Baggage Flooring

Trimmed and deburred the edges of the aluminum sheets that make up the baggage flooring and back of baggage bay. Additional trimming was done to allow space for the interior finishing fabric to pass between the aluminum sheet and the frame.  We also up-drilled the fastener holes for these sheets to the final size (1/8").  These panels are currently cleco'd in place.  Hours: 4

Rear baggage area with flooring

Elevator Push-Pull Tube

Installed the short elevator push-pull tube that connects the bell-crank (which also attaches to the long push-pull tube) to the elevator horn.  Had to bend the tube up slightly (about 0.5 inch deviation) in front of the front bearing point to alleviate friction. The elevators are not installed yet, so there is currently no connection to the elevator horn.  Hours: 1.5

Control Sticks Installation

Drilling Control Stick Bolt Hole

The control sticks (F-1380) were installed onto the control stick pivot assembly previously installed.  A pilot hole was made 1" up from the bottom of the control stick, the final hole size was made with a 3/16" reamer and an AN3-12A bolt was installed with AN960-10 washers and an AN365-1032 nut. (1 hour)

Control Sticks Installation Completed

Push-Pull Tube Installation

Installed Long Push-Pull tube, which connects from the control stick mixer to a bell crank in the aft fuselage.  The tube had to be bent slightly in front of the front bushing (about 1 to 1.5 inch deviation), and also slightly rear of the back bushing (about 1/2 inch deviation) to relieve binding at the bearing points.  Hours: 1.5

Bending the push-pull tube

Push-pull tube attached to horn on control stick mixer

Push-Pull tube attached to bell crank in rear

Bell Crank Installed

Bell crank installed

Installed the push pull bell crank F-1400 in the rear fuselage.
(0.5 hours)

Pushrod Bushings Installed

Bushing Installed

Inserted the F-1370.0 push/pull control rod nylon bushings into the 4 fuselage positions and locked in place with the retaining rings.
The rear most position had excess weld material that had to be removed with a Dremel tool.
(0.5 hours)

Control stick mixers installed

Control stick mixer installed

Standard washer and fabricated wedge washer

Finished installation of control stick mixers (F-1310). The mixer was definitely an exercise in frustration, but we finally got it done.  The manual states that parts should be snug, and we found that there is a fine line between too tight, and too loose.  For the final solution, we used a combination of fabricated aluminum wedge shaped washers, standard penny washers, and thin washers to get the fit correct.  These washers are used as spacers between the two halves of the bushing.  Wedge washers were useful to keep the sides of the bushings from rubbing. (The fat part of the washer is placed at the outside edge).  Also installed the stops on each end of the mixer with rivets.  Hours: 2.5

Control stick mixer adjustment

Spent more time fine-tuning the mixer by adding various washers between the halves of the bushings.  Removed the mixer completely so that each bearing point could be worked on independently, which made it easier to tell which part was either too loose or was still binding.  Adding washers that have a slight wedge shape frees the mechanism and enables it to move freely, but it moved much too easily and had too much wobble, so more adjustment is needed.   Hours: 3

Installing control stick mixer

Test fitted the control stick mixer, with installation of nylon bushings (F-1310).  Reamed the holes and did a test install, but there was too much friction and the mixer did not turn freely.  Removed powdercoat paint, and tried adding additional washers between the halves of the bushing as suggested in the manual, but still had binding on the sides.  Found that by grinding a washer at a slight angle, we can push the arms of the bushings out slightly to help free the mechanism.  Work will continue to find the perfect balance so that parts fit snug and the mixer rotates easily.  Hours: 2.5

Control Stick Mixer

The builders with the control stick mixer

Closeup of the control stick mixer

Installed connecting rods and control stick pivots to mixer.  Spent a few hours fixing problems with binding, which was caused by tiny misalignment of parts.  Found that the ends of the control stick pivots were slightly angled out, so bent those straight which helped tremendously.  Once all parts were moving freely without any binding, they were greased and assembled.  Castle nuts and cotter pins were used to fasten these parts.   Hours: 3.5

Flying Wires

Flying wires hanging from hooks

Completed building the six flying wires for the horizontal stabilizer.

Flying wires installed

Just Highlander

This is a picture of a completed Just Highlander with nosegear.  Once completed, ours will generally resemble this.

Tricycle configuration with Grove Main Landing Gear

Finished Flying Wires for Horizontal Stabilizer

The two bottom Flying wires were constructed using the stainless steel cable, thimbles, and swag crimps provided.  Once the cables were completed, all six cables were temporarily installed on the rear fuselage.  Hours: 2.5

Horizontal Stabilizer Lower Flying Wires

Attached 3 thimbles and swaged sleeves to create the lower flying wire on the left side of the horizontal stabilizer (one thimble in middle, and one on each end of the cable) Discovered that one of the legs was about 1/4 inch too long.  We will have to remake the cable to correct this.  Hours: 1

Horizontal Stabilizer Top Flying Wires

The four top flying wires were constructed with stainless steel cabling, nicopress sleeves, and thimbles.  The swagged connections were dressed with heat-shrink tubing to protect the cable ends.  Hours: 2

Installing Horizontal Stabilizers

The two Horizontal Stabilizer parts (AF1000.0) were installed on the rear fuselage.  The mounting bushing had to be trimmed to the correct size before the parts would fit correctly.  Once the bushings were trimmed, the stabilizers were installed and the front mount points were drilled and eye-bolts were installed in holes.  The eye-bolts serve two functions, they hold the stabilizers and they provide a mounting point for the travel stabilizer bars.

Next, 12 flying wire attachment tabs (F-1110) were drilled out to 7/32" on one side and a Nicopress thimble was passed thru the hole.  The 12 tabs were mounted to the empennage as indicated in the manual.  Hours: 3

Rudder Pedal Brackets

One of the end rudder pedal brackets was not lining up with the other brackets  (part of the binding problem that is being addressed).  To fix this, the holes in the pedal bracket were closed off (using TIG welder).  These holes will be redrilled once the bracket is placed in proper alignment.  Hours: 1

Rudder work cont.

Rudder pedals still have issue with binding once they are fastened in place on the fuselage.  Tried adding a few shims to help with leveling, but this didn't fix the problem.  Combination of issues appears to be causing this... the rudder pedal assembly still has a bow, and the attach points on the fuselage are not level.  Made various shims from aluminum stock to try and level the assembly in place on the fuselage.  Hours: 2

Rudder Pedal Work

Still trying to get the rudder pedal assembly to operate freely. The pedals are secured at four locations. Getting the pedals to rotate freely when securing all four attach points is proving quite difficult. The assembly is binding up on one or more of the attach points. More "massaging" as the builders manual indicates is going to be needed. Hours: 3

Rudder Pedal work cont.

Temporarily installed rudder pedal brackets, shims, and rudder pedals, and found that they were binding.  Removed the pedals and noticed slight bow from one end to the other.  Applied heat on the center tube of the pedal assembly and then worked to persuade them into a better position.  After much work, the pedals now rotate more freely. (EB, MC).  Hours: 2.5

Rudder Pedal Work

Started fitting the rudder pedals to the fuselage attach points.  Had to trim material from each side of the welded rudder pedal dual unit (F-0800) to allow the two hinge ring end plates (F-0800.1) to fit correctly. (MC & EB).  Hours: 1

Glued Bottom Stringer onto Bushings

The bottom stringer was epoxied to the bottom bushings using Hysol 9460 epoxy.  After about 30 minutes, the joints were smoothed for better appearance. (MC & EB).  Hours: 1

Fit bottom stringer; riveted stringer bushings

Mounting posts (bushings) for bottom stringer were cut-off to final length, deburred, and riveted to fuselage.  Back end of stringer was bent using a pipe-bender.  Our bottom stringer will have a larger bow than what is needed with standard gear, and this is due to the need for additional space to install the Grove gear through the stringer once fabric is in place.  The distance from the bottom surface of the grove gear to the center of the stringer was 3 3/8". (MC & EB).  Hours: 3

Working on Bottom Stringer

Played a little more with the shape of the bottom stringer.  The forward and aft sections were flattened a little more.  The area around the main gear was left alone to allow room for mounting once fabric is applied. (EB & MC).  Hours: 0.5

Bottom Stringer

Measured, cut, deburred 10 bushings (stand-off posts) for lower stringer.  Hours 1

Main Landing Gear Bottom Stringer Clearance

Came to a final conclusion on how "big" to make the bottom stringer bow to allow Grove gear clearance and how "big" the fabric hole will need to be to allow the the Grove gear to be installed without interfering with the fabric. (EB & MC).  Hours: 0.5

Reamed Strings Stem Holes

The attach points for the bottom stringer stems had to be reamed to 5/16" to allow the aluminum tube stems to fit tightly.  Hours: 0.5

Determining of fabric opening size and location for gear

Working on determining size of bow in bottom stringer, and size of hole that will be needed in fabric to feed the Grove gear through the hole.  We tested a few different positions of the bottom stringer, used paper to simulate the fabric, and then fed the gear through rectangular holes in the paper to determine if the hole would be large enough to get the gear through.  We determined that this method of installing the gear will work, but still need to finalize the position of the bottom stringer and the location/size of the hole in the fabric.     EJB, MHC  Hours: 0.5

Main Landing Gear Bottom Stringer Clearance

Trying to determine how big the bow needs to be made in the bottom stringer.  The bow needs to be large enough to clear the landing gear for installation.  Just Aircraft factory was contacted for more information. (MC & EB)  Hours: 1

Attached Main Landing Gear

The Grove Aluminum landing gear was installed into the brackets to check for fit and allow us to judge how large to make the attach stems for the bottom stringer.  All temporary fasteners were used.  Hours: 0.75

Fitted and adjusted landing gear brackets

Fitted the landing gear attach brackets (for Grove landing gear). Both brackets (left and right side) were close, but did not quite fit initially into the welded steel attach points on the fuselage.  To fix this, we milled off a slight amount of the aluminum gear brackets until they fit into the slots in the fuselage.  Removed about 0.05" from two inside edges of the right landing gear bracket, and removed 0.025" from the outside edges of the left landing gear bracket. With these minor adjustments, the brackets now fit properly.  EJB, MHC  Hours: 3

Glued Side and Top Stringers to Fuselage

Cleaned parts with Acetone and then affixed them to the fuselage using Hysol 9460 structural adhesive.  The stringers were held in place using cable-ties as clamps until the epoxy cures. (EB & MC)  Hours: 1

Side stringers fitted

Side stringers were fitted, drilled, and set in place.  Side stand-off posts for stringers were cut to length to match the curve of the stringers. (EB & MC).  Hours: 3