Yaw Damper

Yaw Damper Bracket

To be honest I always considered a yaw damper function reserved for larger turbo prop and jet aircraft.  For those not familiar , the yaw damper's function is to assist in maintaining coordinated flight through small yaw (rudder) inputs.  This prevents a dutch roll type movement which could be very uncomfortable for passengers.  Now on smaller aircraft especially without swept wings it's not something you would typically see installed.

Initially I had decided I would forego the extra expensive and complexity and not install it.  I thought it was cool but as I said to someone it's not $1500 cool.  Two factors however had me change my mind and self justify the costs.  First I've had two of my kids who fly often throw up on landing... this wasn't because I'm terrible at flying but because in common Oklahoma gusty conditions the last 10 mins of flight can be a bit all over the place.  Next I was able to fly in a friends Bonanza A36 which is equipped with one.  I was very impressed with the smoothness of the flight and how coordinated the plane flew even in steep turns.

In late 2014 Garmin released a bracket specifically for the RV-10. If you're up to it you can save some money in exchange for time and source and fabricate your own pieces. I've seen several projects where people had done this for Dynon systems and seemed to have success. I decided to take the easier route and just go with the kit. It took maybe 30 mins to work through both the pitch and the yaw bracket kits and get them ready to install.  What took the longest was drilling out 4 ackward rivets in the aft end flanges of the bell crank assembly. Part of the Yaw bracket rivets into this and I was able to buck two of the rivets and decided to use 2 pull rivets on the bottom holes.  All this was a lot easier because the top skin isn't on.  It's done for now, I'll have to wait until I get the 2 servos which will just bolt onto these pieces and can be adjusted during final rigging.

Upper Forward Fuselage Installation & What next?

Upper Forward Fuselage Installation

Section 41

The plans give you two options for Section 41.  There's the picture above meant for a builder using vernier style control cables and then a Section 41Q for someone using the standard throttle quadrant.  I'm doing neither and I'll be using the Aerosport Quad Arm Rest which relocates the quadrant in a much more convenient location.  So it really didn't matter which section I was going with as the attachment was the same in both sections.

I started this section not following the plans at all but instead starting putting access panels back on.  The flap and seat covers and the tunnel areas I'm done with for now so for some rigidity while I'm climbing all over I wanted to go ahead and attach these.  I even put in all the screws, you save a few minutes if you don't but would rather have everything in place as it should be.

Access panels.

Didn't take a lot of pictures because the attachment part isn't anything that hasn't been shown.  Just follow the directions and rivet everything up.  I had to use larger rivets when attaching to the firewall because I increased the depth of the firewall by about 1/4 inch or so and needed to compensate.  A rivet gauge is handy for this type of thing but at this point in the build you should be able to eye ball it.

Once it's all rivets up you start to work on the hinge attachments which will later be used to attach the engine cowls.  It starts with fabricating some shims that will be spaces between the flanges and the hinges.  I used some left over trim pieces I had from the empennage kit and got them cut to spec.  Then you do the same with the hinges cutting to the size you need.

Then it's time to cleco to the fuselage and this is where I ran into some problems... My earlier adventure of caulking 3M 2000 fire sealant was preventing me from getting a proper seating of these pieces.  I remember thinking about this as I was doing but for whatever reason thought the hinge went between the flanges and the skin... not the case.

Not going to work.

I tried several things to clear the area and the best and easiest was to use a razor blade and cut about 1/8th area out where the hinges had to go and then remove the material and clean it up a bit.  After that everything worked out and I started the process of getting everything in and match drilling.

After the picture above I did some reading and found out there were builders who had some issues with the small bottom hinges eyelets breaking. Well that's not a good thing and the resulting solutions deal with getting camlocs or using a piece of aluminium and nut plates on the bottom. I had to backtrack a bit and drill out the hinges I had previously installed.  I found on my project plan notes that this was one of the items to modify, but I was in the zone on this section and hadn't considered it.

The solution is to fabricate a piece of aluminium with 4 #8 nutplates attached. To do this you can use some .63 or so scrap and size it basically to the same size as the hinge piece.  Then match drill using the existing shim as a guide, clean and countersink the aft holes.  Then space out 4 #8 nutplates across, countersink and rivit those holes and clean up any edges.

What I did though was use the a lower console piece typically used to support the various switches of a control panel.  This came completed with my QB kit. Going with the Aerosport EFIS panel option though a majority of this piece won't be used.  I will use it later to make a mounting bracket for the Carbon Fiber panel but outside of that you can cannibalize it into whatever you need.

Switch Bar (Not in installed location)

Cut lines drawn out to incorporate 2 existing nutplates

Edges Cleaned

Match drill to the shim

Once everything was cleco'd up you removed it all, debured, countersunk or dimpled the pieces.  Then it's just a matter of reattaching and riveting to the skin and firewall flanges. I was able to use my pneumatic squeezer (favorite tool) to set all the rivets. Will have to later reapply 3M 2000+ fire barrier, but this time going to wait until I attach the engine mount, because I'll be removing material as well when I do that.

Nutplate bracket

Final

What Next?

There are times (many) during this project that confusion sets in and you're not sure what exactly your supposed to do next.  The default is to always reference and follow the plans in order. However the next step is to install the rear seats but since I'm going to use some aftermarket seats so I can scratch that section for now.  The one after that is the cabin top which I actually started this summer and it's ready to get placed back on whenever... However before I secure the cabin top down I want to make sure I have certain additional/non-plan items completed first.

These non-plan items are all the niceties and extras as a builder you can decide to include.  In my case it's things like Air Conditioning, 3-axis autopilot, full blown leather interior and a fancy suite of avionics. Because I have conduit run and most these items are small enough they can be installed with the cabin top and doors.  However some are just easier to install with everything opened up right now, ie the Air Conditioning, things in the tail cone, ect.  On top of that each of these options need to be researched and understood and they'll increase your projects timeline and cost.

So close to wrapping up with the fuselage and only having the wingtips to complete before working on the finishing kit I'm going to have to spend some time working though the next phase of building. This involves continual research, updating my project plan and staging out what I need to buy and when. Some things are good to wait till you actually need to before ordering, makes no sense to buy a bunch of avionics and having them sitting on a shelf for a year or two.  And who knows, by the time I order my engine maybe six cylinder P-Mag/E-mags will be out!

Flap System

Section 40

You really could finish this section in one day!  The first few hours are spent match drilling some pieces and using one of your gauges getting the right orientation of the entire assembly.  Then it's disassemble, deburr and prime.  I let the prime sit for a couple days before putting everything back together.

While waiting for the parts to dry I decided to push forward with fabricating some of the bushings the section calls out for.  I had previously made similar bushings and didn't enjoy the process.  The parts are small and when using the band saw and grinder get insanely hot.

Recently inheriting a number of tools I remembered there were some small pipe cutters that I felt would be a lot easier to manage than using the band saw.  Using these with a pair of vice grips I was able to make easy work of the cuts, and they're actually a lot more precise than using the band saw.

That's part of the job done, the rest involves grinding them flat as well as putting a bit of a rounded edge on them for a clean look.  To do this I just put them on a bolt and lightly held it with my thumb and just pressed it on the flat end of the grinder wheel.  To round the edge used the same bolt and allowed it to spin freely to get an edge.  Functioned a bit like a lathe and turned out nice.  Debur the inside and measure up and grind more if needed.

It's like Science!

All 4

Onto more of the fabrication bit I had to cut four nylonish bushings down to a required dimension.  They only require a bit off the top but state you can cut more to safe on weight.  I did for the funsy factor because I'm not sure the 3 ounces in weight saved will do much.  I tried the bandsaw with no luck and ended up going to my neighbors and using his grinder to cut the large chunks.  Then used a disc sander with 50 grit to form them up a bit.  Burned myself twice on the melted plastic but I'll survive.

To finish everything up you just get to bolting.  This is actually the hardest part in the entire section!  I don't have big hands at all but trying to get wrenches, bolts, washers and nuts in some of these places is challenging.  Again ended up having to get an extra 1/4 socket extension from my neighbor and chain a few together so I could properly torque the bolts in the side wall area.  I also had to enlarge the skin hole a bit so the assembly could go out a few inches to mount the center horn piece. In the end it all worked out and another section down.

Flap Motor

Completed!

Control System

Section 39

If you're watching the time stamps of my build log post it may look like I just rocked through this section in a day or so... that's not really the case though. What happens is I become rather adept at multitasking and I might work on two or three sections at once. There are sections in the build that have little to no dependencies on one another for example fabricating parts or working on both the wings and the fuselage. Case in point I was working sections 37, 38 and 39 at the same time.  So in sense I did complete 3 sections around the same time but it took me a good month or so to do it.

A downside to this process is I tend not to take a lot of pictures or a picture of random parts at random stages.  For example below are some primed control rods,  idler arm assembly and some other various things.

After the above parts dried for a week or so I riveted the elevator push-rods in the same manner as I had done for both the wings and the empennage. The only issue is it seems no matter what I do in terms of tracking the parts and their orientation I always have to do a bit of reeming before I can rivet it all back together.  I don't know if it's the primer or maybe after deburing something gets skewed but I have yet to have one go back together without a bit of post primer work.  I don't actually know if these needed to be primed since they reside in the tunnel but the plans didn't use 'Prime if desired' verbiage and instead just said 'Prime'.  It's not that big of a deal so I primed them up.

The Idler assembly was entirely build by my neighbor Jason.  I showed him how to deburr, match drill and fabricate a part.  Actually had to fabricate the spacer twice because I wasn't happy with my first one, it was a bit narrow.  Decided not to prime this part since it's in the tunnel and will be easy to inspect and replace if some corrosion happens down the line.  One problem with the part is it was extremely tight once installed between the brackets and was rubbing against the brackets.

 Concerned about this I posted on VAF to see if anyone ran into this.  The general consensus was to remove some material on the back end so it can freely move.  Probably could of gotten away with a 1/16th of an inch or so but got carried away and took an 1/8 off.  The fun part was getting the washers between the assembly and the rod connectors.  I have a set of Washer Wrenches which really helped out but it's still a logistical challenge to get your arms in there to place them.  In hind sight could probably connect those first and then bolt the top assembly.

Had a bit of an issue with the brass bushings and control stick bases.  The plans state you have to grind down the parts to get them to fit.  Took a bit of time to get them to size and clean up the parts before I could get them to fit.  Drilling and attaching the sticks was fairly straight forward.  After that you just get the spacing correct and hook the rest of the parts together.  I didn't permanently attach the rods that go outside the fuselage.  I'm going to get some Aileron control rod boots which will limit the airflow from the wing roots into and out of the cabin.

To get everything aligned there's quite a bit of measuring and rechecking.  You have to break out the guide you previously made for the empennage as well as make a new guide for the control sticks.  That gets everything all aligned up so in neural position, everything is actually in neutral.

Guide is the thin metal piece above the control rod in this picture

The picture doesn't portray the excitement of having this section done.  Assuming the wings and the tail-parts were attached you could essentially operate the control surfaces.  Without those on you can still move the sticks around and see everything move which is almost as neat.

Happy Birthday! Fuel System, Rudder Pedals & Brake System

Happy Birthday RV-10 project!

I received my empennage kit exactly a year ago, so happy birthday unnamed airplane! I knew this was a long term project and had tried to envision what it would look like after a year.  When I was building the benches and trying to explain to my neighbors that I was building an actual airplane in the garage.... well it was a somewhat comical conversation and their reaction is probably typical to most non-aviators.

I'm extremely happy with the progress I've made.  I had a self imposed timeline of about 3-5 years but now I'm optimistic and thinking more along the 2-3 year time frame.  I don't stress about the time that it's taking me. As a first time builders there is a lot I don't know.  Self imposed timelines cause you to build when you don't feel like... which is more like a job than having fun.  This is a bit of a shift from when I starting but now I build when I want to build and am fine if there are weeks that I don't touch the project.  Consistent progress is better than rushing through things and inadvertently making mistakes.

Being a detail oriented project manager type by trade I really like to get into the weeds and figure out as much as I can upfront.  Initially I was worrying about what switches I was going to use before I made my first piece.  It's important to think about these things but the project will constantly change throughout the process. I tend to work through one kit at a time thinking about options on that kit and then the next kit as you move through it.  Even with having the structure 90% complete I'm still unsure of certain aspects of the engine, avionics and interior.

All in all I'm having a blast and learning a ton.  The constant learning is what makes a project like this so rewarding. 

Fuel System

Section 37

As with the brake lines Tom at TS Flightlines not only provided me with high quality stainless steel lines but helped answer questions and concerns that I had. Going off his and some other suggestions I decided to put the fuel flow totalizator on the engine (When I get to that part) and used Air Flow Performance (AFP) filter and pump with an Andair Fuel valve.

As a first time builder some of these lines can be a bit confusing on which lines go where.  Had to confirm with Tom that they went where I thought they went, I was right so that's a plus!  Installation was fairly easy, I used some bushings from ACS for both the brake and the fuel lines under the seat.  Had to remove some material from the brackets just to ensure a snug, but not too snug fit.  Also hope I'm tightening the NTP fittings correctly, hand tighten and go about an extra half turn.

From under the seat the lines connect to the fuel valve.  I went with the Andair because of the higher quality and that I will end up using an extension pieces for the arm rest that will eventually be in place. The factory bracket doesn't fit which requires you to make your own.  Using the original as a template it's fairly quick work.

The lines then run to the Filter & Pump assembly.  The plans call for these to be offset a bit but they can be connected reducing a few possible leak points.  UPDATE: Removing this once installed through the access panel is very difficult.  At first fuel filter check I ended up putting the AN line between the pump and the filter.  This allows me to loosen the end nuts and a single clamp to remove the filter entirely.

Using the factory mount it secures down enough not to shake too much.  Nothing magical but it all aligns well with the mounting brackets installed with the QB.  The rest of it is just attaching the rest of the lines.

That's it for the fuel system until you mount the wings and install the interior.

Rudder Pedals & Brake System

Section 38

Since I was going with the factory standard pedal set up I to actually back order these since I removed them from my original kit.  Lesson learned is don't try and anticipate when an after market product will be available. Go with what's available at the time.  This would of saved me a few hundred dollars because Vans punishes you on back-orders by not giving you the original Kit pricing. 

Putting the pedals together is straight forward.  There is a choice you have to make on which side you want the shop head of the rivets on.  Overthinking a bit about traction I decided to put the shop head on the part where your foot is and the 470 manufacture side on the back.  It apparently doesn't matter and some people actually use flush head 426s and countersinks the pedals. I also decided to leave them unpainted, thought about getting them powder coated but I would guess no matter what you do these are going to get beat up from flying so just left them be.

I finally bought a drill press because this section involves drilling very straight holes.  In the past I did it with a level and my eyes to some goo success, however going a few inches concerned me a bit more.  So with the drill press I was able to make the required brackets and get the pedals mounted in the plane.

 One aftermarket item I picked up were some rudder cover kits.  You can shape them any which way you want, some leave them square, I've seen others shaped as ovals and I decided to just round the edges a bit.  Then used my drill press to make the holes.  Attached them via pull rivets to not risk damaging anything with the bucking bar on the back in.  Gives it a more clean look.  Am debating on installing a set up front, that's going to be covered with interior so might not be worth the hassle, can decide later.

The last part I needed to finish was the Airward RV-10 parking brake. I've seen some people make their own brackets or mount it in a different area, I decided to get the entire kit and mount it as suggested.  I sent the below picture to Dave at Airward to make sure I had it installed correctly prior to riveting it to the firewall and finalizing up the lines.

Above is the completed rudder and brake setup.  Now I haven't finished the brackets to connect the rudder lines to the pedals.  I am going to wait until final rigging to work through that to make sure the rudder is straight with the pedals even.