell this fuel in Norway. Avgas 91 UL is for all practical purposes aviation quality Mogas, and that can only be a good thing. The ability of the engine to run on UL91 is yet another additional important factor.

Name Type HP(max) RPM(max) cc kg Price € TBO [H] UL91 Mogas
Rotax 912 UL 80 2200 1300 72 € 12 142 2 000 Y 95
Rotax 912 ULS 100 2200 1400 75 € 13 499 2 000 Y 95
Rotax 912iS 100 2200 1400 75 € 18 329 2 000 Y 95
Sauer 1800 UL 68 3200 1835 64 € 7 845 1 600 Y 95
Sauer 2200 UL 85 3000 2234 66 € 9 567 1 600 Y 98
Sauer 2400 UL 100 3500 2332 75 € 10 574 1 600 Y 95
Sauer S 2100 ULT 110 3000 2161 76 € 13 586 1 600 Y 98
Limbach L2400 EFI 100 3000 2424 76 € 23 900 1 600 TBD 98
D-Motor LF26 92 3000 2690 57 € 12 600 1 500 Y 95
ULPower 260i 97 3300 2592 72 € 14 700 1 500 Y 95
ULPower 260iS 107 3300 2592 72 € 15 800 1 500 Y 98
D-Motor LF39 130 3000 3993 79 € 17 800 1 500 Y 95
ULPower 350i 118 3300 3503 78 € 18 800 1 500 Y 95
Limbach L2400 EB 84 3200 2424 82 € 19 500 1 400 TBD 98
Revmaster 2300 85 3200 2331 77 € 5 729 1 200 TBD 98*
Verner Scarlet 7H 110 3500 4127 82 € 11 990 600 Y 95
Hummel 2400 85 3600 2400 76 € 4 850 0 TBD 98*
AeroVee 2.1 80 3400 2180 73 € 5 083 0 TBD 98*
Great Plains 2300 80 3600 2276 75 € 5 199 0 TBD 98*
AeroVee 2.2T 100 3400 2180 80 € 7 266 0 TBD TBD
Viking Honda 110 2300 1500 81 € 9 439 0 TBD 98
Jabiru 2200 85 3300 2200 64 € 11 263 0 Y 95
Jabiru 3300 120 3300 3300 84 € 14 460 0 Y 95

* with reduced compression ratio, and thus reduced HP and efficiency.

A tiny bit too early for a conclusion. But the Rotax, D-motor, Viking, Limbach, Verner is realistically no longer options for me. It will be too much work to redesign everything firewall FWD. Limbach is too costly etc. From the other manufacturers I have received very positive correspondence about how to proceed and what kind of help I can expect. Sauer will be a drop-in replacement, with only minor modifications. ULPower have a guy selling motor mounts, etc. The list is therefore shortened to:

Name Type HP(max) RPM(max) cc kg Price € TBO [H] UL91 Mogas
Sauer 2200 UL 85 3000 2234 66 € 9 567 1 600 Y 98
Sauer 2400 UL 100 3500 2332 75 € 10 574 1 600 Y 95
ULPower 260i 97 3300 2592 72 € 14 700 1 500 Y 95
ULPower 260iS 107 3300 2592 72 € 15 800 1 500 Y 98
ULPower 350i 118 3300 3503 78 € 18 800 1 500 Y 95
Revmaster 2300 85 3200 2331 77 € 5 729 1 200 TBD 98*
AeroVee 2.1 80 3400 2180 73 € 5 083 0 TBD 98*
Great Plains 2300 80 3600 2276 75 € 5 199 0 TBD 98*
AeroVee 2.2T 100 3400 2180 80 € 7 266 0 TBD TBD
Jabiru 3300 120 3300 3300 84 € 14 460 0 Y 95

To achieve 80/85 HP on the american VW conversions, I will have to use 100LL. A fuel that may not be available for much longer. All the other engines runs equally well on UL91 and Mogas.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Left wing and rear mid spar

Drilled and riveted in the left side angle bracket that were wrong, and riveted on the rear spar.


Then I remembered I have one more spar, the rear mid spar. Drilling, deburring and started stacking. The outer spars are going to slide into the mid spar. It will be interesting to see how that works out when Sonex had no measurements to give out when the brackets had to change.


Left wing

Fixed the remaining two ribs and the aileron paddle


Monday, March 17, 2014

Left wing

Riveted together the inner most rib doublers and bracket. Riveted on the outer ribs.


Sunday, March 16, 2014

Left wing and the ONX-W10-03 fix

Continued on the left wing. Countersinking holes and riveting aileron brackets. Finally received the angle stock from ACS, and made new angles for the aft main spar according to this from Sonex aircraft. The description from Sonex of what is wrong and how the parts are to go together to make it right is nonexistent, and the drawings give no dimensions whatsoever. Sonex isn't even willing to send me new correct parts. Really disappointing.

The error is the pilot holes in the angle is too far down so the aft spar will be mounted too high. The result in the skin will not fit. With the new angle made, it is easy to get the rear spar to fit using some aluminium strips. The problem is getting the dimension along the aft spar correct. I used the bolt holes for the original angles, since there are no dimensions in the drawings.





Thursday, March 13, 2014

Main spar

The last 1 inch rivet in place. The spot is when I tried to clean the primed spar with some new silicone remover, not a good idea.