It’s been a while since my last update and I have not done much work on the RV-7. I have a few excuses though! The main one is I switched aircraft at my full time job and I had to get a new type rating. Also there were and still are some big house projects that I can’t put off. I even have an excuse for the future because we will be on a big ski road trip in February / March. However we have gotten a few interesting things done:
- Assembled the BRS parachute rocket hardware and installed the actual parachute assembly
- Made progress on the empennage tips although they are taking much longer and are far more work than I anticipated.
Here’s my new work ride, the Challenger 650:
The parachute and rocket are now “permanently” installed. The process for all this involved a lot of careful review of instructions and a call or two to BRS for verification.
Here you can see the final position of the parachute canister and rocket launch tube. The rocket is ready to go but as a precaution we left the firing mechanism safety wired in the disabled position. Once we take the fuselage to the airport we will connect the cable from the parachute deployment t-handle in the cockpit to the firing mechanism.
My brother Paul was in town specifically to help on the parachute install.
Assembling the rocket and attaching it to the launcher and parachute container was interesting. We were super careful, went very slow and double checked every step. Here we are putting in the ortner key which locks in the bottom part of the rocket . The BRS instructions were very good.
Earlier in the fall I got the rudder bottom fairing to an acceptable level of finish for the initial flights. I want everything to look good but it’s easy to get carried away.
I also got the wiring done for the aeroled tail strobe / position light:
It’s a super bright light and strobe.
I used some of the glue on nut plates for a reinforcing piece on the rudder bottom fairing:
Seemingly endless amounts of filling and sanding. I don’t think Vans has figured out the fiberglass parts but I bet most builder’s would pay a lot more for decent quality parts that don’t require so much rework.
