Week 67 - 3 March 2004

CAPTAINS LOG - Star date!!!!!  No no no wrong show...

There is nothing to report this week as we didn't work tonight.  Greg has the Flu/Cold.  To keep him from coming over and infecting Rick and I, we promised we would take a night off.

-- Gary Himes  

Week 68 - 10 March 2004

Guess I will start off, again, by explaining the pictures. Picture 1 has yours truly applying the first radio controlled right rudder. I always wondered why the guys keep me in back of the camera. After seeing the cheesy look on my face, I know why. Picture 2 shows the rudder controls with the pull-pull cables running to the front. Picture 3 shows the tail wheel in the retracted position.  The first business of the night was to get the rudder controls permanently mounted. Next all paths for the pull-pull cables were routed out. Once that was proved the permanently pull-pull cable was run and crimped into position. Now the tail wheel was put in position and we discussed how to control it. We quickly decided to control it from the rear rudder control. A quick pull-pull cables were made and a test spring installed. It worked good but we think we need stiffer springs and will probably will replace the pull-pull cable with carbon fiber push rods.

This was all much quicker to describe than to do. And yes it seems slow. But we are ending up with very solid controls which are not visible outside the aircraft.

-- Gary Himes