Article: 690 of rec.aviation.homebuilt Path: newshost.ncd.com!ncd.com!olivea!hal.com!decwrl!concert!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!math.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!walter!heron!venky From: venky@heron.bellcore.com (G A Venkatesh) Newsgroups: rec.aviation.homebuilt Subject: The Agony and the Ecstacy of kit-building - #2 Message-ID: <1993Jun9.005314.7907@walter.bellcore.com> Date: 9 Jun 93 00:53:14 GMT Sender: news@walter.bellcore.com Organization: Bellcore Lines: 145 Nntp-Posting-Host: heron.bellcore.com Taking delivery of the kit or How to convince yourself that you are building a plane The last post ended with a list of equipment that I found essential for a composite kit construction. The keyword is *essential*. Once the needs are met, the greed sets in. Never underestimate the lure of the zillion gadgets and tools available that, in some miniscule way, makes the process of building easier. Once one has started spending money on things that has to be bought, the momentum makes it fairly easy to buy things that one doesn't really need but looks neat. There is no upper limit on what one can buy while in this state of mind but suffice it to say that only the high initial cost of the kit keeps one from filling the garage with more things than it can hold. After observing someone actually working on a composite plane, there are two items which I now consider essential that I had previousouly considered luxuries - a high-speed rotary tool (e.g., Dremel) and a 1/4 sheet electric sander. When one delves deeply into the details of homebuilding, one realizes the fact that currently followed practices are based on everything from science to voodoo. There are always conflicting opinions on most things, however small or insignificant the part/process is. The exhilarating process of discovering ideas/techniques (which is at the heart of homebuilding) is also agonizing for that reason. Besides the construction manual and videos, there are essentially two major sources for information: books and local EAA members. As far as books are concerned, I read the following (so far): The 3 books by Tony Bingelis (published by EAA) (1) Sportplane Builder (2) Sportplane construction techniques (3) Firewall forward and for composite plane construction (4) Moldless composite homebuilt sandwich aircraft construction published by Rutan Aircraft factory (5) Antenna reference kit published by Radio Systems Technology (1)-(3) are a little dated and not very useful for the major aspects of composite construction. However, when it comes to control systems, detailing, engine work, etc., these books are very informative as well as pleasant to read. (4) is a must for anyone that has never touched fiberglass and epoxy before in their life. A fairly thorough explanation of composite construction methods with practice lay-ups that I fully intend to try first. Some of the aircraft supply stores sell this book along with a kit that includes the basic material to practice on. It is definitely worth getting this practice kit to play with before ordering a composite plane kit. If one discovers it after ordering a plane kit (as in my case), it is just as easy to order the book and practice with the material that comes with the plane kit. (5) is a collection of previously published articles by Jim Weir who has done consulting for Burt Rutan and others on antenna construction and placement for composite planes. Makes no excuses for the "practical" (as opposed to theoretical) approach to hiding the antennas in composite planes. To any "overly-intellectual" builder that must have an equation or a theory to explain why something should be done one way but not the other, these articles are positively annoying. On the other hand, they are absolutely wonderful if one just wishes to get the thing done in a way that has worked for other people (a lot of the plane building seems to be follow this philosophy so one might as well get used to it). The sections on antenna placement in the Velocity construction manual are based on these articles with figures and dimensions copied directly from the articles. Another source for information is your local EAA chapter. A bunch of extremely helpful (and often strange) folks. You get to meet a variety of people. For exaple, there is the quintessential builder. He has a garage that will put most professional machine shops to shame. He fabricates parts with a sleight of hand. Has to make a personal statement (he calls it improvement) on every part of the plane. Has a lot of advice, enough to make the starting-out homebuilder wonder about his/her own qualifications. It is helpful to remind yourself that he has been building the same plane for the last eight years and will be building it for the next eight or so and that you can probably finish and fly your plane before he does. Then there is the accomplished builder. He has built a plane and flown it and is proud of it (but is really wondering why his life seemed to change suddenly after he finished the plane). Really a fish out of water at the moment but great for advice and quality checks on your construction. And, of course, there is the man who would be builder. He had almost bought a Kitfox kit once. He would love to build the Glasair. He had considered building a Lancair. He is currently interested in building a GP-4 although the Falco looks attractive to him. He might decide to build a Cozy instead. He is also looking at the Wheeler Express and the BD-10. According to some members of the chapter he has been that way since birth. Regardless of how strange they are, you feel close to them and find each one of them helpful in their own way (including the ones that come to the meetings just for the 50/50). It is when you are impatiently waiting for the kit to arrive that you discover two things. One, patience and two, volunteers to help with the plane. You wish that you had much more of the former than the latter instead of the other way around. I have never seen anything appeal to as many diverse people as building a plane. You are soon deluged with offers of help to build from just about every direction. It is a sticky problem. It would be nice to have help during the building process. Some people are bound to be more skilled than you while some are much better off just building with Lego blocks but you really don't know who belongs to which category. How do you judge the ability of someone while you yourself are in the process of learning new techniques? Will you be comfortable about paying the price of someone else's learning curve? Will the genuinely experienced people let you learn yourself and not take over? Will the volunteers have sufficient dedication to have compatible aesthetic and safety considerations? I think I now understand why the apprentices of the past had to start with the most boring and repetitive jobs. To test the dedication, should I hand a sanding block first to anyone that drops by? I wish I knew the answers. Just about the time you manage to convince yourself that the shipping companies are the most inefficient sector of the transportation industry, it is time to set up an appointment for delivery at your home. You definitely need some help to take delivery of the kit. The shipping company's responsibility ends at parking the truck near the delivery site and saying "there it is, sign here". Unless you hung around shipping docks, it is probably the biggest crate you have ever seen. The Velocity (Kit A) measured 16'x5'x4'. Weighed about 600lb., most of which is the weight of the crate. The wing kit contains all the spars, wing and canard cores, all the hardware required for the entire plane (which is surprisingly little even if without the engine related hardware), all the templates and most of the tubing and cables. The fiberglass, epoxies, clark foam sheets, microglass, cups and sticks, etc arrive in a separate shipment directly from Alexander Aeroplane Co. You don't get anything that even remotely looks like something you can sit and make plane noises in. It is when you start stacking all the parts, that the serious limitations of a single car garage sink in. Luckily for me, there is a separate storage room where I can store a lot of the stuff. Still, a careful arrangement of the parts is necessary to provide a reasonable space to work. The parts are stowed away, the work table cleared, the fiberglass rolls mounted on their spindles, the epoxy pump filled with resin and hardener, tested and placed in its oven, cameras loaded with film, empty logbook set up on the PC and then suddenly the reality hits you - YOU ARE GOING TO BUILD A !#@%$%^ PLANE!!!!! And now for the first practice layup....