July 10 Update - Misc. Control Rigging

Holy Cow!  it's been over a month since my last post.  Sorry for such a long delay.  Here's what I've been up to:

• I've been plugging away at the Air Combat Museum Fleet 9 project.  It's going good, but slow.  It requires a lot of thinking and not much doing it seems.

• I mentioned the Kelch Museum Travel Air 12W I have been working on.  Well I finally took it up for its first flight in about 13 years a couple of weeks ago.  It flew great!  In fact our Curator, Pat Weeden, put together this nice video of its maiden flight.  

          http://www.kelchmuseum.org/news/

• The Travel Air will be on display at EAA this year, I'll be flying it up Wednesday or Thursday next week.  Be sure to stop by and see it!

• One of the dumbest things I've done was to let my CFI Certificate expire about 10 years ago.  Well, I decided  to get it back which means a check ride.  I've been practicing all the commercial maneuvers in prep for this, that I haven't done in over 20 years.  Weather permitting, I am doing the check ride next week.

• And finally, getting ready for EAA.  Cindy and I are taking over the hand-propping demonstrations in Vintage that Ken and Lorraine Morris did for years.  So stop by and see us.  Demonstrations will be near the Vintage Hangar at 10AM and 1PM each day of the show.

Whew!  I've been busy.  Fortunately, I have a nice long break from school to get some Lincoln Page work done, and even managed to make some progress over the last month.

Cable attachement (bolted to aileron) and fittings to brace it

 As I mentioned in my last post, the next thing on the agenda was to mount the ailerons, make the slave struts and start making and running cables.  In order to mount the ailerons, I had to attach all the fittings for the hinges, cable attachment, etc.  The little dog-bone shaped fittings shown in the picture had to be made.  These brace the cable attachment shown bolted to the aileron.  I'll include a picture later on how this bracing works.

Installed lower right aileron

Here the aileron is mounted.  The hinges and slave strut attachment are made from standard AN eye-bolts - exactly how they were originally made. 

 With the ailerons mounted, I can now make the slave struts - a not too difficult of task and should be shown in my next post.

Control sticks and torque tube in original,
un-restored condition

Blasted and epoxy-primed

Original stick grip from rear (pilot's) cockpit

I also started working on the control sticks since I need these installed to make the cables.  They were in pretty good shape overall, just needed a good blasting.



















Here they are all cleaned up and painted with a coat of epoxy primer.  Once all final rigging and fit-up is done, they will be painted black.














OK, this is remarkable....this is the original control stick grip.  It cleaned up beautifully, and I plan on using it!  Kind of boggles your mind to think the last time this was held on to in flight was 86 years ago!

Original control cable "wrapped and soldered" splice

I have a few of the original control cables.  I took them apart to see how they were made.  They are the traditional wrapped and soldered splice on 1/8", 1X19 cable typically used on aircraft from this era.  But, they do not conform to any standards I can find from that period of time or the later standard found in CAM 18.  There are 2 strands of wire that go thru the thimble, then all 4 strands wrap around the cable simultaneously.  The wrap is also very long - almost 6 inches.   Some of you may wonder why 1X19 (also known as non-flexible cable).  The ones pictured are elevator cables.  They, like the rudder cables are straight runs, i.e. they don't change direction over pulleys.  So, the manufacturer could get by with the 1X19 vs. 7X7 or 7X19 used when cables have to change direction.  The aileron cables do run over pulleys.  I'll have to use the 7X19 for them and possibly a different splice.  Usually, the wrapped and soldered splice was only used on the non-flexible cable and a weaved splice, like the Roebling Roll was used on flexible cable.  I need to dig thru my stuff and see if I can find the original cables before I decide how I am going to make them.

Here's a shot of the Travel Air in my hangar.  I flew it down for the July 4th fly-in we had at my current airport.  Looks pretty good in there!

Hard to believe we leave for EAA next week.  Please stop by and see us, and if you are flying or driving - be safe!