Time off for good behavior

I am enjoying a week in King City, CA while attending Sean Tucker's Aerobatic Academy. Training is in the Pitts and all I can say is "Wow". The Pitts is incredibly capable and will climb at 3k/min and dive nicely at 230 mph. The first day included power off/on stalls, aggravated stalls, controlling the stall while in the stall (no wussy recoveries here), ballistic rolls pitched up and down, hammerhead stalls at 0 mph, graveyard spirals, aggravated spins left and right with one spin passing 5 turns to get us down to pattern alt for my first tail wheel landing (one small swerve, but otherwise dead on) Pattern and approach at 100 mph with an extremely tight pattern. On my last ballistic spin we pitched up slightly higher than normal and did two turns. It's a piece of cake (once you know the tricks ). My stomach is tired, but getting tougher. Oh yes, we also did about 20 wing overs (used for every turn) which are a blast with the canopy top Pitts. The view, well - incredible. This is farm and wine country. Sorry I was not allowed loose objects in flight, so no action shots with the camera. A few pics attached. I can't wait to try these maneuvers on my instructor in the 172 :)

Bonding the avionics shelf

A good avionics stack begins with a good shelf. The shelf must be on a level plane with respect the firewall and the level attitude of the aircraft. After measuring and a shimming to the desired height I bonded the shelf to the tops of the motor supports and then glassed in around the edge with a two bid layup. After drying overnight, I rolled on a nice coat of epoxy primer to match. Presto, a great bed for adding all sort of avionic wonders.

A quiet seal

Lancair offers two options for the cabin seal. One is the standard rubber seal which is bonded to the fuselage with clear RTV adhesive sealant. Application of the seal requires a stead grip on the sealant gun and a solid wrap of masking tape to hold it in place during the curing process. All told the whole process takes about two hours to finish and about twenty-four hours to really cure. The result is a fantastic bond. Like most adhesive jobs, a clean dust free surface is your best start. An optional inflate-able seal is available for those wishing to create an almost vacuum bond between the canopy and the frame. My canopy fits very well and I don't think I'll need the big dollar seal to conquer the wind.

Re-visting those port holes

As the weather closed in last fall I hurridly installed the rear windows and did not have time to really custom contour the shape and edge of the window exterior. With the FG in a warm cozy hangar we again got out the 220 wet/dry paper and put the tlc to the glass. A picture does not do the job justice, but a smooth finger around the edge knows for sure it will be a clean finish.

A bit of plumbing

It is now time to find a path for the fuel to feed this hungry swallow. After fitting the wings more permanently than ever before we now integrate the fuel tank connections through the stub wing and install the plumbing to feed that golden fluid to our destination. Nothing fancy here, just .5 inch .035 pipes for the main feeds and .25 for the return. With the Subaru fuel injection, we need to include a return for each tank which is routed back through the four way Andair fuel valve.