Purpose

This is a blog containing the build history of an experimental home built airplane. The RV-7A is a two place, piston powered, low wing, tractor configuration, tricycle gear, aluminum and composite aircraft. The original purpose of this blog was to document the construction of my experimental category aircraft in order to satisfy the build log requirement for the FAA. Now it's just for the amusement of friends and family as I document some of our aviation experiences. For more information on the RV series of aircraft see www.vansaircraft.com.

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Year 3 retrospective

My third year of this project is now complete.  Reviewing the progress this year, it seems the that pace has slowed considerably.  I'm now officially in the 90% complete with only 90% to go phase.   This is not such a good place to be as it is impossible to answer the inevitable questions regarding the completion date.  Well, I wish I knew, but the best I can guess right now is about 6 months.  I usually underestimate everything by 3X so perhaps I won't be done until late 2016.

To begin year 3, the finish kit arrived in the last week of January 2014.  I was already working on the vertical to horizontal stabilizer fairing so I continued on that whilst Carol did the inventory.


This year we discontinued the dress code.

And best of all, this year my engine arrived.


Next up was the canopy.  This is a major time sink that continued right on through October.


I'm not sleeping.  Just trying to crawl out of the cockpit, under the cross bar and into the baggage compartment, while the canopy glue was setting.  Fortunately, this is not the usual method of egress.


A lot of the work this year occurred in my home office on the panel design and my custom PC boards.


And the wiring went on and on...


We made cables.


And Carol assembled our PC boards while Trina slept.  Roxy kept the shop free of squirrels.


And so at year's end I have the wiring (mostly) complete behind the firewall and some of the avionics calibration is done.


Here is the panel powered up for the first time.


So I have done a few things this year.  I'm looking forward to finishing the electronics which seems a lot like work to me.  Next up, I begin to think seriously about painting.