A repeat offender

 

I flew Tony Kirk in from Detroit to do the DAR inspection on the RV- 12iS and there was never any question about who I wanted to do the inspection. When he was one of the tech experts at Van's, he helped me through a lot of problems with great advice and good cheer. He did a great inspection and then we had a fine lunch at Holman's Table in St. Paul.

You will see Tony's name throughout my builder log. He has been an enormous help and there was never any question about who would do the inspection. He found one major airworthy problem (I had not tightened the bracket bolts that hold the left flaperon back when I'd taken the wings off for polishing). Great catch. He also gave me some advice to make a few things better, and we found the extra end of the throttle cable was hitting the bracket that holds the throttle assembly, so I folded that over a bit and problem was solved. And a few other things.

"This is a by-the-book build," he said, adding that it was well done. Then he added something which cracked me up.

"I'm kind of surprised," he said. 

That still cracks me up.

The perfectionist

I've started working on building an RV-12 and one of these days I'll get around to a longer post about what I've learned and what the difference is between building it and building the RV-7A. One of these days.

But here's a story for now.

I finally remembered to pick up a 1/4" drill bit from the hardware store last night so I could drill the tie-down bracket via the template.The hole is used as the inside radius of the bottom of the bracket. So whipped that up with some bandsaw and file action and it came out sweet. I'm so much more focused on quality building than I was with the 7A.

Let me explain that: I was focused on quality building on the 7A project, obviously, it was an extremely well-built machine. But this time I'm more of a perfectionist.

I mean, geez, it's just a tie-down bracket and as sweet as it looks, nobody will ever see it because it's hidden in the most aft part of the fuselage, out of site.

So why make it look like a piece of Swiss engineering?

Because I'll know, that's why.

The repeat offender

The RV-7A is now safely at its new home in Grand Rapids, Mich., and the hangar seemed empty. I'd grown accustomed to saying, "see you later, baby!" when turning off the lights and locking the door.

So I got a new "baby" the other day.



The first of the RV-12 kits arrived and I tried to recreate the 2001 picture from when the first 7A kit arrived in, but my youngest son was in Cabo.



As luck would have it, the FAA has finalized the new rules regarding medical certificates and they take effect on May 1, the day my third class medical with the special issuance expires. It seems to me that it would be possible to have continued flying the old plane, but I couldn't take the chance that the new rules would have created a gap, plus I think my health situation is more compatible with LSA -- light sport aircraft-- rules. So I'm not looking back.

Besides, I've got a plane to build. The parts fit into the back of the Subaru and it was off to the hangar.



I didn't get a chance to inventory everything until yesterday, and found the rudder skin trailing edge had been damaged.



But it's clear the plane will go together quickly -- quicker than the 11 years of N614EF, anyway. I am mindful that it's possible to be a little too confident, having already built an airplane. But my goal is to build this one without ordering any replacement parts.

Except for the rudder skin, apparently.