Thanks for stopping by to check in on Prowler Aviation. To say that this summer was a tough one would be an understatement. In June EZ had his engine failure and forced landing. Then, I came home from AirVenture to find the Carr Fire burning out of control in northern CA. A few days later I discovered that George had passed away. So, that is why it's taken me until now to get back to updating on some of the Prowler happenings over the summer.
I've recently written a blog post that is a tribute to George (see it here). And, I've also written up a blog update recently that re-caps EZ's harrowing experience and info on N611GM (see it here). So, the intent with this update is to go back and cover all the other things that were going on this summer while I was mostly dealing with these big items.
So, in this update I have:
1. Finishing More Parts for Kit #18
2. Builder Update
Francis - Excellent Progress Continues
Francis - Visit With Eric In Montreal
Ray - Update On MLG Torque Tube Problem
3. Work on the New FWF with Larry at AutoPSRU's
4. Update on Progress with N611GM Static Display5. AirVenture 2018
Before I move into the Prowler stuff, I wanted to share something that I witnessed recently that was pretty amazing. One night recently on a flight from JFK to LAX we suddenly saw this bright, funny looking light grow out of the horizon and climb in the western sky ahead of us. My First Officer saw it first:
Well, this "thing" was different enough that the center frequencies started perking up with calls from other aircraft that also saw this. Turns out it was a SpaceX rocket launch from somewhere near LA (maybe in the Mojave or over in Vandenberg - I'm not sure). But, it was really amazing to see from FL360. What was more amazing is that we were still over DEN!! Really!! We were headed west and just approaching the Rockies! To see something that large in the sky and still be 1/2 the continent away was really something different. Go SpaceX!! I have a kid who really wants to go to Mars someday! (More on that a little later).
Anyway, on with the Prowler update.
1. Finishing More Parts for Kit #18 - In previous blog updates I posted on fabricating the parts to make various sets of steel parts. Some of these included TW linkages, MLG torque tubes, sets of MLG hydraulic actuators and others. Most of these are some of the steel parts that I needed to make for Kit #18. While setting up to make these parts for Kit #18 I have also made 1-2 additional sets to have some spare parts in inventory and also have a set for one more additional kit that I might possibly assemble (sometime down the road).
Anyway, here are a few of those assemblies now that they are all welded, completed and ready to add to the boxes of parts for Kit #18. Here are two sets of stress mounts that fit into the 4 main fuselage longerons and face the aft side of the firewall at the motor mount positions. These transfer the propulsion forces (stresses) from the motor mounts into the fuselage skins via the 4 main longerons. They turned out really nice:
Here's a couple sets of the new style mounting brackets for the dead ends of the MLG hydraulic actuators. Bryan designed these to provide better angular matching to the motion of the hydraulic actuators and also incorporate the mounting brackets for the lower portions of the negative G mounts:
And, finally, 2 sets of TW actuating linkages:
2. Builder Updates - Of course, the builder update that has dominated my world for the past several months has been EZ and his story (mentioned above and link above). Beyond this, the Prowler world continued to move on and I have some of their updates to share with you.
2.A. Francis - Excellent Progress Continues - Currently, Francis continues to be my most active builder (but, Eric might be a close second - see below). He has shared many pictures and notes with me as he goes about each successive part of the airplane that he is working on. Here, Francis has hinges laid out on the table to make his ailerons and flaps (He claims that the pink glasses are NOT his.....well, I don't know!?!? It looks like they might fit. Just sayin'!?!?):
Actually, he sent me this picture because he was having some misalignment between the trailing edges of the outboard flaps and the aileron. I checked with Ray and he had the same issue. So, by using a hinge with a slightly wider flange on each side, the hinge on the outboard flap and the hinge on the aileron could be aligned more closely (and still have enough room to rivet the forward hinge flange to the aft wing spar flange. If this doesn't make a lot of sense to you now - when you build the wing and you get to this point, then it will become clear!
Here, Francis has the left wing aileron (on the left) and the inboard flap section (on the right) laid end-to-end with the trailing edges resting against and aluminum angle (closest to front of picture). He has a single piece of hinge stock temporarily in place along the front edges (toward back of pic). If you look closely, you can see the junction between the two parts and the slight misalignment just behind the two clecos:
Here are some of his nose ribs that make the boundaries of the fuel tanks in the leading edges of the outboard wings:
Hello Todd,
That's official, I hate the sealant!!😒
That stinks of the death🤢🤮!! After 2 days thats[it] still smell[s]!
In 5 minutes all the tools are sticky, and used 1 box of nitrile gloves😅
That's official, I hate the sealant!!😒
That stinks of the death🤢🤮!! After 2 days thats[it] still smell[s]!
In 5 minutes all the tools are sticky, and used 1 box of nitrile gloves😅
I have not had the pleasure of attempting this yet, myself. Now, I guess I'm not looking forward to this either!
As always, Francis, thank you very much for sending me all of your progress updates and pictures so that I can share them with the other Prowler builders!! I know the time it takes to do this and I really appreciate it (and I'm sure the other Prowler guys do as well). You are doing outstanding work and making excellent progress! We look forward to more, soon!
2.B. Francis - Visit With Eric In Montreal - Somehow, while doing all of his own Prowler work, Francis emailed me and told me that he was on vacation in the USA and wanted to try to go visit Eric in Montreal. I sent him the info to contact Eric and they did get an opportunity to meet. Here are some of the humorous email exchanges I had with Francis:
Hi Todd,
I work hard for[to] convince my girlfriend for[to] visit Montreal and meet Eric !!
Still 406 miles separates us! [But,] I am on good [the]way!!😁🤣🙂
[That is] If the wheel bearing of [this] Korean rental car permits it!
Our head and ears can [might] explode before [we get there]!!😎
And;
Hello Todd,
I am at the motel at[about] 1000 feet to[from] Eric's house!
(A very nice house and cars [out] front!)
I think I have to[should] shave and put [on] my better clothes!😁
He was not here [today?] but he reserved his Sunday for me!
Of course, I take a lot of pictures of his plane [for you].
later:
Before I meet Eric tomorrow he do[did] a low pass vertical [over] the motel with an RV with [the] smoke on 😎🤩😁👌👍
(I think I just figured out that Francis is a pretty funny & witty guy, but sometimes I miss a lot of it because it gets lost in the French-to-English translation!)
Anyway, Francis did meet with Eric! And, he did take several pictures that he sent me. Here are a few of them. Great craftsmanship here with the wing skin stiffeners in the radiator holes:
Excellent work, Eric!
After his meeting with Eric, Francis emailed me a few more times and sent me the pictures above. Here are some of his observations:
After his meeting with Eric, Francis emailed me a few more times and sent me the pictures above. Here are some of his observations:
We had a very, very, very good time with Eric!
He has a very good prowler kit (nice aluminum manufactured parts, straight and rigid (I am jealous)!
His work on his Prowler look good, he make the wing in is garage [at] home so he can work when[ever] he have some time. So he [is] progress[ing] rapidly!
He think[s] [he will] finish the plane in 3 years!
And, in a later email
Eric is a veritable work addict! He built his beautiful home. The furniture in his house [is] all home built (with out sofa), [also] 3/4 of his hangar, [and] a nice tricycle RV...
He offered to us a very good meal in his restaurant😋😃 (if you visit him try the "gibelotte" and "tarte au sucre"!) homemade by his very charming girlfriend.
I think HE is the faster Prowler builder (with out sacrificing build quality).
[Sidebar comment: I think the "without sofa" comment is Francis being witty again - meaning that he doesn't think that Eric ever sits around long enough to enjoy a sofa!]
It appears that Francis admits, in his own words, that he thinks that Eric is doing a better job, and building his Prowler faster! In any event, my complements to you both! You are BOTH doing an awesome job building your Prowlers. It is awesome to see Prowler builders getting together to share some information, a meal, and some fun!
Francis - Thank you very, very much for providing me with this information for the Prowler blog!
Eric - Outstanding job on your Prowler building! I agree with Francis - you are doing an excellent job! From the pictures he sent, you are a master aircraft builder!! Well done.
2.C. Ray - Update On MLG Torque Tube Problem - You may recall from a previous blog update that Ray and I were trying to cycle the MLG on his plane. We discovered a problem with the right MLG and deduced that there was something wrong inside the torque box where the pivot link attaches the end of the torque tube to the heavy steel channel built into it. Well, when he had time, Ray cut open access panels in the tops of his wings and was able to access the torque boxes through access panels that he had built into them during his wing construction. Here is his explanation of what he found:
The problem looks like it is caused by the rotation of the bearing as the gear retracts. When the gear is down the end of the shaft is with the bearing having very little rotation between the inner and outer races, almost flat. When the gear goes up the shaft rotates on the bearing enough that almost all of the angular movement of the bearing is used and the inner and outer race centerlines are about 20 deg apart, and the bearing is far enough out of a flat position that the part the bearing is pressed into can bind on the sleeve the mounting bolt goes through. This binding causes the bearing to move each time it goes up and can be seen by a zig zag line on the bearings outer race as it made it’s movement.
The fix was to put a sleeve over the mounting bolt sleeve to keep the bearing from sliding along the sleeve. I used a tube with a .634” ID to slide over the .625” bolt sleeve. The short part was cut to about .375, and the longer one was about .730”. I did have to belt sand a notch across both parts on one end about half way across and .090” deep to allow the spacer to not bind on the gear shaft when the gear was fully in the up position. After putting it all together, I cycled the shaft by hand several times and did find that the bearing moved to a neutral position where it didn’t bind and was happy.
Getting to the part is a pain since the wing skin has to be cut for an access panel, and if there was never a cutout in the landing gear torque box top that is an even larger problem.
OK, here's a few pictures to go with all that textual description. In the drawing below, I have highlighted the bearing that is the problem and the bolt that the assembly pivots on:
And, here it is turned to the position when the gear is up:
Now, as the gear cycles thru the 90 deg travel each time, that spherical bearing is going from where it's at the full limit of travel one way to the where the bearing nearly flat (sphere not rotated inside of the outer bearing race). When it was doing this, it (the bearing outer race) was constantly being wedged in its bore (in the pivot link) one way, then the "released' on the other way. What this did was allow the outer bearing race to "walk" out of the bore. This "walking" happened because the bearing wasn't pressed in tightly enough (the bore was slightly too large) and the pivot link was not staked well enough to prevent this from happening (staking a bearing is deforming the metal around the bore to prevent the bearing race from moving back out of the bore).
Ray's fix, for now (because it would be a lot of work to get the pivot links back out of the plane) was to simply put an appropriate sized spacer on each side of the bolt (and the wear sleeve) so that the bearing race could not move out of the bore in the pivot link. The last we talked, he had the airplane all back together with the exception of making the new access covers that he had to cut into the wing skins above the torque boxes. He's going to get to that soon.
Also, note the access panel that Ray had the foresight to build into the tops of his torque boxes. This was a great idea and saved him a lot of frustration in fixing this current issue. He (and I) recommends that everyone currently building their plane incorporate this mod into your builds. I will be making this standard on the kits that will be made in the future.
Thank you for the update on this issue! I'm glad you got it resolved without too much adversity. Also, Ray has decided to move out of Southern California. He has purchased a new home in Redmond, Oregon and is planning to start the moving process late this year and into next year. Congratulations Ray!
3. Work on the new Prowler FWF with Larry at AutoPSRU's - I stopped by to see Stuart and Larry again this year at their AutoPSRU's booth during AirVenture. Larry is making progress with the new Mustang style motor mount for the Prowler. Here is the latest picture I have from Larry of the new motor mount (that's a steel mock-up of a Prowler firewall on the left):
So, one day in Aug when I had some time I went down to the shed and took several measurements off of my mock-up with the AutoPSRU gearbox installed. [That way, I have some baseline measurements to work from.] Here are a few examples. The distance from the block to the final prop hub mounting flange:
This was a measurement to show Larry where the top of the forward engine compartment bulkhead should end up in relationship to a level off of the top, center of the firewall:
Later, I cooked up a "pseudo" forward engine compartment bulkhead (most of us refer to this part as the "horse collar" - for obvious reasons). I shipped this to Larry to use to design a
mounting point for it. I made it from pieces of flat aluminum sheet that I riveted
together. This mock-up horse collar only has 90 flanges, but it will work
well enough for now so that he can design a mounting system. [In production, this horse collar will be formed from a single piece of sheet and pressed in the big press I made. But, I don't have the press fully working yet - and I didn't want to hold Larry up. So, I just made one by hand that is a close approximation.] Here is a view of the aft side of the horse collar:
So, now Larry has the AutoPSRUs gearbox back and he received my horse collar. He's currently working on building this up on his Prowler FWF mock-up. Once he has this done, I will form some engine compartment longerons for him and he will be able to clamp them onto his mock-up. This will help ensure that the whole FWF will fit inside an engine compartment and (hopefully) will be as close as possible to the silhouette of the original production Prowler. More on this as it develops.
4. Update on Progress with N611GM Static Display - Since the last blog update I have made a little progress on making a static display from N611GM. After removing the engine in the last update, I needed to clean up the firewall and get everything off of it. This would allow me to mount a cage to the firewall to take the place of the engine. Here is a picture of the airplane as it sat after I got it off the trailer and set up next to my pumphouse:
Once I had the firewall cleaned off, I could start to make the cage that would replace the engine and gearbox and provide me something sturdy to mount the propeller blades to. To get started, I measured the original distance that the forward engine compartment bulkhead mounting brackets were located from the firewall (got these off the old engine mount). From that, I could begin rebuilding the engine compartment off the firewall. With enough of the engine compartment built back up, I could locate the forward bulkhead mounting brackets and then build up the "cage" to meet those brackets. Here is a pic of that in progress:
Eventually, I got all the individual pieces cut to size and tack welded together. Then, I took it all back apart and did a permanent weld to the cage. (I have a pile of this uni-strut material laying around that I got from an estate sale for super cheap, so I decided to use some of it up on this project) After getting the cage welded up, I mounted it back onto the firewall:
Now, it was time to turn to the prop blades. The first order of business was to get the blades off of the hub, so that I could straighten them. I had never taken anything like this apart before. It wasn't easy, but I managed to figure it out, eventually. Here is the hub and props before I started:
The first step was to remove the piston cylinder.
Here is the hub with the piston still mounted to the blades. The part in my hand is some kind of floating piston dampener (or travel limiter), I'm not sure:
With the blades removed, I then set up some blocks of wood in the 20 ton press and used them to straighten the prop blades. Here is one of them with pressure being applied to straighten it:
With the blades straightened, it was now time to figure out how to mount them. I probably could have used the original hub, somehow. But, it was fairly heavy and only had mounting holes that would mount to the prop shaft - which is still attached to the engine and in the gearbox. I did not want to break apart the gearbox, so I looked for a different way. I went searching in the shop and I found a good heavy wall piece of tubing about 18 inches long. I figured that this would probably work OK. I would just need to adapt the blades to it. To do this, I put the tubing in the super spacer on the mill and cut 3 flat spots onto the end of the tubing at the proper angles:
At this point, I started to look the other direction from this new makeshift prop shaft that I was making. I had previously mounted the prop spinner backing plate to the forward engine compartment bulkhead. However, the prop spinner backer has a 5" diameter hole it it. But, my new makeshift prop shaft was only 1.5" in diameter. Time to make another bushing. I found a piece of round aluminum plate in my "misc aluminum drawer". After a little lathe work, here is the bushing test fitted into the prop spinner backing plate:
With these holes all drilled and tapped in the correct places. The final step was to re-mount the new prop shaft tube into the static display and then weld it permanently onto the cage built inside of the engine compartment. Once the prop shaft was welded firmly into place, then I placed each blade onto it's prop shaft position and put the 3/8" socket head cap screw into the prop blade root and tightened them down snugly. With all 3 blades mounted, I put the prop spinner back on. Here is the net result:
5. AirVenture 2018 - This year, AirVenture was a little different experience for me. After many years of staying off site and driving into AirVenture each day - I finally purchased a 5th wheel RV that I could use to stay on the grounds at Camp Scholler with the rest of the "gang" that I normally meet up with during the week. I actually have been looking for a rig for the past few years, but this past spring I finally found a rig that I really liked that was in my $$ range. Here is a pic of it and of the spots that I staked out for 3 of us this year (I got there on the Sat prior to the show and was the 1st one there):
This was an interesting newcomer to AirVenture this year that I'd never seen before. I initially saw it flying from Camp Scholler (it was down over the N/S runway in "the box") and couldn't tell from that distance exactly what it was. It looked like I small P-38 from that vantage point. It wasn't until I took my first walk down the flight line that I figured it out! It's and interesting design. It's like a twin Extra with a jet engine mounted on the center-line. Isn't AirVenture cool!
Because I had extra room for people to stay with me this year, I invited a couple folks to join us (my 2 youngest daughters and I) this year. Here is Jen and Jordan checking out the HondaJet:
I met Jordan through my local EAA chapter. He went to school with my/our girls, he was heavily involved with our local CAP program and is pursuing a career in aviation. He won an EAA Air Academy scholarship in 2017 and really enjoyed it. This year, in 2018, he really wanted to go to AirVenture again, but didn't have a place to stay. I invited him to stay with us, and he (and his folks) accepted.
I met Jen on one of my flights in May. She is one of our Inflight crew members and told me that she was working as a flight attendant to fund her flight training to become a pilot. One day over breakfast I was talking about EAA and AirVenture. She'd never heard of it and was interested. So, I offered for her to also join us this year as well. After a bit of a frustrating experience (non-rev and space available) getting to OSH, she did join us and really enjoyed the AirVenture experience. Here are the 3 of us at the Brown Arch:
It was a pleasure having both of them with us this year. I enjoyed showing them the "ropes" of AirVenture and how to get around and see & do whatever appeals to them. They both really enjoyed the intense "everything aviation" experience that is AirVenture. It is awesome to see the interest and the enthusiasm that each of them has for aviation. My girls and I were really happy that we could help share the AirVenture experience with them. Jen emailed me recently and said she has already arranged vacation time for AirVenture 2019 and was working on arranging more "positive space" travel to and from the show next year. I think Jordan is going to try to make it back next year too, but he is in is first year of college and involved with the AFROTC program. So, he's not sure if his summer sked will allow it. I hope so - and you are both welcome join us again in 2019!
While I was walking the grounds showing Jen and Jordan around, we ran into a new Corsair that I'd not seen before. If you've been following my blog for any length of time, you know that I am an F-4U fan. It's my all-time favorite aircraft. Here is a pic of the "new guy":
The airshows were awesome again - as always. Here is a pic of some of the "bomb drops" during the Wednesday Warbirds airshow:
Once again, the Wed night airshow got rained out. Actually, this year they cancelled it before
everyone headed down to the flight line (due to an advancing storm front). The night airshow got rescheduled for Thurs night, and it was impressive, as always. The closing fireworks is always amazing:
I think the fireworks that EAA puts on after the night airshow is consistently the best fireworks show that I've ever seen. It is loud, long,
and intense all the way until...... you know..... what happens at the end:
Here are our two youngest daughters in front of another one of my favorite airplanes:
That's a wrap for this update. I hope to have some time in the shop this fall and get some more parts made for Kit #18. I would also like to get the big hydraulic press plumbing tweaked and leaks fixed up and then get some parts made with it. Have a great fall season, everyone!
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