Air Prayer

I will start updating this blog again, I swear.  Right now I am finishing up the wings and getting my FAA paperwork ready.  I will begin updating the blog with my Coyote flying adventures very soon.  Stop back by in a couple of months!

I got a special delivery via air mail this morning.  An internet buddy noticed I needed a propeller for my airplane project and offered to sell me a spare prop he had lying around.  The prop is almost new and the price was reasonable so I took him up on his offer.

This morning he flew down with the prop taped to his wing struts.  Now if I can just get someone to fly down with an engine taped to their wing struts I can finish this bird off!

Just a quick update to show where we are on the plane.  The interior is done and now we’re getting ready to clear coat it if we can find some safe stuff to spray.

Here are a few photos:

And a better shot of the colors…

I’ve been bad about involving Scotty in the aircraft project lately so I got him back into it today. Today he laced up the cockpit area of the fuselage.  He did well, even tying the exact knot I had been using. He learned by watching me. Even if I watched someone tie that knot 50 times I don’t think I could duplicate that knot as easily as he did. I showed him how to burn the end of the cord to prevent fraying, and he knew how to tie the correct knot so I just let him go and did some other prep work on the plane and he did great! Here is an action shot:

And here is what the plane looks like at the moment:

Pretty good day full of aviation today.  Scotty and I went out to the airport to direct aircraft parking at Oakdale (O27) this morning.  We had a nice breakfast cooked by members of EAA Chapter 90 and then spent the next hour and a half parking airplanes.  As in, guiding them to their parking spots.  The event is our first annual poker run.  The object of the game is to fly to different airports where you pick up some cards.  When you land back at the first airport you check your poker hand that you’ve created picking up the cards at the airports on the route.  The pilot with the best hand wins a prize.  It is a fun event and brought pilots in from as far away as Watsonville.

The second half of the day was spent pre-fitting some parts on the airplane.  I would pre-fit one part, get as far as I could and then move on to another.  Scotty did the final riveting of the vertical stabilizer and afterwards I installed it.  It’s starting to look very airplanish now.

Here are some photos of our progress:

This is the instrument panel and firewall pre-fit.  You can also see that we’ve installed the floor board, scuff plate, rudder pedals, sticks, and seats since the last update.

Here is a photo of the seats.  Angela was my big seat helper.  She prepared the uphostry by cutting the openings for the lacing and wires which hold the seats to their frames.  Angela was also the first person to sit in the airplane!

Here’s the airplane’s first occupant.

We’ve installed the optional aft baggage compartment.  There is another baggage area just behind the seats which I haven’t installed yet.

We completed and bolted on the vertical stabilizer.  The rudder is not complete yet but I decided to hang it on the VS for this photo.

Here’s the entire airplane so far.  You can see the firewall that I have pre-fit on the front.  The aft baggage compartment door (the blue triangle) which I have also-prefit.  Everything is coming along nicely.