More control system

Following my last post I have been making slow progress at completing the control system.

I received my machined firewall bearing housing back from my machinist contact. I had two made. One for me and one for Marc Oppelt.

Don't mind the bearing in this photo. It was the wrong bearing. I replaced this with a sealed precision bearing.

I also ordered materials, hardware and rod end bearings for all the push rods. It was fun to fit the inserts and rivet them together.

Here are my control stick yokes. The plans call for a simple steel tube. The CG Products sells control yokes similar to these for Long-EZ and Cozy aircraft. I thought this was a good idea, I Marc and I welded up a couple of sets. I had them powder coated and they turned out great. In hindsight, I think I should have just gone with the plans tube. I can't figure out what problem was solved by making a more complex part. Still I am happy with the result.

 

Here is the yoke installed on the torque tube. You can also see the custom ball bearing and retainer as discussed in the previous post.

Here is a nice shot of "the office" showing the control stick and throttle quadrant.

I posted this earlier, but here again is the B-8 grip that I reconditioned.

Here is the throttle quadrant after I polished the control arms. My plan was to anodize them, but before I could get the process down, I found great success with polishing the aluminum.

Engine mount and control system

So, after not a lot of activity with this project, I have made some progress. I rearranged and cleaned up the shop, replaced the florescent tubes (what a bid difference that made).

I distracted my self for a few weeks experimenting with anodizing aluminum. A process I may use to finish off some interior control parts (canopy latches, etc.). More on that another day.

But, now on to real progress. Yesterday I glassed the main spar permanently into the fuselage. This followed some thoughts about the engine mount. I will likely install an o-320 engine and stronger engine mount hardware is probably warranted. After some discussion with other builders I settled on 1"x1"x3/16" stainless steel extrusions. Why stainless steel? Well mainly because 4130 is not available in an extruded form. I would have had to purchase the steel plate and had it bent at extra cost. The stainless is not quite as strong as 4130 steel, but much much stronger than the plans 1/4" 2024 aluminum. Here is a picture of the mount test fit:

 

I still need perform the final fit and installation of the steel engine mount extrusions, but in the meantime I have started some work on the control system. The CG Products (Cozy Girrrls) sell a complete Long-EZ control system for just under $700. This complete kit is very tempting and I am sure is a good value. However I think I can save some money by completing the system myself (with some help). The plans call for phenolic block for the control system bearings. The Girrrls sell a housed ball bearing to replace the phenolic for $50.00 ea. my solution was a flanged ball bearing from Mcmaster-Carr and a simple 1/8" bearing retainer. Total cost for both bearings is about $25.00 including shipping.

Here are the bearings after aloziding the retainers and bonding the bearings into the retainers with Locktite compound.

A diversion

So it has been quite a while since I last posted on my Long-EZ build progress. For the most part this is because I done very little with the project for the past 5 months or so.

After I drilled the wing/spar bolt holes I test fitted the spar wings and canard on to the fuselage. It was great to see all these major parts assembled into something that looked like an aircraft.

Unfortunately after assembling all of this I sat down in the garage to take a break and then noticed a problem. The main spar and wings were level, but the canard was not. How could this be?! The canard was level with the fuselage longerons and so was the spar. After more investigation, I found that the fuselage has some twist to it. I will now have to remount the canard to fix the problem. Not a big deal, but I hate having to do things twice.

The other problem I have is that not having two wings, a canard and a fuselage with a spar mounted, there is very little room to navigate my garage. Something had to be done to fix this, so today I dissembled my small work bench and slid the large work table up to the wall where the bench used to be. This now gives me enough room to move about. I need to re-organize the shop and upgrade the lighting.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 19

Since my last update I have completed installation of the right wing aileron and nearly completed the left wing aileron.

Today Marc and I loaded the wings and center spar into his truck and headed down the street to my work supervisor, Pete's, house, where he has a nice 3 car garage. We proceeded to level the wings on 6 of the cheapest crappiest saw horses I have ever used. I purchased 4 of them a couple of days earlier. Coincidentally Pete also had two of them on hand as well.

Finally after dropping the center spar on the floor of the garage once, we managed to get the wings set up pretty stable and level. We used standard bubble levels, Marc's laser level and a water level to ensure the wings were set up correctly.

We then proceeded to match drill through the center spar into the wing attachment points. I started out using the spot face tool as described in the plans, however that was a very slow process and I managed to burn up my drill. We then switched to a 5/8" bi-metal hole saw that I purchased today as advised by Marc, who probably did a lot of research into the procedure than me.

In the end all went quite well and I am very happy with the results.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 18

Last week and yesterday I finnished installing the wing root aileron hardware.

Pictured here is the infinity spherical bearing prior to bonding the click bond fasteners (seen bolted to the bearing houseing). I did make sure to sand the fiberglass and clickbond surfaces prior to flox and glass.

Pictured here is all of the wing root aileron hardware installed except for the pushrod and rod end bearings between the bellcranks.

Also yesterday I layed up the two plies of bid glass to close out the aileron ends. Today I cleaned up the edges and reinstalled the aileron.

With the left wing aileron work complete for now, I turned my attention to the right wing. Pictured here is the right wing aileron liberated from the wing.

Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 17

Today I completed installation of the aileron on the left wing.

The next step after removing the protective tape from the ailerons (see step 16) was to apply small dabs of bondo between the hinge and aileron. I used some small pieces of foam rubber to hold the hinge up against the aileron while the bondo set. This was a somewhat frustrating procedure as the plans do not explain well how to do this. I actually tried to complete this step last week and I gave up for the night.

Next I unbolted the hinges from the wing, removed the aileron and drilled holes through the hinge for rivets.

After test fitting the aileron on the wing and removing it again, I temporarily installed control hardware. The hardware store machine screws will be replaced with AN hardware soon.

Pictured here is the universal joint that connects the torque tube to the aileron.

Pictured here is a more complete view of the aileron control hardware including the spherical bearing (blue). Also in this photo, if you look close, you will see that I have yet to close up the end of the aileron with bid glass.



Chapter 19 - Wings - Part 16

More work today on the left aileron and wing.

Pictured here I have clamped a straight edge on the wing to guide me while cutting out the hinge notches on the top skin of the wing. This ensured that the hinges were all in line with each other and inset the proper amount.

Pictured below is the inboard most hinge with clickbonds test fitted. The plans call for a machine screw and a nutplate to be riveted to the hinge. The ckickbond fasteners are simpler to install and will have a seamless appearance then the wing if finished. This hinge happens to be 8" with three fasteners, the middle and outboard are 6" with two.  

Pictured here is the middle span hinge with showing the clickbond fasteners protruding through the top skin and hinge.

And here is the inboard hinge clickbonds floxed in place with two plies BID. The hinge has a protective clear tape to ensure that any flox or epoxy will not bond the hinge to the clickbond or wing.