Absolutely the Last Chapter Eight.
This document
is the concluding phase of airframe construction. The seats, luggage
compartment and side panels are installed. The ventilation ports, sundry
switches, lamps, oxygen connections and controls are in as well. Also shown are
some of the little improvements made to some of items that really needed no
improvement.
The Air-Box
The ES does not
have a Lancair provided option for this, contrary to the construction
manual—yes, yes I know it’s hard to believe that the manual can ever mislead
one--but there you have it. My idea is to squeeze an air box in-between the
intake manifold and the forward baffle. The air box mounts 2 rectangular
K&N air filters. One is mounted directly to the air box and the other to a
hinged door. This’ll allow alternate air in, in the event of ice or small
children blocking the filters.
Here is the filter box under construction. The hinge being bonded to the box, the flange for connecting to the input manifold is clearly visible.
Here are
the filters, the hinged door is visible.
Various Tips
and Innovations
- The Lancair option baffles are a wonderful
investment, they fit very well and save about seven years of build-time.
However, I was troubled by the method of passing hoses and cables through
the baffle. So, I contrived a phenolic device that both clamps the various
intestinal parts and also provided a chafe-free mount.
Each hose and cable has it’s own hole in the phenolic. Easy assembly is afforded cutting the phenolic in half and then bolting the pieces to the baffle
- Now here’s my contribution to the baggage door
innovation. I assembled the door per the construction manual and like so
many others thought the friction method of securing the door in the open
position was, well, cheesy. One afternoon while unloading my 1989 Honda
Accord (I own a plane y’know!) I noticed for the first time in 180 000
miles of driving that the trunk lid is secured by hinges, which looked a
lot like the hinges securing the baggage door to the plane. Also the trunk
lid stayed open. Hmmm, howdeydodat??? I suspected a host of bell cranks,
plumb bobs, springs and servos. "But it has to be cheap and thus
simple" I thought. Finally, I decided to stick my head in and take a
peek. All they have is a bar that is attached to the hinge (close to the
body/fuselage) which then spans the width of the lid/door, which is then
twisted (pre-loaded) and attached to the body/fuselage. In fact there are
two bars, one on each hinge. "Wow! That’s really cool!"
methought. It takes up very little space and is very simple. So with
¼" tubing, couple of feet of hinge pin, flox, fiber glass, epoxy, a
drill and many hours more than I should have spent, I have an excellent
baggage door that stays open. When required to do so!
This picture
shows the two hinge pins traversing the upper baggage door opening. The pin is
attached to the hinge by bending the pin into a "U" and drilling two
holes in the hinge.
This photo
shows how the pin is attached to the fuselage. The pin has a 90 degrees
downward bend. A 2.5" long ¼" aluminum tube is bonded to the fuse,
the pin is then twisted through 180 degrees and inserted into the tube. I,
then, attached a small piece of phenolic to ensure that the pin stays in place.
It works really well.
- Tips on building the door. I know no-one does
that anymore, but for the poor sap out there who is stuck with the
"real builders" door (Oh boy, now there’s a provocative
statement) and can’t cough up a paltry $7000 for the done deal door,
here’s what to watch for. The construction manual describes how to build
inspection covers over the phenolic guides that the door latches travel
through. That’s way more work than you need to do. Just cut the hole, per
the manual and mount the guide blocks, Then bond the piece of carbon you
cut out back into place. There are no serviceable parts there so just
close it up.
- The glare shield as provided shields little, to
no glare. I elected to extend the shield into the cock-house by about
3". Here’s the result…
- For the hoards of you out there starting on the
fuselage of your ES-es, apply the back seat seat-belt anchor reinforcement
PRIOR to mounting the wing fairing
- Another little "improvement" is the
way the oil door latches. Many Lancairs have oil doors that have an
internal latch and release mechanism. Here’s mine… I bonded a piece of
phenolic onto the oil door as a catch onto which the latch will hold the
door closed. The latch itself is an aluminum strip that is held in place
by a channel fabricated with phenolic. A spring holds the latch in the
closed position which can be opened by pulling on a radio control airplane
control line bonded in place . The pictures tell all.
The above shows
the catch on the door itself and the latch mechanism.
- It finally came to the point where the oxygen
lines and the vent ports needed to be mounted. These all went into the
overhead panels. While I was at it, I decided to put in map lights, cabin
light and aux. tank fuel pump control as well. There was no particular
challenge here and the results are in the pictures below…
This shows both the forward and rear panels. The rear panel houses the air vents for the back-seaters and the oxygen outlets, gauge and valve.
The forward panel. On the extreme left are the map lights, then the air vents (going left to right), then the map light switches and the aux. tank transfer pump switch, the dome light switch and the dome light.
At this stage
we’d exceeded our initial estimate of the garage extension by about 9 months
and the construction is more or less complete. So, we decided it was time to
move the plane to the hangar. This little escapade is documented in the next
chapter…