Can yu say........***BOOMDEGASER ALERT!!!! 4/15/05***

Provided that everything is going well(temps, oil pressure, turbo mapping)the ship is taken apart, and transported to the field for it's initial run-up on the tarmac under full prop pitch, which requires the ship to be chained to the deck! At this point, all gauges, engine parameters, prop control & elevon/drag rudder flight controls are checked.

 

During this time, the intial take-off procedure checklist is matched to the run-up procedures, as are the shut-down procedures.

 

At this point, if it looks like the ship is airworthy, the next steps will be the construction of the fairings over the engine/PSRU, & the attachment of the hollow engine tubes and the gunpods.

 

Then the lexan canopy is installed and checked for structural integrity(my thought is to leave this work near the end to emulate the final "buttoning up" before flight.)

 

And finally, the four 36' ballistic parachute assemblies are installed in the fuselage just aft of the cockpit(R2's dome is the cover for the 'chute assembly); the firing/deployment controls are lead forward to the cockpit.

 

The ship is then taken to the field again where it is given a thorough once-over, and a final pre-flight CG check with a full fuel load and pilot onboard. During this time, the retractable aft stanchion(ship kick-stand)is retracted, and the ship will be weighed/checked sitting only on it's wheels.

 

If, and only if, these checks occur without any problems, then the test-pilot will take the seat, go through his checklist, and take the ship onto the runway the first time to complete an aborted 150MPH take-off to test the run-up power and emergency braking.....this will probably be done at JeffCo since it's runways are huge, and the ship should only need about 1000ft to reach take-off speeds.

 

This run-up will be duplicated several times to help finalize emergency procedures and to check for unwanted high-speed issues such as nose-wheel oscillations and other runway anomolies.

 

At the discretion of the test-pilot, the ship will then be taken up for her maiden voyage which will consist of short laps around the field, and a series of touch-and-go's. Of course, stuffed in with all this work will be yours truly getting his private pilot's license.....FLOL!

 

Do you have an ETA yet?

 

No. Thanks to very intricate problems such as the drag rudders, electronic controls, high-speed nosewheel steering, & the removable wing support boxes, the timeline is being heavily compromised. The ship will be done, and it will fly, but quite honestly, I'm just taking it day by day, lest the safety factor be diminished, and that's not something I am prepared to sacrifice.

 

Further evaluation of the wing support box design has identified a way to further strengthen the wing's spar roots, but will entail using aluminum wing tanks versus composite tanks to help reinforce the wing root rib structures. Reckon I'll have to first make foam cores for the tank profiles to be sent to the builder.

 

wow. I am so happy you are on our side Tim.

 

I've managed to draw up the steel boxes I need to have made.......anybody know a steel fab shop that can form & weld 1/4" steel plate accurately?! FLOL!!!!

 

I reckon I'll go out and do some work on the hull since I still don't have a welder to make my spar boxes.

 

Screenshots of the bird for all you barkin' about pics:

(if all else fails, copy/paste address)

http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/ffden/vwp?.dir=/Upload+for+rmff.net&.src=gr&.dnm=X-Wing+203TT.jpg&.view=t&.done=http%3a//photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/ffden/lst%3f%26.dir=/Upload%2bfor%2brmff.net%26.src=gr%26.view=t

 

Well now.....after much hemmin' and hawin', I finally got my plane into a hanger at her home airfield!!!! It took me three days to move her fuselage, the 4'x16' work table, the cherry-picker, the table saw, all my powertools, and a lot of assorted parts, and tomorrow, I get to pack up two coolers worth of my little tools(that may break those coolers....FLOL!) Oh, yea, tomorrow I move the wing cores, too, if the weather holds out. It would have been a much more pleasant three days of work, if it hadn't been SNOWIN' to beat the band! But at least now the bird is safe from the wind, the weather, the buggies, ect. The hanger is a standard T-Hanger(~41' across, 12' high, and 30' deep), but my bird is so compact, there is tons of room inside! Unfortunately, that's a double-edge sword since the bloomin' thang is a CAVE! I've got six earthlight flouros burnin' and a 1000W double-halogen spotlight set for close-in work, and I still can't see nuthin' clearly across the hanger. I'll probably blow the money for a set of max flouro lights....if I can get a ladder tall enough to reach those friggin' 20' steel rafters....FLOL! By this weekend, I should be hot on the wings again, and have a handle on those difficult drag rudders, and elevons.....still gotta order the actuators, though. Those, and the pedals/master brake cylinders are next on the credit card hitlist!

 

Tim this is really exciting!!! I can't wait to see that bird in the sky

 

Wow. I haven't looked in here for ages, so I didn't realize how far the work had progressed. Amazing and exciting!

I wasn't able to get the picture link to work, though - I get an error that says "Error GROUP_CHECK". Did anyone else have this problem? (I did cut and paste both lines of the link, but no luck.)

 

I got the same thing

 

The link prompted me to log in to my Yahoo acnt in order to view the pics. Maybe Tim needs to make them publicly viewable?

 

Just make sure your signed up for the Denver Yahoo group. You should be able to get on then. I signed on and was able to see it.

 

Crikey, I forgot I was even part of the old Denver Yahoo group. Do we even still use that?

 

I still get emails for the orginal birthdays from there

 

That was at least 3 email addresses ago for me.