Dammit, I was hoping your festivities would take longer to recover from. You still have a very comfortable lead.
Dammit, I was hoping your festivities would take longer to recover from. You still have a very comfortable lead.
Kitfox 5 (under construction)
Commercial SE/ME, CFII
Got the right side of the vertical stab covered but have to wait 24 hours before I can shrink the skin. I refit the rudder to the vertical just to verify the separation between the two items so that the rudder swings clean but not a large gap. In attaching the rudder, I decided I liked the opening on the bottom of the rudder to put that first lower bolt in but I didn't like the thought of leaving it open to the elements. Think it's normally closed up by the skin. So I built a cover that I will place over the opening that will allow me access but keep stuff out of there. I also installed the tailwheel locking cable out the rear of the fuselage. Didn't like the idea of just running the cable out like that so I took a piece of carbon fiber (shaft for an arrow) and slid into the fuselage and then ran the cable through that. The black bracket in the pic is the rear mount for the T3 tailwheel spring.
Vert Stab Rt 1.JPGRdr Btm Cvr 1.JPGTailwheel Cbl 1.JPGTailwheel Cbl 2.JPG
Jason - "Will you be using a rudder cable faring? I saw products available on the spruce website for an external fairing which would go over the top of the cable." Yeah I saw those and actually bought them but not sure I like them. Unless you mount them way forward, they will interfere with the attachment of the struts for the horiz stab I think and they REALLY stick out!! As in over an inch and I don't think we need that much on the Kitfox. I'll keep em around but right now my plan is to make my own out of sheet metal.
Rdr Cbl Exit Fairing 2.JPGRdr Cbl Exit Fairing 1.JPG
Gary (Geek) Phenning
Leavenworth (Not the Prison), WA
Kitfox STi N68SG
Good looking work you are doing there Gary. Have you covered a plane before? I just wondered how working with oratex was compared to the regular covering.
Harlan and Susan Payne
Flying FarmFox STI Kitfox N61HP
Rotax 915is, Airmaster prop.
https://www.youtube.com/@KitfoxPilot/videos
I used those... just cut them down to what I needed. They work well.
IMG_1835.jpgIMG_1836.jpg
John Evens
Arvada, CO
Kitfox SS7 N27JE
EAA Lifetime
Chap. 43 honorary Lifetime
Wow Harlan. That's a complement for sure but no, I have never covered an aircraft before. Any success I have had can be all attributed to people like you who put their experiences either here or made videos that I could watch over and over. The post after yours here from John Evans is a classic example. A part I was thinking was junk - really wasn't. I am pretty impressed with Oratex. Is it going to give you a high gloss smooth exterior like paint? Nope. Does it appear to be perfect for flying off airport and taking the lumps and bumps it's going to get? Yup. Perfect example is your hammer test on your videos. The stuff seems pretty resilient and seems to hide all the dunderhead things I have done so far.
Gary
Gary (Geek) Phenning
Leavenworth (Not the Prison), WA
Kitfox STi N68SG
Had to head to the shop and try this. John is right - they work well but mine at least needed a touch of modification. The inside width dimension of the fairing is 5/16 and the outside diameter of the cable support is 3/8". After I cut it off, you could push the fairing down over it (it flexes out) but it really didn't want to fit down flat on the fuselage. I took a 3/8" bolt, clamped it to spread the fairing and then hit it with my heat gun set to 250 degrees F. Didn't take a lot of heat - maybe a minute. Waited 10 minutes and pulled the clamp off. The inside dimension stayed at 3/8" but the edges splayed up a bit and so while it fit over the support fine, it didn't set flat. Put the bolt back in, laid the fairing down on the bench and hit it with the heat gun again. Then I quickly clamped the fairing down to the bench, bolt and all with a couple pieces of plywood to hold those edges flat. Waited the magic 10 minutes and it works perfectly. Sits flat on the fuselage and fits over the support. Thanks John!!
Here's a pic where you can see the difference in the one I modified and the one that isn't.
G
Cable Exit Fairing.JPG
Gary (Geek) Phenning
Leavenworth (Not the Prison), WA
Kitfox STi N68SG
Just curious -- but how to you attach the cable fairing to the fabric? -- i.e. is it glue? What type?
Thanks -- Dave.
Gary (Geek) Phenning
Leavenworth (Not the Prison), WA
Kitfox STi N68SG