Hot day at Bear Creek Skunk Works

It was a good day to start wing varnishing as the room where the wings are stowed is air conditioned.
Before dipping our brushes, master technical counselor Terry Gardner noticed that the bolts linking the crossbars to the wing spars were not oriented properly:
"Standard practice is to insert all aircraft bolts either with the bolt threads down, pointing outboard or aft whenever possible. This is done in case the nut should somehow come off; the forces of gravity and inertia will tend to keep the bolt in place"
Correction done!
Then the fun starts:

At the end of the session, the two wings were varnished from head to toes and we too!
The usual suspects participated: Terry, Kent, Andy, Nathan, Tom, Joel, Jim & JP

Bear Creek in the News!

Thanks Michael Crowder for being the first to notice an excellent article on our efforts written by Dan Grunloh, Editor of EAA's Light Plane World. See this link to read the article.

Ordinary Day at Bear Creek Skunk Works - Work Session 6/30/2011

Unseasonably cool weather increased our productivity this past week, allowing a strong crew of ten to check off a few more tasks (see also images below):

1. Blocks for the aileron hinge attachments were cut by Chuck Borsuk and installed Wednesday by Kent.
   
2. Space blocks for the wing trailing edges were measured and cut by Chris McClure, Nathan McConnell and Andy Thomson. They'll be glued/tacked in place at the next session.
3. Terry made a major ($$$) order of 4130 steel for the aileron torque tubes, fuselage tabs and wing compression tubes. It should arrive from A/C Spruce soon, allowing us to fabricate the ailerons and prep the fuselage.
4. Konrad Schoen has made contact with the Marvel-Schebler division of Aero Accessories (that we'll tour next Thursday from 2-4 PM, 7/7/2011) to understand our options in rebuilding our carburetor.
5. All sheet aluminum parts were thoroughly stripped by Joel McLaughlin, Andy Thomson, Nathan McConnell, and JP Bernoux. Konrad Schoen then power washed these. Kent will take the dented pieces to Cecil Boyd for repair.
   
6. Tim Misegades stripped the paint from the formerly black wing brackets used for strut and fuselage attachments. Terry will prime and paint these.
7. JP Bernoux and Kent Misegades replaced the last bolt on the wing diagonal struts.
8. Noel Fallwell reported on his findings following a thorough review of the previous builder's log.

Our next "session" will be a tour of the Aero Accessories facility in Gibsonville, NC on Thursday, 7/7/2011 from 2-4 PM. Leave from Cox Field at 1PM or drive directly to their facility at 1240 Springwood Avenue, Gibsonville, NC 27249. Our host is Tom Welsh, plant manager.

We may also have another regular work session next week, depending on parts arrivals, so stay tuned.














J-P Bernoux gently "mallettizes" the last bolt for the wing diagonal bracing. (JP's comment: Kent is unwittingly funny as my wife Michèle's maiden name is Mallet)


















Konrad Schoen power washes the last remnants of goo off the freshly stripped sheet metal.














Thomas Barnes, Terry's hangar neighbor, zips past us in his swift little Wittman Tailwind.














Nathan McConnell and Chris McClure discuss the dimensions of the poplar spacers needed to keep the trailing edge straight and consistent.


















Tim Misegades once again with his arms in the blasting box, this time preparing wing brackets for priming and painting. Tim had nothing better to do after a long, hot day at his job in the Guardian Aviation hangar at Siler City than to spend a few more hours in another hot hangar.














Male strippers show what they do best: Handy Andy, The Laird, Nathan "The Quiet One", and Frenchy hard at work.














Male strippers show what they do best: The Laird, Nathan "The Quiet One", and Frenchy hard at work.


















The Laird, dreaming of Highlander conquests in a past life, wields a stripping brush as well as his fore-bearers carved with their dirks.














Quittin' time - Terry and Joel turn Chris's Husky around on the BCSW Ramp.

Chris prepares for launching with the Redneck A/C engaged (door left open).















"Let's see, KJNX used to be there." Hey Chris - just head East and look for the steam rising from the Johnston County stills!

Skycoupe back on its feet!

With a large group of 10 workers, we were able to reassemble the landing gear and put the Skycoupe's fuselage back on its legs. See the images below. Continued progress was also made on the wing, with all repairs to the rib leading edge now complete and the correct bolts installed on the diagonal bracing.

During the re-installation of the bearings and wheels, a few pieces came up missing. All workers are reminded that it is imperative when disassembling anything on the airplane to:

1. Photograph all details before doing anything. This may be the only record we have to help us put things back together. There are two cameras in the shop for this purpose.
2. Place all parts in ziplock bags (a box of these is in the shop) and mark the contents with a Sharpie.
3. Tape the bags onto the parts they belong to.
4. Wrap masking tape onto odd parts and label them so we'll know what they are and where they go back onto the plane.

When reinstalling anything on the airplane, do this with care and avoid scratching the beautiful freshly-painted surfaces. While our intent is not to build a showplane, why not make it look as good as possible? Remember too, that this is an airplane and one day we'll trust our life to each others work. Often it is simply the lack of something as tiny as a washer than can cause problems.

Some upcoming events to note:

1. General Aviation News has accepted by offer to publish an article on our project. I will use this as a means to solicit donations of things we need.
2. Terry is negotiating with the NC Transportation Museum to see if we can recover the control surfaces of a Piedmont DC-3 under restoration. This would provide us with a good means to learn how to cover before doing our own plane. We also have someone lined up to teach this workshop. You can read about the DC-3 effort here.
3. Aero Accessories, owner of a line of the Tempest line of aircraft components and the Marvel-Schebler line of carburetors, has invited us to tour their facility in Gibsonville (near Burlington) on Thursday, July 7th from 2-4 PM.
   

No work session is planned for this weekend, but we are planning to meet latest next Thursday.

Ray Stits Praises our Work!

Dear Bear Creekers - I was pleasantly surprised to receive a call this morning from the designer of our airplane, Ray Stits, who is also the founder of EAA Chapter One at Flabob Airport in Riverside, CA. I had written to him last week and sent him some pictures of our progress. Here are some of his comments:

• Your work looks good; I am glad that people are still interested in my designs, which were always meant to be safe, simple and inexpensive.
• I just turned 90 and fly a Cessna C162 Skycatcher. I have made 1,200 Young Eagle flights and am in good health, which is important.
• The kids working on the Wathen Foundation's Skycoupe restoration only put in two hours a week. They are making steady progress, but it will take them five years to get it done.
• It took six years, a large investment and hard work to certify the Skycoupe. We used a Continental O-200 engine and tested everything. When everything was done, we calculated that we'd need to sell 90 aircraft each month in order to break even, so we decided not to go into production.
• Please send me more pictures on your progress.
  
• The Skycoupe was the most popular homebuilt at EAA conventions in the 1960s. They were harder to build than kits are today, but you could build one back then for a few thousand dollars.
  
• It would be great if you could organize a reunion of my designs at Oskosh one day.

Ray is a quick, articulate speaker with a sharp mind, and seems very interested in what we're doing. I look forward to sending this icon of American sport aviation progress reports on our work in the coming months.

Today I also spoke with David Doherty, president of EAA chapter 32 in St. Charles, MO, who owns a Skycoupe project, the airplane his father built and flew for many years. David mentioned a mod to the design we might want to consider one day:

"Have you heard of a mod on the Skycoupe where the carry-through member right behind the seat is moved back? It’s a fairly large diameter tube the seat back is tied to. I’ve talked to several owner/builders who have done that. They added a plate on the fuselage at the weld cluster and moved the tube back 3”, Without the mod, the seat is very upright and uncomfortable on longer flights. I was thinking of doing a mod of that type to my plane, but probably won’t."

Our next work session is tomorrow, Thursday, 6/23/2011 from 4-8 PM. In the past week, we have obtained new bearings for the wheels, and Terry wants to put the fuselage back on the gears tomorrow. He and Tim are in the shop today painting the landing gear and doing some other prep work. We have more work to do on the wings, stripping of aluminum panels, and additional prep work for covering. Hope to see many of you at Eagle's Landing tomorrow afternoon end evening.

Congratulations to Tim for his completing a 2.5 hour long cross-country this morning, using dead-reckoning and VORs, no GPS. Can we old guys still do that?

The Wing is the King - Work Session 6/18/2011

Aerodynamicists love to claim that "the wing is the king", and they're right. No other aspect of an aircraft's design is more critical than the external shape, and internal structure of its wing. Ray Stits chose conservatively in both respects when creating the Skycoupe. It is a Hershey-Bar style wing of constant NACA 4412 section, one of the most popular airfoils of all time, with its 12% thickness and docile "trailing edge" stall characteristics. Some other famous planes that use the NACA 4412 include the Aeronca Champ, Chief and Sedan, Aeropro Eurofox (Andrey Piskarev's plane), Buecker Bestmann, Douglas Super DC-3, Evans VP-1 Volksplane and many others.

Yesterday, Saturday 6/18/2011, a small team consisting of Andy Thomson, Joel McLaughlin, Kent Misegades and Terry Gardner, focused their complete attention on repairs to the wing. Work included sanding excess from the leading edge doublers, rebonding two loose ribs, and adding quarter blocks on either side of each rib on the main spar. We have heard that the famous airshow pilot Art Scholl once flew a full aerobatic routine in a stock Skycoupe - this is one strong airplane, and ours was made a bit stronger by our efforts yesterday. Soon we should be able to varnish all wood surfaces, reattach the aluminum leading edge sheeting and prepare for covering. See our pictures here for details of yesterday's accomplishments. The next work session is scheduled for Thursday, 6/23/2011 from 4-8 PM.


















Joel sands the excess off the birch plywood doublers fabricated by Chuck Borsuk and bonded last Thursday.


















The plane's wide bench seat makes an ideal new parts depot.


















A 12 gallon fuel tank is well protected from a 4130 chromoly steel tube cage between the firewall and the plane's panel.


















Joel fills gaps and nail holes with T88 epoxy adhesive.


















Ray, the perforated plastic flamingo, our airplane's mascot, studies a conversion manual for the Lycoming O-290-G engine that will power our plane. Thanks Konrad Schoen for loaning us this manual.














Brian White generously donated a set of Super Cub struts to our project. These will be cut down and welded at the fuselage attachment point, a fun project for someone. The same struts appear to be used on the eBay Skycoupe, N24132.















The freshly-primed landing gears, ready for their final epoxy coat of white. Between them are our new McCreary Aero Trainer tires, still in their shrink-wrap as shipped by Aircraft Spruce.














Ain't they pretty? Look what a bit of stripping, blasting, priming and painting can yield - the tough DuPont "Isuzu White" epoxy paint Terry used on the wheels and nose gear will last for many years.














Ray, the perforated plastic flamingo, comes equipped with JATO bottles and a NACA 442 airfoil. Tucker Gardner, Terry's energetic Boxer, provided Ray with his perforations.









































Sand, sand, sand.....Joel, Andy and Terry make dust.














46 fir quarter blocks bonded and tacked in place. Fir is, in many respects, as good or better than spruce for aircraft construction, and a lot cheaper. Capital Lumber has a good supply of quality fir planks; only the best will do for our 'Coupe.

Below: Tailfeathers, ready for covering. The pleasing light olive drab color of the primer is almost too pretty to cover with fabric. Our Male Strip Team did an excellent job preparing the tubes' surfaces, have a look when you are next at Eagles Landing.

Latest pictures from Bear Creek Male Strip Team

Thanks to our Male Strip Team (Jim Cronin, Chris McClure, Tom Hall) the control surfaces received new primer today and are ready to cover this weekend! Progress, like turning a tanker occurs in time. With our dedicated group of volunteers the sky really will be the limit!
Terry