cnpeters wrote:BTW, how did you do your white on clear labels - P-Touch??

Yep. P-touch with extra strength adhesive cassetts.

Pat

Here is my panel with a few items missing:



And now it looks a little happier:



Pat

It's funny. When I went through my boat building phase a few years ago, people were always asking me if I was building an airplane!

Pat

Chad,

Just a confirmation: I have an ADI Pilot II, and it has no provision for connection to an electric trim. Manual trim is installed in my airplane, and although it hasn't flown yet, both TruTrak and Stein say it will work great in my plane.

Pat

Working in 93F heat and 100% humidity is really not fun. Wow. It must really be nice to have airconditioning. Seriously, the hardest part of building in Texas this time of year is working in a position such that the sweat doesn't drip on the airplane too much. On the bright side, I don't have to he...

Dave, Actually, I think mine was further off than yours before I "tweaked" it. I had to do quite a bit of bending on the side skirts to get the fit I wanted. After the side skirt area, bending the rear bow was actually quite easy. The only thing I would do differently is that I bent it down to 5/8 f...

Dave, The baggage door was another of those tasks that really wasn't as bad as some make it seem. After talking to several people and seeing a couple of different 8's, I came up with a sequence which is just slightly different than Van's reccomended technique. The outside of the door is nothing spec...

Since I now have the baggage door completed:



The fuselage is DONE!

Now I am on to fitting the canopy:



Pat

What material are the lower stiffeners made of? On the 8, the lower longerons are only 1/16" 3/4" angle stock, so we may just be getting hung up on terminology. If the 7 stiffeners are similar, they should be plenty strong to take the load provided the boards go all the way to the skin so that the f...

Chad, Just for info, the back boards for the 8 actually fit fairly tightly between the skins resting on the lower longerons. This allows the longerons to take the load instead of the bulkheads. I haven't looked at the bulkheads in the tailcone of a 7, but I wouldn't want to put my weight on the bulk...

The only TSO'd items you need for an experimental plane are a transponder and ELT. Nothing else needs to be TSO'd, so you might as well save any money you can and get non-TSO'd stuff where possible. Paul, This statement is mostly true, but there are a couple of exceptions: If you want to use GPS fo...

Kelly, Invest in some rivet tape. I got mine from Avery, I think I have seen it in the Aircraft Spruce catalog as well. Rivet tape is like very thin scotch tape, but there is no stick-um in the center of the tape, only in two strips along the edges of the tape. You place the tape over the rivets so ...

Dave,

Those seats look great!

Did the Van's cushions come with patterns, or did you do those yourself?

Pat

Fun, isn't it!

Pat

11 for 11, but I did take nearly four minutes to complete the quiz.

Pat

Paul, Looks really nice. I guess our airplanes share more attributes than just the N-number similarity: http://napwars.com/RV-8HTML/Pictures/av001.jpg Which specific GPS do you have, and have you gotten the communications working with the EFIS yet? The SL-30 was easy, but the instructions for the GN...

Dave, There are not many disadvantages to using flexible tubing, but the one I don't like is that it sometimes has a tendancy not to stay put where you place it, and it can kink if it tucks itself into the wrong spot. The soft aluminum is not that hard to work with, and I actually like playing with ...

Any hangar which has some association with soaring must be good!

Pat

CJ,

The EFIS is slightly to the right of centerline. Moving it over to the center of the panel would waste space on the right and make things extremely tight on the left.

Pat

I can really relate to the whole "Fun With Wires" thing:



Pat