Well, the first task of the project is done.  Inventory is complete.  There are a few backordered items but it looks like everything else is there.  To make it easy to find things I stapled the bags to the crate.  I picked up this tip on another Rans blog but I can’t remember where.  It will make finding the bags much easier.

The only problem is, I ran out of crate!  I will probably pull the crate away from the wall a bit so I can put up the bags that are still in the two boxes on the floor.

I’ve started laying out the pieces for the first project which is assembling the rear fuselage.  Lots and lots of aluminum tubing involved here.

Everything else is going to stay in the big crate until I need it.

I did run into one miscommunication on the part of Rans and/or my dealer.  Apparently since I didn’t specify an engine option they didn’t ship my cowling.  But… I paid for the cowling.  I fired off a few emails and the next morning I got a phone call from Rans and my dealer.  There was some minor strife involved.  Rans needs to fine tune their customer service a bit.  Though hearing the back story I can cut them a little slack.  They did resolve the situation to my satisfaction quickly so I am pleased with that.  I’m going to go ahead and order my firewall forward package on Monday and when they ship it they will send the cowling along with it.

Well the boxes finally showed up.  They were LARGE.  Here are a couple of pictures of what we have so far:

It’s a very big box.  The very long box is right behind it.

My A#1 helper – and the whole reason I’m building another plane.  My last hurrah with my son.

Passenger compartment.  It’s powerder-coated chromoly steel tubing.  This is looking from the front left to the rear right.

This is the left gear leg socket.  Mmmm… powder-coat-alicious.

One of the molded plastic fuel tanks.

This is the dacron covering material.  Precolored.  No painting necessary.   The black you see isn’t a shadow, it’s one of the black stripes.

Inventory fun for everyone!

Well there you have it.  The first pictures of my new aircraft project.  I’ll post some updates as soon as I’m doing something building related.  For the next week or so I’ll be doing an inventory.

In anticipation of the S-6ES kit arriving tomorrow I’ve gone ahead and reserved an N number with the FAA.  So the Rans S-6ES Coyote that Scotty and I are building is N612SV.  There, it’s practically done!  Project Covanent Promise is under way.

By the way, any Bible scholars out there?  What is THE covenant promise?

Look for a posting within a couple of days with pictures of the crates.  And the answer to the question above.

Big important projects always have cool code names.  I’ve picked the code name for the project that my son and I are about to embark upon: Coventant Promise.  Not only does it sound really cool, there is deeper meaning to it.  As part of God’s covenant with me I am required to train my children well.  Since I cannot pass on my computer expertise to my son (though he is getting pretty handy surfing the net -another story) I have decided to pass on the only other thing I know; building airplanes.  I obviously won’t be able to pass on all the planning that goes into an aircraft this time around but perhaps on the next plane his mental facilities may be better suited to planning.  For now we’re going to learn proper shop technique, basic aerodynamics, and basic aircraft construction techniques.

The kit should be here in a week or two so it’s time to kick off Covenant Promise.

Well, aside from the economy that is. EAA has come out with some great resources for homebuilders that were not available when I was building my RV-4. Not only are the kits easier to put together but the resources are wonderful. EAA is now hosting a website for homebuilders with informative videos. Everything from AN hardware basics to hose fabrication, nicopress fitting fabrication, propeller repair, tube and fabric tips, and wood and composite construction tips. Here is a detailed video on changing oil filters:

http://services.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/1119669386

For more of these great videos click here: Hints for Homebuilders

My navigation lights showed up today.  They are combination navigation lights and strobes.  The navigation lights are needed for night flight.  The strobes are needed any time the engine is running.  I bought them through a group buy discount over at the Rans Clan website.  They are nice!  Of course I can’t receive something in the mail and then just put it on the shelf for when I need it later.  I have to take it out of the box and play with it.

I grabbed my trusty bench 12V power supply and connected it to the power leads of the nav light portion of the units.

The green light goes on the right wing of the airplane with the white light facing toward the rear of the airplane.  This white light built into the unit negates the need for a white navigation light on the tail of the plane.

Here is a video I took of the units while they were flashing:

Not having anything else to do with no airplane in the hangar and no airplane under construction I decided to clean out the hangar.  You know, it’s amazing how many nuts, botls, washers, and rivets I had left over.  I know what you’re thinking and no there are no parts falling off the airplane that I built.    At any rate, I was amazed at how much stuff can accumulate in 10 years.  I want to get the hangar to a point where it is completely empty.  When the next plane goes in that is all that will be there is just the airplane.  I’ve tried to make it my home away from home.  Trouble is, lots of wasps want to make it their home too and all that nice stuff that I keep in there like cabinets and work tables just give the wasps plenty of places to make their homes.  All I need is a few more Saturdays like today to get it all cleaned out.

A good friend gave me some things to think about recently.  About why I’m building this plane.  He challenged me with the following proposal; if I am building this plane to help teach my son some skills, then when I am done why don’t I just sell it and use part of the money to do something nice for my family?  I know all my airplane buddies out there will ask if I am nuts.  I probably am a bit nuts yes.  

There are reasons that I won’t go into right now that do put this project right on the ragged edge of iffy-ness.  If all continues to go well then we should be fine.  However, I am in ministry in my church.  I’m not a pastor but I have a practical ministry nonetheless.  With so many people in hard times, and with certain other considerations in my personal life, is it really a responsible use of that money to build an airplane right now?  If it’s to teach my son then yes.  But if it *is* to teach my son then I should also teach him about sacrifice and letting go.

So I have therefore decided to build this airplane with my son with the intention of selling it.  We’re going to look at this as a family business of sorts.  Now this does somewhat tread into the grey areas of the FAA’s amateur homebuilt intent but I do intend to fly the plane for a bit.  So really it does meet the “for education and recreation” intent of the FAA’s amateur-built experimental aircraft rules.  If after I have sold the plane the economy has turned around and I am in a good financial position, then I will simple build another aircraft  — this one to keep for myself.

Carl, this is my answer.  Thanks for the challenge bro and for your ongoing sacrifices!

Well, after seeing a couple of Coyotes up close I’ve decided that white absolutely cannot be one of the colors.  It’s see-thru.  So I’ve picked a color scheme that uses dark colors that won’t show the underlying structure.  Plus I think it looks cool.  What do you think?

I got off from work early on Thursday and got a hotel up in Sacramento. The idea was to sleep up near the airport because I had a 6am flight to Phoenix. It was a great idea that didn’t work out too well. This was one of those cheap hotel chains, in retrospect, I should have shelled out a little more for the hotel or else just stayed home and got on the road at 3am. As it turned out I didn’t sleep one wink. And the elevator smelled like an armpit. I woke up to dense fog at 4:30am. I hoped it wouldn’t delay the flight. I found my way to the airport and parked in hourly right outside the door to my airline. I had already printed my boarding pass so I went straight to take my clothes off in front of the nice man from TSA. He told me to put some close back on and that they only wanted my belt removed. Pity, would have been a much more comfortable flight. Anyway, with the help of a king sized shoe horn I got settled into my seat and the plane took off on time. An hour and a half later we were landing in Phoenix. It took me about 20 minutes to walk through the terminal to the door. I called Ed Snyder of Sportplanes Unlimited and it turned out we both picked the right door because he was waiting right outside. He wasn’t even sure what airline I was on but there he was. I poured myself into the most comfortable SUV I’ve ever been in. Well, the cramped airliner could have affected my perceptions there a bit.

 

Ed drove me out to Glendale Municipal. What a nice airport. They have a real-live terminal with a passenger waiting area, a gift shop, and a restaurant. A dang good restaurant. Since I had not had a chance to eat yet Ed bought me breakfast. Then we headed over to the SportPlanes Unlimited hangar complex. What is affectionately known as Ed’s world. The hangar complex is actually 3 separate hangars within the rows of airport-owned hangars. 🙂 I took a look at a S6ES that Ed is building for a customer. It gave me a good idea of what to expect when building the ES. In my opinion the ES is much rougher compared to the S. The S looks much more professional than it’s sibling but you just can’t beat the simplicity of covering the ES. Ed gave me a tour of some of the building details. He also gave me some ideas for when I’m building my S6.

Finally we got over to the hangar where Ed keeps his S6ES. Ed painted over his ES skins and it looks real nice. Ed gave me a tour of his S6 and some of the refinements he’s incorporated like sun visors and landing lights. We climbed aboard so Ed could go get fuel. He demonstrated some of the excellent ground handling you can expect on even the tricycle gear coyote. That thing can turn just like a taildragger. Ed emptied some gas cans into the wings and then we were climbing in again but this time to go do some flying.

We departed Glendale climbing at about 1000 FPM. Now it was cool outside but I’m a lard butt so that is actually pretty respectable performance. We headed toward the outskirts of town where Ed performed some maneuvers that demonstrated the control harmony of the S6. Then I started flying. It took more pressure on the stick and especially rudders than I was expecting HOWEVER, I’ve been flying an RV-4 for 5 years so I’m spoiled on control pressures. It wasn’t difficult to move the controls they were just firm. Absolutely no slop, the airplane responded as soon as you asked it to. Ed brought the plane close to a stall, you’d have to be in a coma to not realize the plane is about to stall. I told Ed that I intended to do a lot of off-airport landings so we flew to a dirt strip and Ed performed a high speed arrival, bled off the airspeed just prior to the strip, and then touched down light as a feather. Ed then demonstrated the ruggedness of the landing gear, unintentionally. He rolled across a deep rut nosewheel first that almost launched us back into the air. But the nose gear didn’t fold up, we just kept rolling. That was impressive. We flew back to the airport. Ed was going to let me land the Coyote but I declined citing my lack of sleep. I told him that I wanted to buy a kit, not his airplane.

We taxied back and put the plane away. Then we got down to business. We went to his office and started filling out the paperwork to get a new Coyote in the works! I picked out my options, and gave the paper to Ed. I’m glad I went through a dealer because Ed gave me some good info when picking them out. One thing I didn’t know is that you can buy upsized tires that are bigger than the standard tires, but not as big as the tundra tires. Ed totaled up the damage and I wrote Ed a check.

The flight home was just as cramped and unpleasant as the flight to Phoenix. The fog was just as thick when we landed as when we took off (in fact we almost had to divert to Oakland.) I still had to drive home 90 miles in fog with little sleep. Only I felt warm and happy because there will soon be a new project in the garage and my son and I will build this one together.