Matt's RV-7 Project

Eight and a half weeks after placing the order, the propeller arrived. It is a thing of beauty. Heavy, expensive beauty.

The box is like eight feet long and weighs ninety pounds. With it sitting like this, there's barely any room to walk. Or store empty beer bottles.

I dragged it over by the wings, and raised it up on some boards so the cardboard doesn't soak up moisture from the concrete garage floor.

For reference, here's the current status of the fuselage:

And the rest of the garage… what a mess.

Last night I sent Van's a big chunk of change for a propeller - specifically, a Hartzell C2YR-1BFP/F7497-2. That's an aluminum constant-speed prop with a pair of 72" blended-airfoil blades specifically designed for the two-place RV's, and will look something like this.

I kind of wish I'd ordered the prop sooner, since it has a 12-16 week lead time and I find myself with the following chicken-and-egg scenario: In order to finish the FWF plumbing and wiring I kind of need to have the baffles in place, for which I need to have the cowl fitted first, which means I need the prop to fit the cowl. Actually I guess that's a whole series of chickens/eggs. Theoretically you can fit the cowl without the prop if you make some kind of spacer, but even Van's suggests you wait for the real thing to arrive if you have a constant-speed prop like I will. Apparently there's something different about how the spinner is mounted…? We'll see.

Meanwhile, I suppose I will continue to work on interior fuselage systems, when I have time.