Joshua's RV-9A Project

Trimmed the excess from the aft end of the inlet duct, then chipped away the foam and the micro that held it in.  Sanded the inside down, and test-fit it back to the plane to see how it turned out — quite well, actually; the duct lines right up with the airbox.  Eventually, I’ll trim 1/2″ or so off the front of the airbox and attach airseal fabric.  Laid up one ply of 3″ glass tape around the duct on the inside of the cowl to add strength and thickness.  Once that cures, I’ll sand down the excess fabric sticking out the front and shape the nose of the inlet.

While I had the bottom cowl on, fit the top cowl to check fit of the airseal fabric; looking good so far.  I curved it over and added some paperclips to try and train the fabric to bend in the correct direction.  Tied up the engine heater wires behind the sump, torqued the baffle screw behind the dipstick tube, then installed & safetied the dipstick tube.  Plugged in the engine heater and verified it was still functional.

Finally made it to the airport yesterday to go flying with my CFI and get current again.  It came back better than I expected, and he was satisfied enough to sign off on my flight review, which was due at the end of the month.  That stamp says I’m basically safe…now the task is to fly enough to get proficient and fly accurately, then I’ll set up some transition training with one of the CFI’s who does RV-specific training, in preparation for getting this thing off the ground someday.

Milestone: crossed 1500 hours logged on the project tonight.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 8th, 2011 at 11:06 pm and is filed under Cowling & Baffles, Engine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.