Landing gear « Matt's RV-7 Project

Archive for the ‘Landing gear’ Category

Upgraded tailwheel

Saturday, January 12th, 2008

I finally received the Doug Bell tailwheel fork that I ordered a couple years(!) ago. I was one of the first RV builders to place an order for one of these upgraded forks, but since the one-man production shop's output is limited, I kept giving up my delivery slot to people who were closer to flying than I was. But now that I actually need to get the airplane up on its wheels for good, I told him to go ahead and ship it to me.

Much has been said about the Bell tailwheel before, so I won't repeat it. Suffice to say that it is well made, easy to install, and way ahead of the stock Van's tailwheel when it comes to ground clearance. Not to mention that Doug has a payment policy of "I'll ship it to you so you can try it out, and you can either send it back or send me a check." You don't see that very often.

Posted in Landing gear |

Nuts and tires

Saturday, January 6th, 2007

Avery has a really neat RV jack stand kit that makes it a lot easier to jack up the airplane. It requires you to modify your axle nuts in a manner that I was too lazy to do, so I paid a couple extra bucks to have them send me a pair of wheel nuts that already had the proper holes cut and slots milled into them. All I had to do was rivet the nutplate onto each one.

I also received my tires from Desser Tire today. These are Michelin Aviators with Airstop tubes – much higher quality than the tires Van's supplies (which I deleted from the finish kit). I used these on my last RV and they lasted forever and hardly ever needed airing up, which is a lot more than I can say about the cheapo Van's-supplied tires and tubes that airplane previously had. I figure it's worth it to spend the extra money here.

And for some reason, my cat loves them:

Posted in Landing gear |

Finished empennage attach

Saturday, August 12th, 2006

Today I took the empennage stuff completely apart yet again, deburred and cleaned everything, and primed the various parts that needed it:

I also vacuumed out the tailcone and smoothed and spot-primed a few places where there were scratches and tool marks.

Once the primer was dry (it doesn't take long in Kansas in the summer) I riveted the up elevator stop to the top deck:

I also riveted the forward attach plate and shim to the vertical stabilizer spar:

Scott came by to check out the project and I put him to work bolting the tail back on yet again.

Since all the bolts are in now, I attached the tailwheel. Once I'm done with rigging the control surfaces, I'll take the tail off and put it back in storage, but I should be able to use some shorter bolts and a temporary doubler of some sort to keep the tailwheel fastened to the aft bulkhead.

I installed the F-790 aft elevator pushrod and rigged it so when the elevators are clamped in trail with the horizontal stabilizer, the elevator bellcrank is exactly vertical. This happens when a 3/8" socket placed over the lower bolt head is perfectly centered in the access hole, like so:

Just for grins I also installed the F-789 forward elevator pushrod to see how it would fit. Something seems to be wrong, though… In this photo the elevators, bellcrank, and control sticks are all in their neutral positions, and even with the rod ends backed out as far as I dare, the forward pushrod is way too short. I promise I made it the exact length called out in the plans, so I'm not sure what the story is. It may turn out that I have to re-make that pushrod, which is no big deal since the end fittings are not terribly expensive and the tube stock is available locally – no expensive shipping of long pieces, hooray.

I also spent some time cleaning up the garage, which was a mess. It's still a mess but at least most of the tools are put away now.

Posted in Empennage, Fuselage, Landing gear |

Hard landing

Saturday, March 4th, 2006

Oops, had a little accident in the shop today. Mary came home from the store and pressed the wrong button on the garage door remote, causing the door on the side of the garage where the fuselage is to try and open. Since the tailwheel was sort of resting against it, the door picked up the tail of the airplane a few inches and then dropped it back onto the wheel. Not her fault, I should have unplugged that garage door opener (which I subsequently did). Anyway, the only damage was the shearing of the two little keeper rivets – no big deal, they were easy to drill out and replace – and some scratched paint on the weldment.

After repairing the "damage" and then thinking about it some more, I decided to remove the tailwheel and let the aft end of the fuselage rest on some 2" styrofoam insulation instead. Although I got the go-ahead from Van's before I put weight on the tailwheel in the first place, it's obvious now that it was never meant to hold up the airplane with only two of the five the bolts in place. The fuselage can go back on all three wheels once I get the vertical stabilizer fitted, but for now it will sit on the foam.

Posted in Fuselage, Landing gear |

Wheels down

Saturday, February 25th, 2006

I discovered that I didn't make the hole in the bottom tailcone skin big enough – actually, I made it plenty big to let the required 7/16" socket get through, but I failed to realize that the tailspring bolt isn't exactly perpendicular to the skin, so the hole should have been one or two sizes bigger in order to let the socket get in there at an angle. No big deal, I just had to dremel the hole into a slightly oblong shape so I can tighten that nut when attaching the tailwheel.

I temporarily bolted on the tailwheel, so that I can use it to make moving the fuselage around the shop easier.

I also knocked together these little legs for the fuselage, and attached them to the wooden spacers that are bolted to the center spar carrythrough:

At approximately 10AM on February 25th, RV-7 #72324 made its first landing! It now sits nice and low so I can just lean into the fuselage to work on stuff. I think those stubby little legs make it look kind of like a KR-2.

Posted in Fuselage, Landing gear |