Building the Velocity XL-RG

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January, 2010

Nose gear door.

This is an area that's been bugging me since day 1. The main gear
doors a attached to the gear legs. But the nose doors are hinged.
They are brought up by means of a rather complicated hydraulic
system. Here's a picture of a completed plane. This picture is
looking aft at the canard bulkhead. The greenish looking pipe going
down is the nose gear leg. The opening at the bottom is the space
that the nose gear comes through when it retracts. You can see the
rear hinge arms of the nose gear doors (they're white). Those doors
are closed by a hydraulic cylinder (gold at the top center partially
behind the large red flexible duct) which pulls up on a pair of arms
that extend down to the door hinges. The hydraulic cylinder is
activated by a switch (off to the right near the bottom of the
cylinder) that gets triggered when the nose gear is up.



I don't like this level of complexity. The nose gear doors in our
Cessna 182-RG are closed with a really simple mechanical arrangement
that is activated by the nose gear itself.

I've seen a couple other builders that used this method. Here's a
very refined and elegant solution.

I asked the builder who came up with this if he could build one for
me. But his fabrication guy was unavailable. So Malcolm told me he had
built one that it's in a plane nearby. A call to Terry Miles had me
stopping by to take some pictures and measurements.

Same view as the previous picture but with the Hangar 18 mechanism.

The spring is so that when the gear bounces a little while in the up
position, the doors will stay closed.

Some fabrication I can do. But I'm not a welder and I don't
have a milling machine. So Lynn, my current A&P put me touch with a
guy who put me in touch with a guy who does metal work. I sent him my drawings and measurements. In return, he sent me:






Here are those parts installed.


Now I have to get the linkage and
spring so I can drill for the pins to fix the arms in place.


Finishing the plenum

The front of the overhead plenum tapers down to the roof. Here's this picture again where you can see what I mean.



It occurred to me (after painting the darn thing) that doing the
interior is going to be a challenge. Most of the ceiling is covered
with a thin flexible board (almost like cardboard) which is covered
with fabric or vinyl or leather or whatever you want. But what to do
at that taper? So I decided to lop it off and square is up. After that, I had to paint the area and blend it in with the existing paint.

February, 2010

Overhead Switch Panel

The overhead switch panel is the beam which joins the A-pillars
across the top. Just like the B-pillar beam, I added a couple BID of carbon fiber inside and out to increase the strength. Next, I had to decide how to join it to the A-Pillars. Here you can see that it doesn't quite line up.

I could mount it as is and transition it or I could cut it down.
As I'm taller than the average bear, leaving it as is mean that it hangs lower. This COULD become a visual obstruction. It also means a bunch more work where it transitions to the A-pillar. On the down side to cutting it to fit is that I'll have less room to work with when installing switches.

So I cut it down until if was even with the A-pillars. Then like I did with the B-pillar beam, I made a flange out of carbon fiber uni using the foam rubber trick. Here's the result on the pilot side (the nylon tube is for routing wires).


Before permanently installing the beam, I needed to cut an opening and create a flange for where the switches would go.

Once again, here's the beam before the opening:



And here it is after:


Closeup of the flange and nutplates:


With a blank aluminum panel in place:


Closeup of the panel:


To mount the beam, I used structural adhesive on the inside and a couple layers of carbon fiber uni on the outside of the seam and BID along the front and rear.

This is the beam after mounting and during filling.


 

Stuff you don't think of until it's (almost) too late.

Andy Millin came up with an absolutely brilliant though. Rather than run the wiring for the plenum lights all the way from the front to the aft wall of the cabin, then up, then forward to the lights; Why not create a tunnel between the inner and outer skin of the roof from the switch panel to the plenum? It's only 4 inches instead of 20 feet! He did his BEFORE installing the overhead beam. But where there's a will, there's a way.

I drilled two holes; one where the forward edge of the plenum will be and the other behind the switch panel.



Then I started tunneling. Using a sharpened clothes hanger and some other MacGuyver-type tools, I was able to break though. Then I inserted at length of nylon tubing.

Then I filled the area around the tube with epoxy/micro.

Once the micro cured, I cut the tubing flush.

March, 2010

Window trim pieces.

The kit comes with interior trim pieces for the windshield and rear windows. Apparently, these were made from molds that don't exactly match the windows. Which means that they require a lot of work to get them to fit and even then, they don't. So I decided (on the advice of other builders) to make my own.

Here's the right rear window. The plexiglass is covered so it doesn't get scratched during building.


I covered the window area with duct tape. Here's the right rear window.


Then I covered the edge with three (maybe four) layers of BID.

This is the windshield with the layups around the edge.


Top is the factory left rear window trim and bottom is mine.


In the middle is my one-piece windshield trim and the two-piece factory trim.

Overhead lights III

First I built my overhead courtesy lights. Click here for a refresher.  I even etched my own circuit boards.

Then I decided to add an "all on" feature which required a circuit board redesign. For version 2, I had the circuit boards etched by a company that specializes in that work.

Then I decided that I wasn't happy with my dimming choice.  There's a good chance that I'll want to dim these lights. My plan was to connect a potentiometer (variable resistor) to the supply side. But LED's are weird little ducks. With incandescent lights (24 volt, for example), they begin to glow with about 1 volt and get brighter with increasing voltage up to 24 volts. So to dim incandescent lights, you connect a pot (short for potentiometer) that allows you to adjust the voltage going to the lights.  This works just like the dimmer in your house.

But like I said, LED's are different. First, they're current driven instead of voltage driven. But to keep things simple, we'll approach this from the voltage side. The second (and this is what caused my current problem) is there operating range. The LED's I chose were 3 volt LEDs (I reduced the voltage to the LED's using a fixed resistor). But here's where the dimming problem came in. These LED's don't start to light until about 2.4 volts. So with the pot installed, you turn it and nothing happens for the first 3/4 of a turn and then the slightest movement of the knob causes a huge difference in brightness for the remaining 1/4 turn.

So I had to ed-u-macate myself with how to power and dim LED's. Usually people use "LED drivers". These use a method know as Pulse Width Modulation.  What they do is to send thousands of pulses to the LED of the correct voltage/current to light the LED. I had already decided against this because I read that the pulses cause radio interference.

So I started looking for dimmers. I found a guy that makes a bunch of stuff for the experimental aircraft market. He makes a dimmer called EGPAVR (Extraordinarily General Purpose Adjustable Voltage Regulator). With it, you can define the lower and upper voltage levels for your lights. So I picked up a couple and started testing my new design. One other modification I made was to increase the number of LED's in each fixture. You can always dim or turn them off, but you can't make them brighter than max brightness.

Here's my test setup. The LED's are on the breadboard. The EGPAVR is to the right. A variable resistor used to determine the fixed resistor values is to the right of the EGPAVR and I have two meters to monitor the voltage and current levels.

Once I had the values for the fixed resistors determined, I designed my new circuit boards and sent them to be etched. When they came in, I disassembled the old lights and got to work.

The new PCBs

Each card and circuit boards for two light fixtures.

Marked for cutting.

And after cutting.

Here the light fixtures ready for assembly.

Circuit boards have been mounted to the back and holes drilled.

Resistors and diode inserted.

LEDs mounted.

And finally the wiring harness and connector installed

One the previous versions, I hardwired the lights. With the connector, I'll be able to remove them easily if I need to replace them.

April, 2010

Overhead plenum

Now that the overhead beams are installed, the modification to the front of the plenum if done and the lighting for the overhead air plenum is finished, it's time to install the plenum itself. I had to cut away the side where it meets the overhead beam to the B-pillars. Then I spread structural adhesive and riveted the plenum in place. Most builders probably leave it at that, but I put down a 1 BID layup.

Here's the plenum after the 1 BID layups had cured.

Then it's finishing time. Most builders cover the A-pillars, B-pillars, beams and plenum with some type of upholstery (leather, vinyl, cloth, etc).  But since I decided to follow Andy Millin's lead and paint these parts, it was time to get to work. As much work as the plenum was, it was EASY compared to these surfaces! The plenum was on a workbench. The surfaces I was working on how were not so easy to work with.

But eventually it was time to paint. That's when I discovered the flaw in my plan... and surface. I went with a satin finish thinking it would hide any minor imperfections and fingerprints. Well, after the painting was done, it was obvious that the surface wasn't close to "good enough" and fingerprints left noticeable smudges. So I did two things: 1) sand the paint off and keep working the finish and 2) change the paint to a textured finish.

Here's the result:

B-pillar and part of the plenum

Closeup of the plenum with the map light.

Hand hold on the pilot's side A-pillar.

Overhead switch panel (with sample switch).

May 2010

Seats

The seats consist of a pan (the part you sit on), a seatback and a hinge. The front seats use a new adjustable hinge which lets you change the angle of the seatback. The rear seats have a fixed angle.

Here are the three parts for one of the front seats. There's also a rail that the seats mount to which allows you to slide the seat front-to-rear (not pictured).

Now the this adjustable hinge is new and it doesn't fit to the seat pan very well.

Here's the approximate position of the hinge on the seat pan.

But the hinge is wider than the seat pan.

Notice the space between one the hinge arms and the seat pan? If I were to screw it in place the hinge would bind.

The gap is exactly 1/8". And I just happen to have some extra 1/8" stock laying around so I made a pair of spacers.

I used structural adhesive to bond these to the sides of the seat pan. Then I marked the holes, drilled and tapped them.

The seatbacks have been redesigned to work with the new hinge so no modifications were needed there. It was simply a matter of drilling and tapping the holes. Then I put everything together.

Next I had to mount the finished seats to the rails. Four holes are drilled in the seat pan that go through to the rails. Once I located and drilled the holes, then I started thinking about how to attach the pan to the rail. I could use bolts and nuts, but then I wouldn't be able to remove the pan from the rail once it had foam and upholstery. And I've spent enough time fussing on my current plane about stupid engineers who design things without thinking about someone needing to take it apart later.

So here's what I did. I cut some 1/2" aluminum into 1.5" squares.

Then I cut an opening in the top (inside) layer and dug out the foam to make a recess.

Then I put the aluminum hardpoint in the recess with structural adhesive.

And then cover the hardpoints with a layer of BID. Once it cures, drill and tap the holes.

Now the seat can be removed from the rails.

June 2010

Nose gear door mechanism.

Finally finished the nose gear door mechanism. I had to redo one of the parts. It was... okay, but not perfect.

Here's the view from the front with the gear down.

And here it is in the retracted position.

Big changes!

So things have been moving along. I got a bit stalled when the plane got upside-down. The landing gear went okay, but I was having a hard time getting started on putting the wings on and finishing the bottom. I just couldn't figure out how to get a wing on and without a crew of people to help. But I was getting there. I built a jig to hold the plane at the correct position and was getting ready to attach a wing.

And that's when my lovely wife told me she was being relocated back to the Atlanta area. Now I was okay with that. The only reason we were up here was her job and it will be nice not having to plow the driveway a couple times per year and get sweet tea, BBQ and grits.

But then it occurred to me that I had a purpose-built workshop and that we may not find a house in Atlanta that had a workshop to hold the plane. So we made a scouting trip down and I discovered two things:

1) The chances to finding a home with a suitable workshop were almost non-existent.

2) The population of metro Atlanta has exploded in the 11 years we've been gone. It's just plain DENSE with people.

And add to that, Ann got an offer that would allow here to work from home most days and she could live anywhere.

So the bottom line is; We're moving.

Which means that I went into warp drive trying to figure out what to do with the Velocity.

I could rent commercial space or get a hangar to build in. Either of those options would cost something per month but my biggest issue is that I would no longer be able to walk into my shop and spend 30 minutes on something. I would have to drive somewhere which would be at least a 30 minute round trip commute. I would also have to move all of my tools there so when I needed to do something around the house, I'd have to drive 30 minutes to get a wrench! Plus, no internet access (you'd be surprised how much time I spent in my shop looking something up on the internet while building).

So renting space looked like a no-go.

Which brings me to Hangar 18. Malcolm Collier (who I've mentioned before) is a professional builder who has built numerous Velocities (He's been my "go to" guy when I have a question). That's his business. People buy the kit, ship it to Hanger 18 and spend time there working with Malcolm building their Velocity.

But the economy has been hitting everyone. Malcolm finished his last project almost a year ago and his new builds kept getting pushed back by their builders while they wait out the economy. So he made the decision to shut down Hangar 18 and go to work with a startup company developing a new airplane. Which kept getting pushed back. So I asked if he was interested in "one last build". And he agreed.

I'm really excited about this for a couple of reasons.

1) I'm going to have one of (actually THE) best in the business looking at everything that I've done. If there's anything that isn't right, it'll be made right.

2) No more scratching my head for 2 hours trying to interpret the manual or figuring out how to do something. Now it's "Hey Malcolm. How does this go together?"

3) Labor. There will always be at least 2 people around so when something needs to be moved, lifted, etc...

4) Labor (again). Nothing is as tedious as filling, sanding, filling, sanding, filling, sanding. With Me, Malcolm and his worker, it'll go much faster.

Of course, the downside is I'll have to spend a couple weeks a month in Greenville, SC. And I'm now going to have to pay for Malcolm's time and his worker.

But then again, I'll probably be in the air sooner.

So I've spent the last month getting ready for the move. Disassembling some things, packing, organizing, etc.

Of July 22nd, Dan Fast (same guy who brought it up 2 1/2 years ago arrived to take it down to SC.

On the trailer and ready to go.

I got a call from Malcolm on the 23rd that the plane arrived and had been offloaded.

Now I'm looking for a room in Greenville where I'll spend a couple weeks per month. For now there's a bunch of filling and sanding and I've got to do "real" work for a good part of August so I probably won't get down there until September.

Oshkosh

On Tuesday, it's off to Oshkosh for a couple days!

Oshkosh was a blast as usual. Although this year it was sometimes referred to as "Sloshkosh". The airport was closed on Sunday because so much rain had fallen and the ground was so soft that there was nowhere to park the incoming planes. 

This year we went for two days instead of the usual one.  On Tuesday, I net with Tom from Firewall Forward and told him I would be needing the engine around the end of September. Tuesday evening the Cozy Girrls had a spaghetti dinner for the "Canardians".  While we were eating spaghetti, Jack Roush had his incident. We were less than a mile away and had no idea it had happened.

We spent Tuesday and Wednesday night in Green Bay. It was about a 45 minute drive to the hotel. Next day I put in some orders for parts (pitot tube, nav lights, etc)  and then went to the Velocity Burger and Brat dinner.

Pictures from Oshkosh

A 60 year-old Cessna 195

Watching the daily airshow

One of the many aircraft parking areas

Camping with your plane

This year they had one of the largest gatherings of DC-3's since WWII.

Most people can only fit one tent under their wing.

Jerry's One Man Band.  He's been at Oshkosh for 627 years.

Not only is Jesus Lord, but he's got a really sweet Cessna.

Ann was amused by some of the "fashion tragedies" at Oshkosh. I have no idea what was wrong in some of these pictures.

Maybe the shirt clashes with the hat?

Gotta be the mini windsock on the hat.

You did NOT wear that shirt with that scarf!

I don't even know where to begin.

Post OSH

I think that I've found a room in Greenville for when I'm down there so it looks like things are coming together.

August

The big flip II

Malcolm has a chain hoist so we don't need a bunch of people to flip the plane. It also makes for some very interesting photo op's.
 

Ready for lift-off

We have lift-off.


Coming back down.


Back to upside down.



Something I never got to. Upside down with both wings on.

Malcolm says now is a good time to start fitting the engine cowling. If I had to guess, it would have taken me weeks to do this. But when you've done it dozens of times, it's easy AND fast... With one minor exception. For some reason, My upper cowling didn't have a flange. The flange is a lip that is created when the cowling is made. This flange is used during the initial mounting to hold the upper and lower cowls together. So we had to make some temporary flanges.

Lower cowl in place.

Here you can see where the cowl is cut for the trailing edge of the wing.

Lower cowl cleco'd to the fuselage.

Upper cowl mounted. You can see the "temporary" flange on the upper cowl (small white tabs where the clecos are).

One day, there'll be an engine in there (the middle opening is where the prop will attach and the two small holes are cooling outlets).

The two cowling halves get joined together. Here you can see the layups that make the two halves one.

Here's the other side.

Once the inside layups cure, the flanges are cut away and the outside gets a layup.

When the outside layups cure, the one-piece cowl is made into two pieces. A line is drawn from the trailing edge of the wing and then the cut is made.

The lower cowling cut away and removed.


Now it's time to make the mounting flanges where the cowl will attach to the wing root.

First the lower skin of the wing needs to be trimmed back. Masking tape is used to help follow the lines.

After the cut.


The lower cowl is remounted and some tape is used to hold the upper and lower halves together.


Then some tape is applied to the inside of the cowl so the layups don't stick to the cowl.


Malcolm likes to use an old piece of garden hose to create a radius. Here it's held in place with tape.

Ready for the 5 BID layups.


Ta-Da! CoPilot side lower mounting flange.


Pilot side lower mounting flange.


Slightly out of focus closeup.


Now that the cowling (lower) is done it's time for the PITA part. Sanding, filling, sanding, filling, sanding, filling. This is what I did to the top of the strakes and wings last year. Some people don't flip the plane and do this on their backs. I can't even imagine the difficultly of doing that.

First a quick sanding to remove any real bad areas.
Left winglet (remember, it's upside down)


Left wing and strake (looking from rear).


Then comes finding the low spots. Just like the top, a spline (in this case a 6' piece on hinge rod is used) to find the obvious low spots. Then they're marked so we know where to fill.

The outlined area with the lines are low spots.



The line I cut on the bottom between the strake and wing didn't meet with Malcolm's standards (I was laying on my back when I did it). So it's going to be redone.

Laying a straight-edge as a guide will make for a really straight line.


Malcolm has some aluminum stock he uses to make perfectly straight seams between the strake and wing.


And the fill goes on.

And then it gets sanded off. Malcolm really likes my Hutchins orbital air file. I think that I may have to fight him for it when we're done. :-)



Then it's time to find and mark the low spots again.

The wing mounting bolt access holes also get cleaned up now


And now it's time to get ready to prime.


First coat of gray primer.


And sand to create "the spotted dog" effect.


Next we'll fill any remaining low spots and put on another coat of gray primer. Then it'll be time for the finish white primer.

The white primer has a very nice semi-glossy finish and Malcom says to fly it with that for a while. But painting airplanes is a pain and it's soooooo much easier to do now. So I'm still on the fence as to whether to leave it in primer or not.

September 2010

Now that the bottom is in full spotted dog effect, the radius between the fuselage and the strake. Here the patented (not really) Hangar 18 garden hose tool.

And the lower winglet to wing intersection gets the radius is done.

Here are the main gear doors and the main gear mini-doors.

And here we have the bottom of the plane after the final coat of gray primer and finish sanding.

At this point I went over the bottom with a flashlight and pencil marking all the little tiny pinholes. Then we filled them filler. Once that set up we did a final sanding of the spots and got ready for white primer.

Here's a picture taken from "the loft". It's the only way I could get the whole plane in the picture.

I've never been that good spraying so I deferred to Malcolm. I did the mixing making sure that Malcolm always had paint for the gun.

Shooting the first coat of white primer

My debate on whether to paint now or later has been made. The primary reason that I am wanting to paint now is that it could be a while before I could paint once it's airworthy and I'm not nuts about flying around in primer.

Here is a picture of the left wing.

And this is PRIMER!!! And... in addition to that, check out how freakin' perfect that surface is.

Who needs paint when the primer looks this good?

While waiting for the paint (yeah, yeah, yeah. Primer) to fully cure, I mounted the glideslope antenna. I used the RST Engineering foil and placed it between the bottom of the windshield and the doghouse opening.

Here's the two pieces of foil that will be the two legs of the antenna.

And after the coaxial leads are attached and then covered with thickened epoxy and then a layer of BID.

And now it's time to put her back on her feet.

First the wings have to come off.

Then the strap with the very handy chainfall.

And up she goes.

And over the top.

And almost back on the ground

October 2010

Now it's time to evaluate my work on the top of the wings. I'm hoping that my work is good enough so that we don't have to spend too much time prepping for white primer.

Before starting on the top of the wings, the upper engine cowl to wing root flange has to be created (The bottom was done when the plane was upside down).

With the wings attached and the upper engine cowl mounted, duct tape is applied to the inside of the cowl so the layups won't stick to the cowl. Then the layups are applied to the wingroot and extend up on the cowl.

Here's a picture looking at the right wingroot from inside the engine cowl. The layups are covered with peel-ply and you can see the duct tape on cowl.

And for the left side

Once the layups cure, the cowling is removed and the newly created flange is trimmed.

This is Malcolm trimming the flange on the left wing.

While the flanges were curing, we removed the tape and plastic from the outside of all of the windows and cleaned them.

Malcolm has an eye for detail. He immediately noticed an imperfection where the windows had been installed in a couple of places.

This is the right/rear window. See the problem? Neither did I. :-)

If you look at the line at the upper edge of the window you'll notice that it's not exactly... smooth. It has a little "bump". That's the imperfection. :-)

There was another one at the upper corners of the windshield. One was more rounded that the other. I couldn't see that one. But Malcolm got a piece of cardboard and traced the upper/left corner onto the cardboard and cut the shape out. Then he flipped it over and put on the upper/right corner and sure enough, it didn't match.

Both of these problems are easily fixed. The reason for removing the plastic and tape around the windows is so the transition between fuselage and window can be filled and painted. So what we'll do is tape so that part of the window will be covered with paint creating the new line.

Here's the plane with the windows masked off with new plastic.

Once the cowling flange was cured and cut, we put the cowling back on and created a flange on the outside. This flange will lay on top of the wing. We were working pretty quick and I didn't get a picture until it was cured and we had removed the cowling.

This is a picture of the flange on one side of the cowling (the cowling is upside down).

Now it's time for the doors. Once again I didn't get pictures but I'll try and explain. The doors DON'T FIT. Well, they do, but not very well. I don't have any good pictures of the fit issue so I'll try and expain.

This is a picture where I've indicated the fit problems. It sticks up at the top rear. It sticks out at the bottom rear and it's inset at the bottom front. Now one fix is filler. LOTS of filler. But there's two problems with that: 1) You've got to try and fair in all that filler so it looks right and 2) that filler has weight. And every pound of filler is a pound of passenger or baggage or fuel that you can't carry.

I had discovered this fit problem earlier but wasn't sure how I was going to fix it. Malcolm to the rescue. :-)

Here's what we did. Where the hinge mounts at the top rear of the door, we added a two triax layup (the front got a 1 BID layup too). This moved the rear of the door down. The twist at the bottom will be taken care of by shimming the door so the bottom is flush and gently heating the door with halogen lights. After about 24 hours, the door will be "warped" into alignment.

Once the hinge pads were cured, we had to drill new holes for the hinges. This creates a bit of a challenge because if the holes are not in EXACTLY the right place, the door won't fit properly. My solution was to use a VIXX bit. While I was at Home Depot looking for one (Which sucks because I've got a collection of them at home), Malcolm called with an idea. He had me buy 4 set screws with the same thread as the holes in the hinge (I think there were 10-32). When I got back, he drilled out the center of the set screws. So I climbed inside and the he held the door in position. I put two set screws in each hinge. When the door was in exactly the right position, I drilled through the center of the set screws into the fuselage. Then I removed the set screws, flipped the hinges out of the way and enlarged the holes to their final size.  I held the hinges in place and Malcolm screwed the hinges in place from the outside. Then I did the remaining two holes in each hinge. When we were done, the top of the door fit almost perfectly!

Then is was time to do the other door. And that's when I got a surprise. While we were working on the door, it's sometimes necessary to bang on it to get the door in position. While I was inside and Malcolm was "encouraging" the door into position, I became weightless! Relative to the inside of the plane, that is. The main landing gear is held in the "down and locked" position with a latching over-center stop. The nose gear has an overcenter stop and a gas strut. What I've always done is to put a wire tie around the nose gear arm and the over-center stop... Just in case. Well, in all the moving things around, that got over looked. While Malcolm was banging on the door, the nose gear actuator arm bounced and got... under-center. At which point the nose gear retracted. And the nose went down. Fast! So I'm inside the plane, the plane goes down but I did a Wyle Coyote (you know, stayed suspended in mid-air for a moment with an "oh-oh"look on my face. And then gravity remembered about me and brought me down. Fast.

I climbed out, we lifted the nose off the ground and put a sawhorse under the nose and then looked at the damage.

During previous maneuvering, the nose wheel got rotated 180 degrees from it's normal position. This turned out to be a good thing. When the nose gear came up, the tire hit the bottom of the fuselage and then broke through. This slowed the descent so that when the fuselage came in contact with the floor farther back, there was no damage. These cracks up here aren't in a structural area and are easily fixed.

So from now on, either there will be a wire-tie on the nose gear arm and over-center stop or there'll be a support under the nose.

The wings (top). When I was working on the strake-wing joint on the top, I did the co-pilot (right) wing first. I concentrated on the area where the wing meets the strake. When I did the Pilot (left) side, I discovered that there was a "valley" that ran the length of the wing. I spent a LONG time filling an fairing that wing. I was going to fix the right wing later.

Well, it's later.

First we checked the left wing. I was pleased when Malcolm declared it good.  But even so, we hit the entire wing with sanding boards and got it more better. :-)

Then is was time for the other wing. We spent the better part of a day sanding off all the excess filler. Then we "splined" the wing. We take a four foot length of hinge pin and lay it over the span of the wing. Where the spline doesn't touch the wing is a low spot. You mark those spots and then move the spline over and repeat. And repeat, and repeat and repeat. The result gives you and idea where the low spot is that needs fill.

Next comes fill and sand. At least it only needs to be done on one wing.

Overhead Switch Panel

When I'm not in SC, there are still things that I can do at home. Electrical system planning is one. I've already designed the courtesy lights. Now I'm working on the Overhead Switch Panel (OSP). The OSP is part of the A-Beam (it goes across the inside of the roof between the A-Pillars) and can have switches or indicator lights. There are many approaches to this. For example:

Andy Millin's OSP


Terry Miles' OSP


I don't remember who's this one is


Rich Guerra's OSP


Fred's OSP


The Factory Demo Plane


Now Andy has some really sweet lighted and engraved rocker switches! But because My A-Beam is structural and since I'm taller than the average person, I kept my A-Beam very low profile. So I don't have enough room for the rocker switches that Andy is using. So I decided to go with traditional toggle switches.

There are a couple issues to be dealt with on this panel.

1) It's real easy to reach for one switch and hit some turbulence and end up turning something on or off that you didn't mean to.
2) Most of the time when you're flying, you are either looking outside or at your main instrument panel. If you're flying IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) then you're looking only at your instrument panel.

Switching your view from outside (straight ahead) to the main panel isn't that difficult. You move your eyes a little and refocus. We do that every day when we drive. But looking at the OSP will possibily require moving your head and refocusing your eyes to something less than 12 inches away. This can be very distracting. So it would be nice to not have to ever look at the OSP when flying.

Here's how I'm going to deal with these.

First, I'm going to install switch guards on all the switches. That way, it will be almost impossible to "bump" into an adjacent switch. They also give your hand something to rest on when you're activating a switch.

Second, I will also only use the switches for functions needed during engine start and engine shutdown. This way, I'll never have to even think about these switches during flight.

Third, The sequence on activating the switches will be left-to-right for engine start and right-to-left for engine shutdown.

I took my aluminum OSP plate and drilled the holes for the switches and switch guards. At this point I'm not 100% certain of the sequence so this is just a temporary switch panel until I can determine which switch goes where.

Here's the temporary OSP.


Once I've got the sequence determined, I'll use frontpanelexpress.com to cut, drill and engrave the finished panel. Here's what I think it will be.

Where the strakes meet the door and fuselage, there's a small space. Most people put a partial cover over it and use it for storage. There's really not much room and it's open to the elements so I decided to simply cover it up. So I cut a thin piece of plywood, glued it in place and then covered it with a later of BID.

Since the hinges for the doors are done, now it's time to start convincing the doors into their final position. This is where it's nice to work with composites. The door is closed and shims are glued around the door where is sits too far in. Weights are used to apply pressue where it doesn't close far enough. Here's the outside co-pilot side. You can see a large shot bag on the strake extension.

Then heat is applied over a period of a couple days. This is accomplished with simple lamps.

Around the early part of December, I visited with Albert Khasky. On reason is that I needed to learn about SANs (Storage Area Networks)... It's a computer thing. I have to pay for this plane, right? The other is that Albert is building a Velocity-XL.

Now here's the thing: Albert is a cross between Radar O'Reilly and Montgomery Scott. Allow me to explain. Albert finds stuff. All kinds of stuff. I was telling him about trying to decide what I was going to do about an annunicator panel. In cars, they do thing like tell you that your oil is low and that your door is open. So when I mentioned this to Albert he reached in a box and said "Try this." and handed me an MSI Avionics ADU-1 annunicator panel. Real high-end unit.

He's got a couple of them. He's not making his own seats because he's using the seats that were designed and built for an Adam A-500. For a powerplant, he's going to run a Continental TSIO-550-E. 350hp, dual turbo chargers, dual intercoolers that'll be swinging a prop that bigger than anything I've ever seen on a Velocity. So he's like Radar on M*A*S*H. He finds stuff. As for Montgomery Scott, trying to fit that engine in the cowl of a Velocity is going to require some serious engineering. And when he's done, that Velocity should be able to make Warp 5.

Here's Albert's Velocity (these are cellphone pictures)

The engine and that massive prop.

Albert walking by the prop.

See how the cowling doesn't exactly fit? That's a whole lotta engine in there!

Seats.

I've already installed hardpoints in the seatpans and mounted the seatback. But after talking with the people that will be making the foam cushions (Oregon Aero), I found out that they can make the compressed thickness (how thick the cushion as when you're sitting on it) to your specifications. They recommended installing the seat to see how much headroom I'll have first.

This is where having the plane in SC kinda sucks. So next time down, I brought the pilot seat and put some foam blocks on the floor which put the rear of the seat at the height with the same angle that the rails would have. And that's when I discovered the problem. With an inch and a half of foam between me and the seatpan, my head was jammed into the roof. When I moved the seat so that I could reach the pedals, I couldn't reach the stick. If I moved the seat forward so I could reach the stick, my knees were elevated so that my thighs were no longer supported by the seat. So I needed to lower the rear (to get headroom) and raise the front (to support my legs).

Here's the result:

Now the problem is that the rails will have to be modified.

Here's the factory rail.

And here it is after a ton of thought and modifiying.

Modified seat rail installed with me at the controls.

I've sent the pictures and dimensions to Oregon Aero and now I'm waiting to hear back.

Back to the doors. At this point, the doors have been "encouraged" into the correct position as much as possible. They're still not done. To get the rest of the way will require the sleeves around the door frame to be installed that the latching pins will engage. When I modified the door latch mechanism, these had to be removed.

The first task is cutting new sleeves (4 for each door). Then with me inside, the door is closed and latched. Then Malcolm pushes on the door until it's flush on the outside. While he's holding it, I determine how much space exists between the door frame and the sleeve. Then it's out of the plance and we temporarily glue a small wooden spacer (of the correct thickness to the sleeve.  Then back into the plane, the door is closed and the sleeve/spacer is glued to the door frame.

Here's what it looks like.

This is temporary though. The sleeve can still move some. Now it gets potted in place with an epoxy/milled-fiber/cabo mix. Malcolm has a trick for making a nice end product for this assembly. Rather goop the epoxy around the sleeve and try to make it look nice, he had cover some thin cardboard with foil tape and cut to make a barrier.

The first one needs to be open at the bottom for a micro switch. So a "cap" is put on the bottom of that sleeve. On the other sleeve, the bottom just gets covered over.

Then the epoxy mix is spread over the sleeve. Once it's cured, we sand it smooth and cover with 2xBID.

The doors are officially "relaxed". Into position, that is.

Here are some pictures of the doors after a lot of time under the lamps.