|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
    |
It has been a while but not a lot happened in 2010 except that I worked a lot. Anyway, I have moved to a new house with a double garage and therefore work is picking up on the 4. I have ordered tools from Ishams and they should be here in a week or so. I am arranging the workshop and have built a couple of EAA workbenches. Here is a photo of the house, with my Red Subaru Legacy parked outside.  My House in Gibswil, Switzerland A memorial service is being held today in England to commemorate those who fought the Luftwaffe in the skys over England seventy years ago. There are still some of The Few with us today but The Few are considerably fewer. I was not born for another twelve years, however, tales of bravery and sacrifice in this particular battle stir me in a way I cannot describe and was one of the inspiring factors that made me want to learn to fly. Churchill coined the name for this group of people who stopped Goering’s best and who bought the time needed to regroup, consolidate and hold the fort until December 1941. In 1940, The Battle of Britain lasted from July 10th to October 31st. Goering made a big mistake on September 7th when he changed tactics from bombing RAF airfields to bombing the towns and cities of England Wales and Southern Scotland. At the expense of the civilian poulation, the RAF won some respite. To quote Churchill: Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
The Battle of Britain Memorial at Capel-le-Ferne, between Folkestone and Dover in Kent. This is an area where I can post links, stories and photographs that keep the inspiration going and kick me in the arse to keep building this bugger. I found this link on Steve Sampson’s site. I am not so sure about the wisdom of flying so low but this clip stirred something in me to just get on with it. I love the Steven Stills lyrics. Well I have a workshop now. Five minutes from where I work and ten minutes from my new apartment, which I move into in October. (This arrange was changed in January 2011 when I moved into a house in Gibswill. See later posts). However, I have a problem. There has never been an RV-3 built in Switzerland, so I have been reliably informed. What does this statement imply? Well, it means that if your project is the “first” of its kind of a particular model, even if it is closely related to other models in the kit producers range, then you are required to work with the EAS group. EAS is the Swiss equivalent of the EAA in the States and the LAA in the UK. I have been told that this can be major pain in the rear since there are no defined requirements/information of what EAS want and when they want it. This means the if I carry on with building the 3 then I will end up being caught up in bureaucracy and having to pay for engineering assessments. Engineering costs have to be carried by a particular model type group. and since it will probably be the only 3 around, then all engineering and certification costs will have to be burdened by me. So what is the way forward? Well there are a number of RV-4s being built and that are flying on the Swiss experimental register. This means that the trail has already been broken by some intrepid Swiss “Lewis and Clark”. The bureaucratic costs will be more managable. The RV-4 has an extra seat and can carry more weight and there is more room for baggage if flying alone. So Vans will be getting an order from me for an RV-4 emp kit within the next few weeks. What will happen to my 3 project? Well it may still happen. I will concentrate on the 4 and the 3 may be built as a second project. My workshop is not big enough to accommodate both projects. I have subsequently heard that a Van’s RV-3 WAS built in Switzerland. However no records exist of the build and the plane was sold on to someone in France. The chances are that this 3 was built with the old spar configuration. The new 3B spar configuration would have to be submitted for engineering approval and load test would have to be carried out. So I would still have had to go through the extra processes. I have made the correct choice in changing to the RV^4 before it got to expensive. Here is a photo of the only RV-3 to be built in Switzerland:  The only RV-3 to be built in Switzerland flying in front of a cloud covered Matterhorn. To wind down after work my good friend and work colleague Phil and myself had several of these:
I have been in Zurich for just over four weeks now. I am living in an Apart Hotel close to the airport and it is ok. I miss “Her Indoors” and my dogs big time but the work is interesting and the days go swiftly by. One of the funniest things was when the “Cloud” from Iceland descended on Zurich a week or so ago, was seeing a swarm of light piston powered aircraft buzzing around joyfully in the free airspace vacated by the grounded jets that were unable to fly because it was much to dusty for the turbines. It was a glorious sunny day for me on the ground and undoubtedly for those GA pilots, in the relatively free airspace devoid of noisy jets, in the air. Looking for a place to build my Swiss Cheese RV4. I have knocked up a simple spreadsheet to determine weight and balance numbers for the RV-3B. The advantage of this spreadsheet is that it gives me numbers to aim at in constructing this aeroplane. I can adjust the empty weight C of G by positioning heavy items such as the battery to give me the best empty weight C of G position to cater for varying weights.To be honest the main area to keep an eye on is the baggage compartment as this has the greatest effect on C of G between empty and full. The spreadsheet can be down loaded from here: RV-3B Weight and Balance Calculations If you down load and use this spreadsheet, then you do it at your own risk. I have checked my calculations and I am happy for the moment that they are correct. I will be rechecking these calculations before I use them in earnest. Since I heard about getting the contract in Zurich, I have been doing some research into building the RV-4 in Switzerland. What I have discovered so far is that the Swiss do things slightly different to the Germans and the Brits. The biggest plus I have discovered so far is that a builder is not confined to building the plane within the borders of Switzerland. This it not the case with the UK or Germany. The downside to this is that inspection have to be completed by a BAZL/EAS approved engineer. This will probably mean travel costs will be incurred. Swiss registered aeroplane registration identifiers start with HB. Experimental aircraft are registered HB-Yxx. There is a lot of information available in English from EAS, whereas all information from OUV is available only in German. I am not complaining but it makes life easier if you are a native English speaker and your German is not so good. Van’s Airforce is a forum site devoted to Van’s Aircraft. The site is a very good resource for information gathering, problem solving and seeing how others have built their chosen RV. I have and will continue to look at this site for inspiration and to post questions regarding building my RV-4. There are a number of not problems but maybe things to be wise about with looking at forums like VAF. Firstly, if your looking for information to solve an issue with building or flying your RV then you must treat all the replies very carefully. Anyone can post and reply to questions asked and therefore verification of answers must be conducted. This is not generally a problem as if you are a regular visitor to VAF then you get to know the individuals who have a vast wealth of experience and give good practical advice and can filter the responses from those who chime in just to “hear their own voice”. Secondly, sometimes a thread on VAF will turn nasty. Somebody, for example, posts a thread about an idiot caught on camera flying much to low over a beach for example and then others chime in suggesting the idiot should have his license removed and bring up other points to further their argument. Somebody else will then take exception to some points raised and then starts trading insults with some of the thread contributors. The thread descends sometimes descends into the gutter. I tend to steer clear of contributing to threads like this as I do not want to get into an argument with some numpty over a matter that in the end will be sorted out by the moderators. However it is interesting to see people, who you thought were generally calm passive individuals, throwing their toys out of the pram at some point. Thirdly, posts will get removed for reasons outlined in VAF Posting Rules published on VAF. If these rules are not followed, then the moderators (and there seems to be around 20 moderators who police the various forums) can and will remove offending posts. However, these rules are open to interpretation by the moderators. I have had posts removed where I have made some minor misdemeanor and I have seen other threads disappear for what seems to be over vigorous interpretation of the Doug’s posting rules. Nevertheless, I could be wrong here. No reason is however given to contributers by the moderators when a post is removed. This is in my opinion is a bit rude, but the site is owned by a really nice guy called Doug Reeves and his rules on posting are clearly annotated. VAF is his site and we must respect his posting rules. Doug makes his living from this site and I can see that acting as referee in some minor skirmish is a waste of his and moderators time. Looking at this issue from another point of view, the sheer numbers of contributions made to VAF, cannot be policed just by one person. Whenever there is an accident to an RV or an RV related incident. Some contributors and in my opinion contributors is the wrong description for these numptys, start speculating on cause and what maybe they would have done in a similar circumstance. This usually happens BEFORE any relevant official information or data is published. I cannot abide this. It really does make my blood boil when some know it all comments on someone else’s mishap. The moderators in these instances, do a very good job here of toning down the comments and removing speculative posts. My contributions to VAF will be on experiences building my RV-4. I will also help where I can with questions I know the answer to and I will comment on threads that show good workmanship, ideas and are basically non contentious. If I would have posted a thread on VAF, similar to my comments here, then, I am sure, the post would be removed. I am fortunate I can comment here to my hearts content and no will remove what I have to say. The business trip last week was worth it. I got a contract for six months with the bank. I start in two weeks on 29th March so I have to get my finger out here preparing the workshop.
The above table shows the target empty weight I will try to achieve. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Copyright © 2012 Anthony's RV-4 - All Rights Reserved 178 queries. 0.593 seconds. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Popular Posts