Video: Kirby Chambliss GoPro HD

Two time Red Bull Air Race World Champion and five-time U.S. National Aerobatic Champion Kirby Chambliss takes a sunset flight over the Arizona landscape.

Amazing footage courtesy GoPro® HD HERO2.

In this EAA Hints for Homebuilders video, Dick Koehler explains how to service a gascolator when performing an annual condition inspection.

Somewhere in our mid-twenties, we each decided we’d had enough of life on the ground, so we came to flight school. We left behind our old lives and our good friends and our familiar towns. We abandoned jobs and careers that, for reasons we didn’t understand, had become empty. We packed our cars and headed south, to Vero Beach.

We spent most of our time over the next several years at a large and intimidating place called FlightSafety Academy, with its carefully manicured lawns, perfectly polished airplanes and military-like discipline. Following a time tested curriculum, its Air Corps roots still palpable, we learned to fly airplanes, and, perhaps more importantly, we began to understand the lore of what it meant to be an aviator.

Training was relentless and challenging. There were endless classes, sweat-drenching hours in low-level flight, and many failures. We began to bond in the off-hours, drinking Coronas in seaside cafes or grilling burgers in the warm, breezy evenings. Always the talk was of flying.

When finally we believed ourselves masters, we learned to teach it. Everything we thought we knew was painstakingly revisited, and thus we discovered the depths of our own ignorance. Slowly, the secrets became clear. The science of aerodynamics was no longer just a topic to be endured and shoved aside, but a state of mind, and the wing not just an appendage on the fuselage, but a part of one’s soul.

Then someone flew a jetliner into the World Trade Center, and everything stopped. We were officially grounded for a while, but even when those restrictions were lifted, there was very little flying to be had. The great engine of the entire industry had ceased to operate. Airline pilots were furloughed, hiring froze, and we felt the backlash all the way at the bottom of the ladder. We were told to wait.

So, we delivered pizzas, poured drinks, served tables, worked in bookstores, and sold vitamins to geriatrics. We stared up at the sky. After work, we wrote equations on our mirrors. We collected information and supplies. We stayed up late into the night with balsa wood, cardboard tubes, epoxy, spray paint and rum.

And when we could get a day off in common, we launched rockets. It became an obsession, a way to forget that all of our hard-earned skills were rusting while we served the whims of the snow birds. Out on the range outside of Palm Bay, we left all that behind, and there was only the field, the rockets and the sky. We had a purpose, and it was Principia.

At last we got the call, and we could fly for a living. We were ecstatic, at first. Our students looked on us with reverence, as if we alone held the keys to their success. Everyone says you never forget your first solo flight in an airplane. More memorable still is the first student you solo as a fledgling flight instructor. We had the greatest job in the world.

But the long hours and the rough air and the endless maneuvers and the smell of dry erase markers slowly took their toll. Flight instructing was hot, dirty, frustrating work, only rewarding in retrospect, but through it we became seasoned and wise. We knew what the weather would do before it happened. We could feel the airplane as a part of us, anticipating its reactions. We read our students’ minds. We had become pilots.

So we all returned north, taking jobs at airlines across the country, in the process becoming students once again. We had to start over from the beginning, it seemed, just as we did to become flight instructors. The process was painful, tedious, frustrating. Through experience and failures, we learned.

Now we look forward once again, always seeking the next opportunity or a little more knowledge, struggling for mastery in a demanding and noble profession. And though the team is separated by distance, we remain united in our timeless pursuit. Principia lives to celebrate the spirit of those days in Palm Bay, and to strive to take aviation into the future it deserves.

Initial construction of the firewall has begun. Things are starting to get serious.

I was all set to be impressed by Kickstarter. I really was. If you haven’t heard, Kickstarter is a web-based crowd-sourced funding platform for creative projects. That means if you have an idea to develop some cool new product or work of art, but lack the capital to get started (or finished), Kickstarter can link you with individuals — regular folks, not VCs — who are willing to chip in a few bucks to get things moving along. It’s a brilliant concept that has already produced some cool new products that may not otherwise have seen the light of day. The Kickstarter model may just be the future of venture capital.

But then they rejected the Synergy Project.

The Synergy Project

I’ve written about the Synergy aircraft before, but the short version is that Synergy is one of the most daring general aviation projects in the works today, and may even turn out to be a revolution. Designer John McGinnis has merged several unique drag-reduction technologies into a single package, and he hopes that the result is a modern, roomy, fuel-efficient, affordable family aircraft that will help spur a new era of innovation in personal aviation.

Mr. McGinnis and his team have built and flown a quarter-scale model of the Synergy, which proves the design can stay aloft, but since the scale model doesn’t operate at the same Reynolds numbers as a full-scale prototype, it can’t be used to prove the aerodynamic claims the team is making. They need the real thing.

Funding the Prototype

Photos on Synergy’s Facebook page show that the team is making great strides in completing the first full-scale prototype. Much of the primary structure is complete, and they’ve hung the DeltaHawk diesel engine. Synergy is clearly not vaporware; this team is building real hardware.

Mr. McGinnis announced on April 12 that Synergy would be launching a Kickstarter campaign to fund this important stage of development, but by April 23, Kickstarter had declined the project because, according to Synergy’s Facebook page, it wasn’t the “right fit” for them.

Kickstarter has published a list of project submission guidelines which stress that their service is designed for creative projects with a well-defined goal, “like making an album, a book, or a work of art.” Jumpstarting a fledgling business is not supported. Maybe this is why Synergy was rejected. Their funding goal of $65,000 would only have helped complete the flying prototype, not produced a consumer product. Maybe the body of aeronautical data obtained from Synergy’s flight test program doesn’t count as a project worthy of crowd-sourced funding. Buying your own island, however, apparently does.

So What Now?

All successful projects encounter and overcome setbacks, and Synergy is no different. The team has created the “Friends of Synergy” website, with a list of pledge tiers and their respective rewards, similar to that found on Kickstarter. If you wish to donate to the Synergy Project, you can do so from that page, or you can visit SynergyAircraft.com to learn more about the project and click their PayPal “Donate” button.

(Humble suggestion to Mr. McGinnis: Move the button to the top of the page and make it larger — your fans will thank you!)

Seriously, Kickstarter?

Synergy is an airplane. It’s not an iPhone dock. You can’t wear it on your wrist. It doesn’t make coffee. I get it. It’s not quite in line with the types of projects Kickstarter typically accepts. But it should be.

Because Synergy’s design is such a departure from the current state of the art, because the idea of one small team building this in a garage is so outlandish, because it’s such a huge investment risk, and because, frankly (and perhaps most importantly), Synergy actually might not work, this is exactly the type of project that is ripe for crowd-sourced funding.

If there are passionate individuals out there who are willing to chip in a hundred bucks or so in exchange for a cool t-shirt or their names on a plaque, just to see if a long shot like Synergy can make it, or at least push the edges of the design envelope a little bit, then Kickstarter should facilitate the process.

I think Kickstarter has a great deal of potential. And when they finally decide to accept projects of this magnitude, I’ll start to be impressed.

Dad took delivery of the fuselage kit yesterday, and began the long unpacking and inventory process. Looks like we have our work cut out for us!

Give a listen to this kickass Glitch Mob dubstep remix of Daft Punk’s “Derezzed.” Oh, and there’s some okay flying stuff too.

Get some more from Mike Shore and Ryan Light on Vimeo.

Video: Supersonic Flight, Sonic Booms

Too cool not to post:

Sound travels at about 760 miles per hour, or 340 meters per second and about 661 knots on an average day at sea level. And sometimes, you can almost see it. Going close to that speed through air can cause some unusual visual effects. This compiled footage includes F-14s, standard and Blue Angels F-18s, plus the SR-71 and an Atlas Rocket launch. AVweb contacted sources at NASA to research the phenomena. (Video by Glenn Pew http://www.glennpew.com from http://www.avweb.com.)

Aviation Week correspondant Fred George flies a Beechcraft Bonanza from San Diego to Oshkosh.

Piano hinge is used extensively on aircraft, from ailerons to cowlings. In this EAA Hints for Homebuilders video, Dick and Bob Koehler, both A&P Mechanics and EAA SportAir Workshop instructors, explain the different types of piano hinge material used on aircraft.

Here are a few photos from the cutting and fitting of the wingtip lens work.

The first shows the lens blank after it has been cut in half with a Dremel tool cutting disc.

This shows the blank setting on the tip with tape outlining the cutout area plus about 1/2 inch.

This shows cutting the blank along the tape line to get the lens about 1/2 inch larger than the final size. This gives you room to adjust as you work it into the final size. I couldn’t find a better way to cut the plastic. The wheel both cuts and melts the plastic, with the melted part breaking off easily leaving a fairly smooth edge.

After cutting the lens is fitted to the opening and you can see excess I had to tweak. Notice the mark on the lens and the tip so I could get it back in the same position after trimming.

I now put tape along the lens marking the trim cuts to edge of the tip where the lens has to fit.

I then used a sanding disc to remove the plastic to the tape line.

Then I did the final tweaks by hand by sanding the edges on the flat bench top with emery paper. By taking just a little at a time and doing many fittings, you can get good results. While moving the lens over the sandpaper I kept the lens in its final shape by bracing the open end with my hand. This results in a contour of the edge that fits the tip contour.

Here are two shots of the final result. I bet I had to fit each lens at least 50 times to get it like this. Every adjustment on a side effects the other side so it is best to go real slow and do a lot of fitting.

More photos can be found in the Gallery.

Dad and I got lucky with some warmer weather in early February, so we headed into the garage to make some headway on the wings. It took five solid days of work, but when we were done, we were able to remove the wings from the jigs and get them into their cradle for storage. Of course, this was all made possible by many weeks of tireless work by Dad, who has been in charge of the wing project from day one.

We started by riveting the outboard leading edge assemblies to the spar. We’d read that many builders had used pull-type rivets in this area, since it’s difficult (or impossible for solo builders) to reach into the lightening holes to buck the shop heads. But with Dad shooting and me bucking, it turned out to be easier than we thought.

The image above illustrates one of our better examples, but the point is that there were only two or so flanges that we had to buck completely blind. Dad also filed down the “edge” of our offset rivet set as mentioned in Van’s instructions and elsewhere online. This made a big difference in keeping the set squarely on the rivet head.

After the leading edge was attached, we bolted the fuel tank on. This required a little bit of jimmying to locate the spar holes with the tank Z-brackets. After the tank is installed, we inspected the seam between the leading edge and the tank for even spacing and pillowing. As it turned out, the left wing looked pretty decent right away. We wouldn’t be so lucky with the left.

Next we moved to riveting on the top skins. Although the weather had “warmed up,” it was still only about 45F in the garage.

Squeezing the bottom row.

Bucking.

Shooting.

Resident rivetheads.

The fuel-tank/leading-edge joint.

A bit of pillowing … or, as it turned out, indentation.

The end rib of the leading edge assembly is actually slightly out of position, even though it was pre-punched and match-drilled with the spar.

So, we drilled out the rivets and moved it. Of course, since the holes in the rib flange were now oversized, we had to install a doubler plate for strength.

The aileron brackets assembled.

Yep, we screwed up here too. While match-drilling the outboard bracket to the rib, I didn’t notice that it wasn’t quite at a 90-degree angle with the rear spar.

So we drilled it correctly and installed yet another doubler plate.

More pictures of the wing construction can be found in the Gallery.

I was finally able to get back into the shop over the New Year’s holiday, so Dad and I broke out the goop and finished the last few major operations on the fuel tanks.

Since we’d gooped and riveted the stiffeners and tank ribs way back in July, and Dad had done the fuel vent tube installation in August, all that remained to do was to seal and rivet the rear tank baffle.

We were anxious to try Dad’s ingenious idea for laying down the bead of sealant along the baffle flange — a handful of modified syringes stuffed to the gills with goop.

Since Dad had enlarged the pointy ends of the plastic syringes slightly, they did a nice job of applying just the right thickness of sealant for the all-important baffle flange.

We probably gooped these tanks a little more than we really needed to, but -hey- better safe than sorry.

Here’s the aft end of the tank after gooping, and just prior to lowering on the baffle. As mentioned in Van’s instructions, the baffle acts as a “squeegie” and spreads out the bead of goop, hopefully sealing itself in the process.

Here’s the tank baffle installed, with the Z-brackets pop-riveted. Be sure to triple-check the orientation of the brackets before firing off those rivets. We thought double-checking would suffice, but sure enough, we installed one of the end brackets backwards and had to drill it out. (Extra credit: see if you can find the backwards Z-bracket!)

In this view looking up inside the tank through the inspection/sender cover, you can see amply-gooped joint between the skin and the rear baffle. The squeegie method seems to work!

Lastly we squeezed the row of rivets along the baffle flange and skin. As you can see, the rivet spacing and density is considerably higher here than on your average skin-to-spar joint. Each row took a little over an hour to squeeze.

For some reason, some of the countersunk holes in the tank skin weren’t quite deep enough; here Dad applies the “TLAR Method” (That Looks About Right) with the deburring tool until the countersinks were satisfactory.

While I finished the squeezing, Dad got busy assembling and gooping the fuel pickups and inspection covers. We decided to leave those off until the sealant on the tanks is dry and ready for a final inspection. Once everything’s together, we’ll use Van’s tank test kit to verify that our many hours of gooping did, in fact, produce leak-free tanks!

More close-up photos of goop are available in the Gallery.

In this EAA Hints for Homebuilders video, Kas Osterbuhr explains how to identify Mil-Spec wire. Kas is an EAA SportAir Workshop instructor for the Electrical Systems, Wiring and Avionics workshop.

Check out the SteinAir wire page for a nice selection of Mil-Spec Tefzel wire.

In this EAA Hints for Homebuilders video, Kas Osterbuhr shows you how to crimp wire terminals. Kas is an EAA SportAir Workshop instructor for the Electrical Systems, Wiring and Avionics workshop.

Opaque 'Impostor' Ring Terminal

It really would have been nice if we’d paid attention to (or even seen) this video prior to wiring the fuel tank senders, since I think we used some of the opaque-insulated terminals! -oops!-

Check out this thread on the VAF Forums for a discussion on this topic. Also, SteinAir sells the translucent AMP PIDG terminals.

In this EAA Hints for Homebuilders video, Kas Osterbuhr teaches you how to solder along with the hook method of joining two pieces of wire. Kas is an EAA SportAir Workshop instructor for the Electrical Systems, Wiring and Avionics workshop.

We’ll be drilling holes in the canopy before we know it, so I figured we’d better start learning how to do it the right way. In this EAA Hints for Homebuilders video, Tech Counselors Dick and Bob Koehler show how to drill holes in acrylic used for canopies with specialized bits for the application.

For more information, download the LP Aero Plastics document on Acrylic Installation and Handling mentioned in the video.

In this excellent EAA Hints for Homebuilders video, Dick Koehler explains your options for circuit protection for your panel: fuses and circuit breakers. Dick is a Technical Counselor for Chapter 186, A&P aircraft mechanic with Inspection Authorization (IA), and SportAir Workshop instructor.

At Oshkosh this year, we ordered a pair of Duckworks Aviation landing light mounting kits to install in the outboard leading edges of the wings. The Duckworks kits (with a variety of different lighting systems installed inside) are a common mod which can be seen on many Van’s RV aircraft.

We ordered the round “installation-only” kit with a 4″ circular PAR 36 form factor cutout to accommodate the AeroLEDs SunSpot 36 landing lights we decided upon.

The Duckworks mounting kit comes with good instructions, pictures and templates. We found it is most important to measure correctly and keep everything square with the outboard edge of the skin.

Rather than use a metal tape to measure as shown in the picture in the instructions, we found a cloth measuring tape conforms better to the curve on the leading edge and is more accurate.

Once the template is taped in position, mark the cutout and square up the lines with a carpenter’s square from the outboard edge.

For the cutout, on the first wing we tried drilling a series of holes around the cutout line and then using a Dremel tool cutting disc to cut between the holes. On the second wing we used only the Dremel tool, cutting as close to the line as possible. This method worked fine and left less to clean up. After making both cuts we used a 1″ Dremel scotchbrite wheel to finalize the holes.

We also used the Dremel cutting disc to cut the plexi lenses to the size and shape recommended in the instructions. The instructions recommended using a band saw but the cutting disc worked well and allowed keeping the lens stationary on a soft surface.

Cleanup with a file was minimal. Using the tape strap to pull the lens into position for drilling worked great. We used regular drill bits and a countersink in a slow drill to make the holes and they worked fine.

The trick seemed to be to keep the speed low so the plexi didn’t get hot. When installed, the fit was as good as any we saw at Oshkosh.

More pictures of the Duckworks landing light mount installation can be found in the Gallery.

We installed a Gretz Aero mast and mounting bracket for our shiny new Dynon Avionics AOA pitot probe in the rib bay just outboard of the aileron bellcrank bay. We pretty much followed the directions that came with the kit with a few exceptions.

Since both the bottom and top skins were only clecoed on, we first removed the top skin to get access to the inside of the bottom skin. We had predrilled the rivet holes in the support angle for its attachment to the backing plate and the rib.

We then placed the backing plate in position with the joggled end inside the spar flange, placed the support angle flush with the rib and we marked the position of the support angle holes on the backing plate. We then flush riveted the support angle to the backing plate.

Then, using the template in the directions as a guide, we marked and drilled the rivet holes on the bottom and side of the backing plate. The backing plate was then returned to its position in the bay with the angle against the rib and the juggle on the spar flange.

While holding the plate in position, we drilled through the four rivet holes on the outside of the spar into the backing plate joggle and clecoed it in position.

Then, from the inside of the bay, we drilled the side and bottom rivet holes in the skin and the rivet holes for attaching the angle to the rib, using the backing plate and angle as a guide.

With these holes clecoed, the backing plate was then used as a template to drill the # 19 holes for the screws and to mark the cutout for the mounting bracket. The plate and angle were then unclecoed and the skin was removed to ease cutting the hole for the mounting bracket.

We cut most of the hole with a Dremel tool and worked the to line we had marked with small files. Once the bracket was fitted, we deburred, dimpled and installed the unit for a final check. It fit great.

More photos of the pitot tube installation are available in the Gallery.