Plane for sale

On a wall in the hangar of the RV-7A project, a dry-ink board indicates the number of hours I've worked on it so far -- 2,339 2,429 2,742. Another 30 or so hours, and the plane will probably fly.

I need you to put that 30 hours into it. N614EF -- the RV-7A project -- is for sale. I no longer have the means not only to finish building it, but to fly it when it's done. I'm hoping you do.

This has been a pay-as-you-go project with the exception of the engine, but I now need to pay down the debt on it, and sock some money away for anticipated medical bills that continue to increase in the family at a particularly alarming rate.

I put the kit up for sale years ago -- around the time I was working on the wings -- but I pressed on in the hope I could get it done, increase its value, and sell it as a flying airplane, getting my investment into it back. That no longer is an option.

This is what I call a "working man's" airplane. It's not a show plane by any stretch of the imagination. But I believe it's well built and its progress has certainly been well documented.



Here are the particulars on the plane, which is very much built to plans (update 10/14/11 - updated to reflect recent work):

RV-7A
- wings attached.
- Canopy completely finished but not presently attached.
Engine: Mattituck TMX IO-360 - vertical updraft (New: $24,000)
Configured for fixed-pitch prop by plumbed for constant speed ($2600)
Plane Power 60 amp internally regulated alternator
One mag, one Lighspeed electronic ignition. Wiring not done.
(Update 11/14 - First engine start here)

Instrument panel - VFR (About $10,000)
- Dynon D100
- Vertical Power VP-50
- Grand Rapids EIS 400 engine monitor
- ICOM A210 radio (antenna installed on belly)
- Garmin 327 transponder (antenna installed on belly)
- 406 mhZ ELT (antenna on top)
- TruTrak wing leveler - servo in right wing
- Backup altimeter and airspeed indicator installed and plumbed
Interior: Flightline interior seats and interior package (not yet installed)
-- Hooker Harness 5-point belts
Prop: New Sensenich fixed-pitch prop. Not yet mounted.
Vetterman exhaust
-- False floors with soundproofing

WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE

- I've started installing the fuel lines but haven't finished.
- The engine monitor connections
- Oil lines
- I've started on the baffle kit but I'm only on page 4. Done.
- I have an oil cooler but I'm not sure it's compatible Oil cooler fit but not yet mounted.
- The cowling is fitted and drilled but I haven't done the oil door or done the cosmetic work. Pinholes filled. Ready for primer.
- The wing tips need to be installed. The wires for the Whelen strobes are already run and panel connections made.
- Wheel pants and leg fairings and empennage fairing not completed.
- Soundproofing of the firewall (I've made rough templates but all the conflicting information on VAF has made me wait)
- Filtered airbox mods and installation for vertical updraft (a blank .063 bracket is already cut, in order to move it slightly to the right)

There are no used parts anywhere on the airplane.

The plane is currently housed at KSGS -- Fleming Field Airport in South St. Paul.

I don't really have a set price at this time, though I'm thinking around $70,000.

Please, no tire kickers or people who want to look at it just because you think you might someday want to build an airplane. I don't have that kind of time to waste.

(Want to help me? Please print out this flyer and post at your FBO)

Update 12:34 p.m. Aug. 30 - It's official! My wife has lost her job and, yes, the plane is still for sale. I've actually put another 250 hours of work into it since this was posted, so my original estimate of how much was left to do was off by a few hundred hours. Now, there really is not much left to do and it's about ready for an engine start. The price is the same but once the engine starts, it jumps to $75,000 and once it's got an airworthiness certificate and its test period is flown off, it goes to $80,000.

Stuck in flyover country

I haven't posted much lately. It's winter in Minnesota. You have almost no chance of getting a good day to fly. My currency at the FBO expires on Sunday and while I have a plane reserved for tomorrow, it appears to be too crappy to fly.

It's too cold to work at the hangar. I'm too broke to make any progress on the plane.

I need motivation. This new video is a start. Just a start.

Fun with fuel lines

Some years ago, I wrote an essay on determining when "good enough" is good enough on your RV airplane-building project. In matters of firewall forward, however, it's very difficult for a novice airplane builder like me to know when good enough is good enough.

For the last week, I've been building a couple of fuel lines for the RV-7A and I thought things were going OK until I asked a question on Van's Air Force regarding firesleeves. That's when someone noticed that I'm using aluminum fittings.

We went back and forth and I learned that:

-1- Aluminum fittings shouldn't be used.
-2- Aluminum fittings can be used.

Then today came the question about the route my fuel line is taking. See, the problem is I'm building a nose-gear airplane and there are extra "tubes" on the engine mount for a nose gear plane. You people with tail draggers have it easy. See destination, route to destination.

I, on the other hand, have an additional maze to get through.

Anyway, once the aluminum fitting vs. steel fitting debate petered out without a declared victor, the route I took for the fuel line is faulty because my original plan to clamp it to an engine mount is faulty.

Perhaps it doesn't matter in the short term because once I put the firesleeve on, a lot of the slack I depended on to allow me to clamp it (a fuel line needs flexibility because the engine is going to be shaking) disappeared.

So regardless, I've got to build a new fuel line and, frankly, the money is used up and that pretty much kills progress until spring. God love ya, Christmas shopping season! Oh what the heck! It's too cold to be building airplanes anyway.

Here's a video that shows how things are:

Making your own fuel lines for your RV airplane

If you've not yet worked significantly on the firewall forward portion of your RV airplane project, let me warn you: fuel and oil lines are unbelievably expensive. I learned that lesson the hard way: Buying the stock fuel and oil lines based on Van's drawings.

There are too many engine combinations (mine is an IO-360 from Mattituck with vertical updraft) to make buying stock fuel lines worthwhile. Even if you could get them to fit on your engine, you'll likely be making some concessions to efficiency -- and maybe even safety -- to get them to fit.

It's possible, of course, to have your fuel and oil lines custom built, and certainly there are plenty of RVers out there with enough money to build their airplanes merely by writing checks. I am not one of those people, however, and I strongly believe in the basis for building your own airplane: recreation and education. I've learned so much from building my RV-7A so far, that I enjoy the challenge of understanding how things work.

(Read more on RV Builder's Hotline)

Test flight videos

It seems like an eternity ago, but it was only a few short years ago when the sight of an RV-related video online was the sort of thing to make me drop what I'm doing. There were few of them.

Now, they're everywhere and the thrill is mostly gone. They're not that great to begin with and seeing a shaky out-the-front-window view of an RV simply isn't enough to provide substantial builder motivation for me anymore.

There are exceptions, and this week Matt Dralle, who runs the RV List (still the best place to get good archived RV-building information, because the search engine actually works), has uploaded a couple of well-done videos from his RV-8 test flights.

Here's part one:



And here's part two:



Well done, indeed.

Does it motivate me? Sure, it does. The problem is it's 17 degrees out at the hangar this morning, and I'm in one of those stretches when every task runs into some roadblock.

I got a bunch of orders from Van's (baffle kit and hose-making kit) and Aircraft Spruce (hardware) the other day so I thought I'd finish up getting the starter cable secured around the engine as it makes its way to the firewall.

That ended when I realized I didn't have the right sized Adel clams (DG-5) to secure it to the aluminum prop oil line (I don't have a controllable prop, but I've got the system configured for one to preserve resale value). Last night I started creating "fake" fuel lines (using plastic tubing from Ace Hardware) only to realize that I need a straight fitting instead of a 90 degree fitting. I bought some steel fittings for the engine to connect the oil cooler hoses but when putting one in, I accidentally bashed the threads for the flared fitting nut on one. So now I have to order another 45-degree fitting.

I ended up taking a bathroom break and walking up to the terminal. Both bathrooms were out of toilet paper.

That's a sign to go home and watch football.

RVator's Log - December

Doug Weiler, who heads the RV builder's group in the Twin Cities, is a fine writer and does a great job of issuing the group's quarterly newsletter. It's been more than 10 years since I joined the group and, you know, there really aren't a lot of newsletters -- including EAA chapter newsletters -- that are so consistently published, let alone continuously published while maintaining high standards.

You can find it here.

How to build your own airplane

The RV airplane's baffling kit arrived in the mail yesterday, along with the fuel lines and tools I need to build my own fluid lines in the airplane. But it's 36 degrees out there and I don't have much heat in the hangar and I'm having a hard time getting motivated to work on the airplane.

If only I had a book to read in the meantime:

Running AOPA is a pretty good gig

I work for a non-profit whose president is regular skewered for making too much money, so I bring a different perspective to the question of reasonable compensation for a president of an advocacy organization.

That said, 14.5% pay increases for AOPA's top executives, including more than $1.8 million for the horrendous Phil Boyer, before he mercifully retired, is stretching the bounds.

AVWEB has the story, but unfortunately buried new president Craig Fuller's salary deep into the story. It's about $500,000, which is a lot of money, but is not unreasonable for a CEO.

Still, it will be worth popping some popcorn and watching the AOPA membership reaction, given that annual dues were just raised to $45.

The salaries of Washington are simply too incomprehensible for "normal" (that is, outside of the Beltway) people. Yesterday, for example, I found out the very excellent airport manager at South St. Paul airport (KSGS) has been laid off by the city council, in order to "save" $40,000.

I doubt the City Council considered what's involved in running a small airport, including managing fuel sales and keeping tenants happy, especially on a field that houses both Wipaire and Ballistic Recovery Systems. They're going to divide up his duties among three city departments, none of whom -- as far as I know -- knows anything about running an airport.

Yesterday, I heard some old-timers grousing about the move. A week ago they were grousing about government getting too big and needing to cut taxes.

I doubt they've made the connection yet.

The engine in earnest

I hung the engine on N614EF more than a year ago, but now that the cowling is -- mostly -- done (structurally speaking ), I'm trying to get going on serious work to get the engine all hooked up.

Yesterday I spent a ridiculous amount of time getting the ground strap from the engine case to the firewall hooked up. I wanted to make the power line from the contactors to the alternator but two things cropped up -- I can't find any of the paperwork (or wiring) for the alternator (which I put up last winter), and I've noticed some builder sites are running a #8 wire, and the instructions call for a #2. I'm going with the #2, but don't have the connectors for the wire. More ordering. More delay. More shipping.

So today I'm adding on some fittings for the oil case which will attach hoses to and from the oil cooler. And, of course, I ran into problems.

Here's one:

 

This calls for a straight fitting, but I have the right angle oil filter adapter on this IO-360 engine from Mattituck. What should I do here? A 45 degree fitting?

I also installed this 45 degree fitting on the other oil connection. But it's unclear how I "clock" it. Which way should it be pointing?

I also looked some more at the fuel line from the pump to the fuel servo. On a 7A, there's VERY little room to run the thing, especially with a vertical updraft engine. I need to figure out how close to the heat shield on an exhaust, the fuel line can come.

Start. Stop. Start. Stop.

Slowdown season

Building an airplane in flyover country, I imagine, is like the exchange rate for the dollar. I've put 2,315 hours into the project so far, which I started in July 2001. I'll bet 2,315 hours in other parts of the country are equivalent to half that.

Part of that is my refusal to adjust too much of the rest of my life to the demands of building -- lately my vice is season tickets to the Minnesota Timberwolves because I can hang out with my adult children, which beats airplanes any day -- but part of it is the reality of the seasons, especially in an unheated T-hangar.

From the moment the hangar door opens for the first time in April (usually), an airplane builder in the north hears the clock ticking. Winter is coming and there's lots to get done before it does.

I was fortunate this year that it stayed warm fairly late into the year, so I was able to get most of the structural work and some fiberglassing accomplished on the cowling.

But this morning it's 28 degrees and my building list includes things like "pack up all the paint, epoxy, and fluids and move them back to the warmth of the house," lest they be destroyed by freezing.

My hangar has a bit of a problem with flooding, because of the way the city graded the ramp. In the winter, the melting snow on the roof ends up flowing back into the hangar and then freezing. Fortunately, we have the American Reinvestment Act doing its good deed. Because of the "stimulus," there are road-construction signs everywhere, each weighted down with sandbags.

So I liberated a couple from the clutches of big government the other day and put them along the bottom of the hangar door. Sadly, this mean that I can't open the hangar door until next spring.

For the first time in months, I sat in the hangar (I stop on the way home from work each day) and wondered "what can I do?" There was nothing to do because I'm now transitioning to engine plumbing and orders from Van's and B&C hadn't arrived yet, and I also haven't ordered the things I need to start making the various hoses I need to make. This is the transition period when one switches from "airplane building stuff that you should do in the warm weather," to "airplane stuff you can do in cold weather" mode.

I also failed -- again -- to pick up 5 gallons of diesel that powers the kerosene heater. A builder's workshop needs to be comfortable, especially when it's mostly metal and cement.

Eventually, I'll get back on an even schedule and a good list of things that can be done when it's cold at the hangar, but this usually takes a few weeks of re-evaluating where I am in the project.

So here I sit in the warmth of Casa Collins, pouring over increasingly frayed airplane plans, coming up with that list.

This weekend I hope to attack the project again. But first I have to get the snowblower ready.

The interior

A sure sign that the great airplane-building project is almost done is the arrival of the final touch -- the interior. Yesterday, the interior arrived.

I had the seats covered a few years ago but now that the inside of the plane is mostly done, it was time to get it gussied up. Abby at Flightline Interiors in Wisconsin did the work. As with so many other purchases on this project, I selected her because she consistently gets high marks from other RV builders. I trust the RV community and haven't been steered wrong yet. I certainly wasn't this time, either. She's delightful to work with and her expertise is outstanding.

Word of mouth is a pretty effective way to keep a business going in bad times. What don't you get about that, big American corporations?

It doesn't look like much sitting in the box, perhaps, but I'm looking forward to getting it installed.

 

And therein lies the problem, I suppose. It's a real motivator to get the inside all put together. But before the plane can fly, it needs an inspection. And in the final inspection, anything that can be uncovered needs to be uncovered. So while it might be great motivation to get the inside all put together and looking great, it doesn't make a lot of sense.

This weekend, I'm going to get the inside all put together and looking great.

For the love of flying

I've been building my airplane for almost 10 years. This guy has been working on his for one year. I fret about whether a 1/8" gap between a cowling and a firewall is too much (it is). He, umm, doesn't.

But which one of us loves aviation more? Good question.



I don't know whether that thing is going to fly or not. In his column today, James Fallows points out that it almost doesn't matter:

But in my experience -- mainly In Ghana and Kenya during the 70s, in Southeast Asia in the 1980s, and in China these past few years -- there is a cumulatively very different and very powerful experience that comes from meeting person after person like the Kenyan aviator-aspirant. That is, people whose material circumstances and range of experience are vastly different from a typical person's in London or high-end Shanghai or San Francisco, and who objectively have nowhere near the same opportunities -- but who take their own life drama and possibilities just as seriously and can dream just as ambitiously. For instance, I am thinking of a man in his 70s in a village in western China whose consuming project is a handwritten history of life in his village, from his boyhood during the era of war in the late 1930s and 1940s, through the Great Leap Forward of the 1950s, to the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, and onward. He is someone who wears the same pants, shirt, and jacket virtually every day, because that's what he has. He is part of "the rural poor," but he has a plan and a dream.

The Cowling Chronicles - Episode 3

Since last we met, I've seen the light on the finagled installation procedure of the cowling on my RV-7A project. Enjoy. Or not.

The landing slump

It feels like years since I've made a decent landing in an airplane. I'm in a slump. I can't tell you for sure when it began, and now I can't tell you when it's going to end.

This is one of the problem with being a renter: It's too expensive to get out and keep one's skills sharp. Yesterday, Carolie and I flew along the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers to check out flooding that hit last week after some areas got 10 or more inches of rain in 24 hours.

Carolie usually doesn't fly with me, so it was nice to have her along. It was a little bumpy down low and she probably drove up the stock of Benadryl a fair amount, but she's a trooper:

 

And before the flight, I perform the traditional toast to the airplane.

 

Actually, I'm checking the fuel sample I just took out of the wing tank.

Then we flew...



The actual flying skills were fine -- better than fine, actually. I held altitude at 1,000 feet AGL in steep turns over Pine Island. While filming.



What else went right? Situational awareness. We flew well, we spotted the traffic (including birds) we needed to find, we did a great job of communicating through some busy airspace around Mankato, keeping everyone alert for us, and helping them navigate around us. We got a great view of tow plane, cutting its tie to a Civil Air Patrol glider over Mankato, and then diving for the ground.

There's just this landing thing to overcome.

We headed over to Red Wing for a bathroom break and a check of the Vikings score. Red Wing is a huge runway (5,000 feet), along the Mississippi, below bluffs on the Wisconsin side. And, sure, it gets a little squirrely, but it shouldn't have been as poor a landing as it was, especially given an incredibly stabilized four mile final.

But it was a bad landing, partially because the size of the runway makes you think you're lower than you really are, and partly because I'm not focusing on the far end of the runway, I'm looking ahead of the nose. I know this is the problem, I'm just not getting out enough to practice it.

So as we bounced down the runway, I firewalled the throttle and executed a go-around, which couldn't have thrilled Carolie, who rarely flies with me and didn't know what I was doing.

The second landing was a little better, but I still dropped it the last 10 feet or so.

And back at Flying Cloud -- a more familiar runway -- I had a better landing, but still not great.

As the RV-7A project nears its conclusion, I always think immediately after landings, "What would have happened if you were flying an RV?" I don't like the answer.

(If you're reading this via Facebook, you'll have to go to the "original posting" to see the video and Flash slideshow)

Near mid-air over Minneapolis

From time to time I write here about aircraft accidents and, in particular, near misses. I usually hear pretty quickly -- at least at my day job -- from commercial pilots  who say it's no big deal. This shouldn't be one of those times.

The National Transportation Safety Board has issued this news release on what it classifies as a "near midair" over Minneapolis St. Paul.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating a near midair collision between a commercial jetliner and a small cargo aircraft that came within an estimated 50 to 100 feet of colliding near the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport

On September 16, 2010, about 6:49 a.m. CDT, US Airways flight 1848 (AWE 1848), an Airbus 320, was cleared for takeoff on runway 30R en route to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, carrying five crewmembers and 90 passengers.

At the same time, Bemidji Aviation Services flight 46 (BMJ46), a Beech 99 cargo flight with only the pilot aboard, was cleared for takeoff on runway 30L en route to La Crosse, Wisconsin. Weather conditions at the time were reported as a 900-foot ceiling and 10 miles visibility below the clouds.

Immediately after departure, the tower instructed the US Airways crew to turn left and head west, causing the flight to cross paths with the cargo aircraft approximately one-
half mile past the end of runway 30L. Neither pilot saw the other aircraft because they were in the clouds, although the captain of the US Airways flight reported hearing the Beech 99 pass nearby. Estimates based on recorded radar data indicate that the two aircraft had 50 to 100 feet of vertical separation as they passed each other approximately 1500 feet above the ground.

The US Airways aircraft was equipped with a Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) that issued climb instructions to the crew to avert collision. The Beech 99 was not equipped with TCAS and the pilot was unaware of the proximity of the Airbus. There were no reports of damage or injuries as a result of the incident.

NTSB and FAA investigators conducted a preliminary investigation at the Minneapolis airport traffic control tower on September 18th and 19th and are continuing to review
the circumstances of this incident.

In the past, when I've forwarded these reports of near mishaps, some pilots have suggested it's much ado about nothing. This is different. Fifty-to-100 feet in the clouds? That's a big deal.

To help you visualize these things, both planes took off on parallel runways, heading in the same direction. That happens all the time. Turning one plane into the path of another is highly unusual.

Update 11:55 a.m. - Here's the audio of the conversations that morning. The controller ordered the left turn -- to the south -- for the Bemidji flight as he gave the flight permission to take off. Normally, that turn would begin when about 500 feet off the ground, probably before the end of the runway. The turn would send the plane away from the parallel runway, where the US Air jet was also taking off.

A few minutes later, the controller asks the Bemidji flight if he's "in the turn." The pilot doesn't understand the question and asks for it to be repeated. It's not repeated. A minute or so later, the pilot asks to change frequencies to the departure controller and is granted the request. From the sound of things, that happened after the near miss. The controller asks, "why didn't you start the turn after departure?" The pilot's radio is nearly unintelligible, but I think he says, "forgot to go to departure," meaning he didn't change frequencies to the departure controller, which would have put him on the same frequency as the US Air flight.

Update 12:17 p.m. - As suspected, there were two planes on two different frequencies here. Here's the tape of the "departure frequency" when the US Air pilot (Known as "Cactus" because it's an Air West flight operating under the US Air colors) reports the near miss. The controller says he thought the Bemidji flight was going to go straight.

As with most disasters -- and near disasters -- this looks like the typical "chain of events," the breaking of any one of which -- repeating a question, repeating an instruction, knowing what each plan was for each airplane -- would've prevented it.

Of course, an investigation will take place, but this one isn't going to be hard to figure out. (Audio via LiveATC.net)

By the way, weather at the time was 0900 overcast and, of course, it was dark.

So what could have prevented this? File this under speculation but let's call it "informed speculation." On the tower tape, I did not hear either a request to change to departure frequency or an instruction to change to departure frequency. I don't know if that's even required (although I believe it is). But the tower controller asked two minutes after the La Crosse-bound flight took off whether the pilot had made the turn? That would indicate that the controller knew the guy was still on his frequency, wouldn't it?

The departure frequency indicates another problem. This incident occurred right at that moment when a pilot makes a transition from tower to departure. In fact, as you can hear, the US Air pilot asks "what's this guy doing off our left" before the departure controller confirms that he's got the US Air flight on his radar. That's a really icky time for things to fall through the cracks.

Update 5:30 p.m. - Here's my interview on Minnesota Public Radio's All Things Considered: