I made the NG 30's and F 5. At first I decided to wait for the nose lift before moving on. Steve Wright sent me a copy of his plans so I changed my mind and carried on without the hardware. The electric nose lift can be retrofitted, so I figure it can be added after I've done the nose. I drilled all the holes per Steves plans, made some 3 inch wood blocks and taped the nose gear structure together.
I'd seen a picture on Wayne Hick's site showing the F0 being attached vertically so I did the same. Worked well. Next day I attached the structure to the fuselage.
Waynes garage gremlins must be down here on vacation. After cure I found that my Cozy had a deviated septum.
My EAA technical councilor, Ken Walz, had brought a canard expert, Tim Ragonese, with him when he checked my work at the end of chapter 4. I called Tim and asked if he'd come back and take a look at my workmanship now that I'd made a bit more progress. Tim has built a long and now flies his Velocity out of LNA. Next day he showed up. He was expecting to see, maybe the fuselage sides. He was quite surprised at how far I'd got since his visit 11 weeks earlier. Tim examined my canard, fuselage, landing gear etc. with a keen eye and said that it was good.
Later, Ken dropped by to take a look. I feel better about moving forward knowing that an experienced builder has looked at my work.
I cut and carved the urathane foam for the bottom and microed it in place. I corrected the bent nose using a tight bungie cord while the glass on the inside of nose bottom cured in place.
Next came the sides. I carved and glassed the foam, then fitted them in place. I had a bit of trouble mating the sides to the base. First the dry glass got stuck under in the join. Then I saw that the join between side and base was curved inwards. I'd shaped too far down on the sides so I had to mix up some dry micro and radius the corner. I'd used all fast hardner in the epoxy, it was a hot night and I was doing both sides at once. There was no wait time at all between glassing the sides and installing them. In fact I had to rush around a bit. The glass was almost dry by the time I'd peel plied everything. This stage of construction is really quick. That's because I skipped the complex bits like the rudder pedals and brake cylinders. I'll do all this through the nose door later (when I have the parts). Maybe I'll stop at the point where I have the nose skinned, but have not yet reattached the top after cutting it off. I'd probably save work hours if I stopped now and held off till all the parts are in hand, but its elapsed time I'm concerned about and its hard to stop building when you're having so much fun. I built the bulkheads forward of F0 and made the nose tip. I cut out the area for the ballast compartment. Now the airplane looks like a 12 foot toothpick. I drew 4 1/2 inch circles below the horizontal bulkhead in the nose tip for my two landing lights. I plan to cut the foam away later and install them, but its looking like it will be a tight fit. I also skipped the pitot head for now. I can retrofit this when I have a removable pitot connector in hand.
I added the top and front foam blocks. Now the plane looks like a kids boxcar. I had to cut the sides down a bit to get the top to sit nicely on F5. Over a few hours of carving, sanding and rubbing with foam the shape gradually changed to more like the NASA shuttle shape I was after.
I learned a few things during this exercise. The 5 min epoxy I used to glue the nose blocks and the micro I used to install the sides was a big nuisance. As the foam came down to shape I kept reaching areas of glue which catch on the sanding block and form ridges. If I were doing this again I'd be real careful not to put micro or glue on any edge which is eventually going to be sanded away. Later I got the following email from Wayne Hicks....
>Try this technique. Chris Scida told me he got great results by using pour >foam to glue the blocks together. (After all, it's urethane foam, right?) >Don't know how applicable it is to 13, but you'll definitely want to use >this technique for Chapter 18. Apparently, what you do is hold the two >blocks together with a slight gap between them. Quickly mix the pour-foam, >then pour it in the slot. Then it poofs up, and in the process, mates the >two blocks together. Chris said it's messy, that the pour foam tends to run >everywhere, but it's easy to sand. You also don't have to worry about >hitting any micro or glue.Sounds like a really good idea. I will try it in Chap 18.
I carved the entire nose without rotating the fuselage. I had the nose fairly high up
on a saw horse and was able to do the underneath without too much trouble. Got a lot
of foam dust on my head, but I like the idea of carving the whole shape at once. I could get a
good feel for the evolving shape by standing back and looking at the results. If the fuse had
been upside down I dont think this would have worked as well. Now that I've
rationalized this deviation from plans; the real reason was that the main gear is still
on the plane and turning it over would have been a pain.
These were fairly interesting to make. So much so that I made them twice. I didnt like the
results on the first shot because the box sealing tape had wrinkled and you could see
the joins. I invented a couple of new release methods. I used some shrink wrap film
(without heating it) followed by some of my wide peel ply, then the skin, then some more
peel ply. The result was, to my standards, a perfect nose door and ballast cover. I
then sanded the nose to accommodate the two covers flush and sanded an indentation for
the tape joints. The join at F0 went a bit too far, so when I removed the foam later
I sanded the angle on F0 a bit more to get it level with the foam again. Later,
during finishing, I found that I hadnt taken enough off F0. I had a bit of a
bump at the top near F0 which took some work to get rid of.
Was ready to cut the holes as described by Brian DeFord when a visiting A&P mentioned that the lights I bought use airflow for cooling, and might get a little hot. Hmmm. I rigged up one of the bulbs. He's right. You can get a tan from these things 10 feet away. At 3 inches (where my plexiglass would be) its enough to melt almost anything, including the plexiglass and probably the rest of my airplane nose. I want lots of light, not small automotive ones which probably dont produce as much heat. The space in the ballast compartment would be reduced to allow the light to pass through, and I'm not sure how good a job I can do with the plexiglass lenses. I prefer the idea of a white nose with no "eyes". I'm rethinking this and wondering if [suprise, suprise] perhaps the plans approach is best here. This sage continues in Chapter 17.
Much later, in Oct '01, I made my heated pitot system in a fairly sneaky way. I've read that a number of builders have found that the pito works just fine if it's flush with the nose rather than sticking out. I've also read that a heated pitot is not a requirement for IFR. The way one builder put it is that, if you get to the point that ice blocks you're pitot the ice on the flying surfaces will already have turned you into a lawn dart. I wanted a heated pitot anyway, but didnt want a heavy, ugly and expensive one. I'd put, so I found a sneaky and free solution. I'd installed a halogen landing light in the nose. Halogen lights get fairly hot, so I ran the al tube for the pitot directly under the light where it will be heated by radiation. The actual pitot head is tapered brass about half an inch long which protrudes just under the light. The tip is only 1.5 inches from the halogen bulb and the tube passes within 1/2 inch of the bulb. This way the pitot gets hot when I put the landing light on, and wont get trodden on or stuffed with dirt. I threaded the end of the tube and added a "Remove before flight" flag which attaches to the end with a screw.
I still didn't have my rudder pedals and noselift, but I did have BID, so I went onward with the nose. The
procedure for making the nose door is a little weird, but it all works out fine.
I glassed the nose top, then (to Char's horror) cut it off again with a hacksaw.
Seems strange, but thats what the plans say to do. Glassed the inside of the top and floxed and
taped it back on.
After the nose had cured I cut the door for my ballast compartment, then carved out all the foam
from inside the nose. I had planned to leave a small layer of foam for a skin, but the
urathane came out in chunks. Once the foam was removed my nose cone seemed a little
weak with only one skin, so I microed 3/8 foam pieces on the inside in until
I had a complete internal foam skin, then glassed it with two ply BID. My nose
feels a lot stronger now.
While waiting for parts I plan to carry on and do some finishing work on
the nose section.
