N202PJ

Time to move on

admin — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 17:59:55 +0000

Last summer two things happened that changed my life in ways that I never fully anticipated. The first was starting a business and the second was starting a family. Needless to say that my life was already very full, now, it is exceptionally so. And I wouldn’t change it for the world.

With that came the very tough decision to move on from the RV-9A build. Its a two seat airplane, we have a 3 @ss family. That math doesn’t work out. More importantly though, time is precious, and I try to spend as much with Carrie and Patti as possible. With that said my airplane project has found a new home down in Virginia. I have very confidence that it will worked on by a talented individual and become a beautiful machine. In the mean time I have been flying a very nice Arrow made available to me by a friend. It feels great to get up in the sky regularly again.

Thanx for watching, I hope it has been educational and fun for you. I know it was for me.

Updated Gallery

admin — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 01:24:14 +0000

I haven’t published many updates lately because life is really busy right now. However, lots of progress has been made on the plane. My dad likes to check in and see progress, so, this update is for him. Here is a picture to get the general consensus of where the project is today. Check out the link to the right to get to the gallery where there are a bunch more shots.

Rolled it over!

John — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 23:43:48 +0000

Mom and Dad came over the weekend of 7/4 to celebrate the holiday. While they were there I used a fair bit of Patti’s time and a ton of Dad’s time to help rivet the fuse together in preparation of rolling it over. After 3 days of riveting I was done with it. I was making the joke that the next one would have to tube and fabric though I am not so sure Patti appreciated that type of humor.

Here are the results. Needless to say there are a ton of details to be addressed in getting this far. The structure has many different parts fits and things to be aware of while riveting. For a ton more photos in this update check out the link to the left.

Next step is to work on the stop skins ….

Fuselage Center Section Joined!

admin — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 02:36:04 +0000

I have been putting in quite a few hours working on the plane during the holiday break. I have been quite blessed in that my new employer shuts down during the week between Christmas and New Years effectively giving us an extra week of vacation. In between the occasional holiday nap I have managed to spend 7 - 9 hours per day on the plane for the past 6 days or so. The result is that the center section of the fuselage has been riveted together and after Neil came over today the longerons have been notched and the center section joined to the tail cone. Here are some pictures going over what has been done up to this point. More (and full size) photos are in the gallery (link to the right).

Here are the spar box bulkheads being match drilled to the side plates.

Seat belt hard points being fabricated and installed.

Double countersinking the 904 bulkhead flange to allow the main landing gear assembly to nest into the bulkhead later.

God has blessed me incredibly with friends like Neil who helped me install heat in my shed. The result is that I am able to prime parts despite it being 29 degrees outside.

The last two images show more detail of how the center section of the fuselage is mated to the tail cone.

What a cute rear end …

John — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 03:52:30 +0000

The fuse’s that is …

Its been a bit since my last update. Lots have happened in the past few weeks. I got a good amount of time to work on the plane during the Thanksgiving holiday making use of my Dad while he was in town. Since then I have been able to keep the pace up. This weekend I was blessed by a snow storm (I can’t believe that I actually said that) that allowed Patti and I to stay in all weekend and finish riveting the tail section. I was thrilled to have that finished up as some of the rivets were a bit tedius to get to. And to top it all off the tail section was a true and twist free as one could possible hope. Basically over the past few weeks we have been able to:

Fully rivet the aft fuselage
Modify Seat ribs for control system access.
Debur / edge prep seat ribs.
Mock up center section.
Match drill center section.

Make sure that you check out the photos in the photo gallery (link off to the right.) Next up is to fit the crotch hard points that will support the anti-submarine belts of the 5pt harnesses.

Fuse Upate

John — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:07:19 +0000

Obviously it has been a long time since I have updated the blog. Though things have been moving forward and as of late I have been making great progress on the build and hope to get more regular with the blog updates. For now here is a snapshot of where the fuse is. We also just modified the door on the house so that we can get the fuse in and out. For more pictures on the fuse work use the gallery link on the right of the page and you can see a bunch more of the build.

Moving on to the Fuse!

admin — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 01:05:12 +0000

John never posts anything, but you’ll be happy to know that he’s finished the wings and is working on the fuselage as we speak!! He was hoping to get it started before we leave for Airventure, and it looks like he’s met that goal. I don’t know much about what he’s done other than to say that he’s got the autopilot servos installed and the skins are on. Feel free to check out the current collection of photos on his photo gallery. Hopefully moving on to something new will put him in the mood to start blogging his building adventures.

Christmas in November

admin — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 16:14:08 +0000

John took off work early and we headed out to Hagerstown to pick up the fuselage kit for the RV-9A that we’re building. (Well, actually he’s doing most of the building but I help sometimes.) We left it in the crate overnight and unpacked it this morning.

We got everything inside and John is downstairs unwrapping and inventorying all of the parts. It was cool to see recognizable parts for once. Some of the options we ordered included steps and pedals for both sides. You can see all of the delivery pictures over in the photo album!

Starting on the Flaps

admin — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 21:54:07 +0000

I’ve been hearing cutting and grinding noises from the basement for most of the afternoon, so I ventured down for a look-see. With the ailerons done, John has started working on the flaps. Those are the assembled spars on the workbench.

I caught him in the midst of fabricating shims, mounting brackets and such for the control horns.

Ailerons Are Done

admin — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 21:37:26 +0000

Contrary to my previous statement that the ailerons were done, they actually weren’t. But John did put the finishing touches on them yesterday afternoon. They really are done now — rivets, brackets and all. Last weekend, he put proseal on the trailing edges and weighted them down with bricks so that they wouldn’t warp when he applied the rivets. It definitely worked, because they’re straight as arrows!

With the proseal drying, he turned his attention to the mounting brackets. Before starting on the last one, he handed me the parts and showed me the drawing and challenged me to build it; but was pretty surprized when I actually did it. I guess he didn’t realize that I’m getting to be pretty ok at reading the plans.

Somewhere along the way, he lost one of his rivet checkers, which has made him a very unhappy camper. We tore the whole workshop apart but can’t find it anywhere, and it’s not with the rest of them. Oh well, guess we’ll have to buy a new one.

I hear lots of noises downstairs today; not quite sure what he’s up to — I’ll have to head down for a look.