Mickey's RV8 Site - Tips and tricks

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Welcome to Mickey's RV8 Site
Mon, Sep 06 2010 @ 14:33 in Switzerland

How to stop a strap wrench from slipping

Sun, Apr 11 2010 @ 09:07 in Switzerland
Contributed by: Mick
Views: 127

I was trying to use a strap wrench to remove a PVC fitting on our pool's filter. It was about a 3 inch pipe, and I have 2 different sizes of strap wrench, and they just kept slipping. The surface was clean and dry, but no luck.

My 9 year old daughter suggested that I use some tape to make the wrench stick better. Brilliant! I got some double sided tape, put it around the pipe, and it worked perfectly. Just thought I'd pass this tip on - I'm sure it could be useful for removing things like oil filters.

FIPS - form in place sealing - with Proseal

Mon, Jun 27 2005 @ 17:44 in Switzerland
Contributed by: Mick
Views: 1,293

Sounds eerily similiar to a widely used technique on many access panels installed on the nations combat aircraft. It is known as FIPS.......or....... form in place sealing. Typically, an access panel (or cover) is treated with some non-stick parting agent, the structure to which the panel is affixed is prepared and slathered with a healthy layer of proseal, the access panel/cover is temporarily screwed into place with a number of fiber "donuts" between the structure and the cover. The donuts were essential in providing a uniform thickness to the proseal gasket. The squeeze-out of wet waste proseal was immediately wiped away. After cure, the cover was removed, it and the structure were cleaned up, the donuts removed and the result was a gasket like layer of proseal that provides lasting air-tight moisture protection. In practice, the slightest void or uneven thickness in the proseal formed gasket was cause for the inspection department to reject your FIPS work and make you do it all over again. It was labor intensive work and I suspect Mooney chose not to get involved with the time and expense of FIPSing.

Rick Galati RV-6A "Darla"

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Cleaning the belly with Scrubbing Bubbles

Thu, Jun 23 2005 @ 16:03 in Switzerland
Contributed by: Mick
Views: 1,163

Hello all,
I Learned a little trick from my father in law and thought I'd pass it on. His airplane is always clean, full of gas, and everything works or he doesn't rest until it meets all of the above conditions.

Anyway, the belly of his airplane is usually cleaner than the top of every other airplane on the field so I asked how he keeps it this way. His cleaner of choice is Scrubbing Bubbles bathroom cleaner. I tried it a couple of days ago on the belly of my 9A and couldn't believe it. You spray this stuff on and it foams up. As quickly as you can run a rag over it the belly is clean and there is next to no effort. To do the belly from the tie down hook on the tail to the firewall took literally less than 2 minutes and the plane looks like it just came from the painter again. There's probably other products that would work well also, but there is no reason to look further. This stuff is being marketed incorrectly, it was obviously built for airplanes.

If anybody out there has little bits of information that can make our lives easier as much as this please share. I'm embarrassed to say, but I've been going to the wash rack and using dishwashing detergent and a brush on a telescoping pole that hooks onto the hose to clean the belly which just made a mess and took a lot of time. What else have I been doing the hard way? Please share.
Blue Skies,
Bryan Wood

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Torx screws

Tue, Mar 22 2005 @ 20:55 in Switzerland
Contributed by: Mick
Views: 1,562

Use Torx screws.

The torx screws are great because they don't jump out like the phillips screws do. Here is what they look like:

These are on my workbench. Very easy to put on and take off with an electric screwdriver. These are not the same kind as I use on the aircraft, of course. On the aircraft, they are stainless steel screws, both button head and 100 degree flat head..

I bought mine at microfasteners.com:

The 100 degree flat heads: http://www.microfasteners.com/catalog/products/SSCFCMXS.cfm and the button heads: http://www.microfasteners.com/catalog/products/SSCSBXS.cfm

They have 100 degree countersunk screws like we use in the aviation world. They seem to be the only ones who have them. Due to licensing issues, they call them "6 Lobe Drive" screws.

I fell in love with the torx screws back in 1984 when the first Apple Macintosh had them. I was working for Apple, and since the boxes were screwed together with these, and no one knew what they were, or where they could get a torx screwdriver, we didn't have to worry about customers opening up their computers to "fix" them!

For much more information about the Torx screws, check out this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torx

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Unibit extension

Sun, Mar 06 2005 @ 07:03 in Switzerland
Contributed by: Mick
Views: 1,360

I bought two unibit extensions - one from home depot, and the other from Avery. Neither worked due to the small size of the fitting on the end. I actually have not needed a unibit extension, until last night, when drilling the hole for the brake lines to pass through the gear box to the gear leg.

I created my own extension by grinding off the three round parts of the unibit shank, and jamming the unibit into a 9mm socket. This allowed me to extend the unibit as much as I needed.

The grinding on the unibit was minimal, and will not affect the drill chuck's ability to grip it.

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Knee pads

Mon, Feb 28 2005 @ 01:46 in Switzerland
Contributed by: Mick
Views: 1,263

It may seem obvious, but having some knee protection is a big help with a lot of the project. They work great when crawling inside the cockpit, and working on things where you have to kneel down. Good things to have, particularly if you've had some problems with your knees in the past.

These are from Home Depot, can't recall what they cost, but not too much. They have "gel" in them which makes them much more comfy.

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A Forced Landing

Thu, Feb 17 2005 @ 16:52 in Switzerland
Contributed by: Mick
Views: 1,215

I found this on a great website:

http://www.sdsefi.com/rv12.htm

02/07/05 A Forced Landing

On January 22/05 we were conducting leaning experiments with the WMS wideband AFR monitor and turbocharger compressor temperature measurements with the stainless backplate installed, on a flight between Springbank and Vulcan at 9500 feet. As we leveled off, it was noted that the electronic digital altimeter was changing readings 20-40 feet randomly. This was attributed to rising/ descending air initially. Within 2 minutes, the fluctuations were 100-300 feet but the air seemed smooth. About the same time, I noticed that the WMS meter was reading completely wrong yet the engine was running perfectly. A few seconds later, the GPS went offline. It was recycled but died again within 20 seconds so I shut it off. When I scanned the engine instruments, I noted that the tachometer was reading incorrectly and the Navaid gyro was indicating a right turn when we were not turning. I suspected a charging system failure immediately and checked the battery voltage in the SDS monitor. This read 9.5 volts so I knew then that we had a charging system failure. At the time, I was not worried about making it to an airport, assuming that the alternator had failed just in the last few minutes and believing that I had 20-25 minutes of battery power remaining. In fact, it is likely that the alternator failed soon after takeoff from Springbank but I did not notice signs of the failure until the battery was well over half dead.

Calgary Terminal called to clear us from his zone but his transmission broke up. We could not respond and shut off both comms and squawked 7600 for about 30 seconds before the transponder went down. I shut off all other non-essential electrical loads at this time. I estimated Vulcan airport at 12-15 miles away which we were heading straight for. About 4-5 minutes later, the engine started to run rough as battery voltage was down to 6.5 volts. 2 minutes later, the engine started to cut out intermittently. By turning the low pressure fuel pump off for 15 seconds at a time, partial power was restored for a few seconds. One minute later, the engine essentially ceased running but the prop was still windmilling. I settled on 90 knots as a glide speed with the VSI around 1000 fpm down. About 3 miles out, our altitude looked fine to make the runway, high if anything. 1.5 miles out and it was clear that we would not make the runway. I was worried about 2 ditches, a road and a man made waterfowl dugout off the far end of the runway and did not want to arrive high as we had no flaps. This turned out not to be a problem as we would be well short of the threshold. I made a shallow turn into wind to land in a field parallel to the plowed furrows. Airspeed bled off rapidly in the turn and I had to keep pushing the stick forward to maintain 65 knots. The deck angle was somewhat scary. Don't stall! don't stall! was going through my mind vs. the alarming deck angle. At about 20 feet up, I initiated the flare. We touched down level or slightly nose down as there was insufficient stick and energy to complete a proper flare. The nose gear gave way, then the prop and there were some expensive crunching sounds. We slid to a stop on the partially snow covered/ frozen field in about 200 feet.

The G meter read 7Gs from the vertical impact. I used my cell phone to contact Edmonton ATC and report the forced landing. As there were no injuries, we were authorized to move the aircraft by Transport Canada. The local police, EMS and fire services were extremely helpful and efficient. They even arranged for a nearby trucking firm to recover the aircraft for transport back to the airport. Joyline Transport did an excellent job organizing a cherry picker and lowboy at both ends, arranging all permits and getting VZX back to its hangar. Many thanks to all involved from the Vulcan area including manager Wally Walpole, Ken, the talented lowboy driver, the field supervisor and "Woody" from Lethbridge, an interesting personality to be sure. These people made Vulcan the nicest place to have a forced landing and the best of a not so good day.

Preliminary investigation showed that the alternator field fuse was blown for reasons undetermined at this point although some swarf was resting on top of the fuse holder in close proximity. Whether this was the cause or simply disloged from the impact will probably never be known. We'll be perfoming tests on the charging system when the aircraft is repaired again. The impact sheared the nose leg retaining bolt clean off. The leg punctured the stainless firewall and battery box and came to rest against the battery case. The nose leg was completely "pretzelized" with the tire ending up flat under the cowling. The main gear legs were both bent back an extra 10-15 degrees and the IVO propeller shattered 2 blades on impact. Various wheel pants and fairing were also damaged and both brake rotors were bent. No structural airframe damage was discovered and repair is under way. Thanks to Van's for designing such a robust airframe and I'm glad I was in a metal aircraft.

Lessons Learned and Applied

Thinking in hindsight on what was not readily apparent at the time of the emergency:

The low voltage warning light was likely ON for 10-15 minutes and remained unnoticed by me because I was busy recording AFR data. The warning light is not a flashing type which is much more likely to attract attention. A 95dB warning buzzer will now be added so that a charging system malfunction will be apparent immediately. I strongly recommend an aural warning vs. a light. The delay in noticing the failure resulted in the forced landing. I believed that I had 20-25 minutes of battery power remaining when the failure was detected but had more like 10 minutes at that point.

Pilots always talk of instructors throwing impossible multiple system failures and emergencies at them in training or in the simulator. Well, this time, we had such multiple, progressive system failures and did not recognize what was happening until the third device started giving odd readings. It is worth thinking about odd readings rather than dismissing them. You might save valuable time.

We rely so much on GPS but the "Nearest Airport" feature does not help much without electrical power and a dark screen. Having a map handy and marking last known position every 10 miles is not a bad idea. Glass cockpit advocates take note on the reliance of these on electrical power. We had no time to Mayday or really squawk a comm failure before power was lost. This could be serious in controlled airspace.

We had no battery backup as this was deemed unnecessary, thinking that the alternator failure would be immediately noticed and that I'd have 20-25 minutes of flight time to find a suitable landing spot or airport. A second 18 amp hour battery will be added with a separate switch, independent of the master solenoid. I was worried that the master solenoid would trip open at the low voltage, effectively signing everything off. Fortunately, the hold current required on these is quite low but this is an extra drain on the battery.

Most of the electrical devices were effectively offline at around 9 volts. Fortunately the SDS ECU and coil pack functioned down to the very last along with the fuel pumps, even at 6.5 volts where the battery is virtually dead. SDS has voltage compensation for the ignition and injector drivers which helped in this situation. Does your ECU have this?

Should I have picked a road or smoother field immediately rather than heading for an airport 20-25 miles away? Well, I would have if I'd known how bad the battery state was.

I should have pushed the throttle up and climbed to get as much altitude as possible to arrive very high OVER the airport but again, I thought I had lots of time.

With total power loss, the aircraft does not glide as well as it does even with idle power. The 3 blade prop has considerable drag due to its flat plate area. This is something you can't practice, but am aware of now. The deck angle to maintain airspeed is steeper than in training. Maintain speed at all costs and have a margin of extra speed for the flare as the elevators are less effective with no power. Train often for engine failures. It CAN happen to you! I'm glad that I did train fairly often. There was no panic and I did most things instictively.

Wear your shoulder harness! We always do but it is surprising how many pilots are injured or killed with them dangling by their shoulders. Have winter gear with you when you winter fly. We did, even though it was a pretty pleasant, sunny, winter day. Remember, it CAN happen to you!

Use all resources possible. If you have another pilot with you, hand some responsibility over to them for map reading, calling out airspeeds, altitude, reading emergency checklists, giving you flaps etc.

Damage will be repaired. Systems will be changed. Checklists will be altered and training will be intensified. I pledge not to forget the lessons learned here and am very happy to still be here to write this.

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Torque values

Sun, Feb 06 2005 @ 17:53 in Switzerland
Contributed by: Mick
Views: 1,470

When you see a chart like is in Chapter 7 of AC 43.13-1B it is for
standard Aircraft Hardware. The torque indicated in these charts is
calculated to pre-stress the standard aircraft bolt to 40,000 psi for a bolt
used in tension and 24,000 psi for a bolt in a shear application. "Clamping
Force" is arrived at by the size and/or quantity fasteners used in the
application.
Other requirements of the standard are, AN310 nuts used in tension, AN320
nuts used in shear, and all standard Aircraft bolts are Cadmium plated. One
thing that is not made as clear as it could be is what constitutes the face
bearing area. The head of the bolt and the nut should both bear on a
standard AN960 Washer which is also cadmium plated. This Cadmium plating
provides the proper and uniform lubricant required to arrive at the
pre-stress requirement consistently.
On close examination of most washers you can see that one side is almost
perfectly flat and the other side is some what rounded over at the inside
and outside diameters from the manufacturing process. The flat side goes
toward the head of the bolt or the nut to provide the proper bearing area,
and the rounded side goes toward whatever is being bolted together so as not
to make a grove or nick that would be a stress riser.
Special applications torque values are set so as to arrive at the
pre-stress values required for the application and special fastener being
used. As in the case of a rod bolt, which is considerably stronger than a
standard bolt of the same size, it is not plated, the threads are most times
oiled, the nut is longer including more threads and the threads are somewhat
differently shaped. All this leads to a different torque value. The measured
torque values of lock nuts is also considered in torque values.
These torque values and how they are applied are critical. Someone one on
the list recently stated that "~ it might be time to come up with a new AC
43.13-1B for BOAM use". That publication now applies to Heavy Aircraft only
as FAA states on their web site that puts the responsibility for Standards
for Light Aircraft in the lap of the manufacturer.

From: RV-List message posted by: "John D. Heath"

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Cogsdill Burraway Deburring tool

Tue, Dec 21 2004 @ 23:55 in Switzerland
Contributed by: Mick
Views: 3,886

I love tools and seem to buy just about everything I see that looks
interesting to see if I like it. Anyway, I saw a reference to a
deburring tool call "Burraway" in the archives of one of he lists
and I thought I would see what it was. It turned out to be a pretty
neat little tool that deburrs both sides of a rivet (or screw) hole
in one operation. Since I really hate deburring, I thought I would
try it out, so I bought one and it works great. The tool is chucked
in a drill like a drill bit and inserted in the hole to be
deburred. It deburrs the outside of the hole on the way in and the
inside of the hole on the way out. I used it to deburr the holes
that attach the ribs to the main and rear spars and I figure it took
less than half the time it would have taken with the normal
deburring tool. The only drawback is that they are a bit pricey.
You need one for each size of hole and they cost about $40-$50 bucks
each. However with the number of holes I will need to deburr over
the years of the project, I think it is worth it.

They are made by a company called Cogsdill and you can check them
out at http://www.cogsdill.com/deburring.html. I bought my first
one from MSC but they seem to be cheaper if bought directly from
Cogsdill.

I just thought I'd pass this bit of information along as I'm sure
there are others like me who look for any means possible to minimize
some of the more boring tasks.

Paul Trotter
RV-8 82080 Wing Kit

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Forward Baggage Compartment Installation Tip

Tue, Oct 26 2004 @ 16:12 in Switzerland
Contributed by: Mick
Views: 1,241

Got this from the RV8 Yahoo list:

> I have searched the archives but could not find any discussions.
> For those of you who have gone before me, please list your do's and
> don'ts, and helpful hints on getting the forward baggage compartment
> to fit correctly.

I think the biggest "secret" on making the door fit is getting it to fit
before you rivet the back skin on. If you can raise the door and let it
drop and it closes perfectly without the back skin on you have a winner.
You will have to shrink and stretch the door formers to get that fit. Shrink
with fluting pliers (you will have to cut a notch in the flange of the
former to do this. And stretch by taking a rivet gun with small flush set
and bucking bar and whacking the former, you can also do this with a
pneumatic or hand squeezer with flush sets and a longeron yoke, also cut a
notch at this point. Go at it slow. It also helps if you have access to a
slip roll and can start the curve of the door before you rivet the formers
on.
To fit the plastic latch blocks drill pilot holes in them and put them in
position with clay. check the fit with the latch mechanism and drill the
top hole to size and through the firewall and baggage compt wall. Put the
screws in these top holes and shim the bottom of the blocks till the door
fits snug. Drill and install the bottom screws. You will have no large
hole in the firewall and a good snug door.

good luck
Paul

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