Kit Aircraft Modifications

I want to spend some time talking about the poor quality of the fiberglass components that come with aluminum airframe kits. This issue has been in the forefront of many conversations in the RV-10 Matronix list that I belong to. I have experience with Van’s kits and that is what I will talk to today.

Many of my fellow builders are looking at replacing major composite components in the kit including the doors and the main canopy structure. Van’s ship one heck of a kit when you are talking about the aluminum structure. They fall way short when you look at the fit and finish of their fiberglass components. There is little doubt that an inordinate amount of time and physical effort is going into bringing the rough components up to a standard that we as builders would accept.

I have noticed that a pretty hefty sum of money is spent by the average builder in purchasing finishing supplies and tools. This all adds up and I am hearing that many a builder wants the option of purchasing these components at a much higher level of quality, fit and finish. They have said that they understand that there would be a premium paid for this but most were only happy to accept the lower level of fiberglass dust in their lungs.

There have been some problems with the doors and the hinges on the RV-10. This is not to say there is any safety issue but rather, issues with the difficulty in getting the doors to fit properly into the canopy structure with proper clearances. Some are asking for a complete canopy structure with the doors already attached and a center upper console installed. Looks like an opportunity if the price could be kept low enough.

This brought out the people worried that the 51% rule would no longer be valid. I think that if the builder still has to do the trimming to fit the fuselage structure then the spirit of the rule would be met. It only takes into effect the task to be learned amongst all tasks to be learned rather than the amount of hours spent on each task.

I don’t think that Van’s has any intention of changing any aspect of their fiberglass component construction. What I do think is that there is a market out there that is showing a demand for higher quality fiberglass parts.

Dave

I have been watching in awe the accomplishments of a fellow Canadian as he designs and implements the installation of a turbocharged Subaru engine in his RV-10 project. Ross is the kind of guy that has the smarts and the where-with-all to pull of an engine conversion correctly.

He started in the game a few years ago with an RV-6. In it he installed a turbocharged Subaru EA-22. I was very impressed with the amount of detail and testing that he went through in validating his design and installation. You can see how he did it all in his RV-6A Build Log

Ross has a company that manufactures electronic ignition and fuel injection systems for the racing industry. As such, it only seemed fit that he adapted it to work in an airplane. It is simple and robust and flight proven. You can go to see his products at his Simple Digital Systems EFI home page.

After completing testing the RV-6A it seemed that Ross still had the building bug so he ordered a Van’s RV-10. I have watched his progress intently as he shares the same alternative engine bug that I have. I have especially enjoyed his development of a belly scoop where he houses the engine cooling radiator.

Ross has decided that the RV-10 needed more horsepower. To that effect he rounded up a twin turbo, Subaru EG33, six cylinder DOHC engine rated at 275 hp for takeoff. Isn’t that a mouth full. He has documented all of his fabrication and installation efforts in his RV-10 Build Log.

I would take the time to read very carefully all of the information on his site. there is a tremendous wealth of information available to the builder who is considering an alternative engine and it gives a true picture of the effort involved in creating your own firewall forward package.

Dave

Most people in the aviation community who have met me, either in person or on-line know that I am an alternative engine nut. From day one of my RV-10 project, I have been looking for an engine that would replace the prehistoric IO-540 that Van’s designed the airframe around.

As with most builders I ran into numerous roadblocks when it came to evaluating different engine options. One of the largest problems with the alternative engine market in general is the lack of a suitable firewall forward package. There aren’t many builders that want to put on the engineering hat as well.

Being the closet engineer that I am led me to start putting together a FWF package together for one of the engine / PSRU combinations that I thought would be perfect for the RV-10. The engine mount was the first piece in the puzzle.

I figured that it would be easier to start from scratch when building a new engine mount than to hack the existing one apart to modify it. It being already welded and heat relieved. I was able to get an example of an RV-10 engine mount lent to me by a fellow builder. From this we took measurements that gave us the dimensions of the mount points as well as the design of the structure that the nose gear is mounted to.

I took this information to a local aerospace MIL-Spec welding and fabrication shop. We made a fabrication jig and 2 initial units. This sub-mount is the perfect staring point for the builder who wants to install an alternative engine without having to hack apart the mount they get from Van’s. In fact you would be able to delete the mount from the Van’s Finish Kit to reduce costs.

The new sub-mount is made from the same material as the original and has been properly welded and heat treated. I think that there is are a number of individuals out there building RV-10s that are looking into alternative engines who might be interested in this product it should save them some time.

As happens in the pursuit of alternative engines for aircraft, I ran into too many roadblocks at least on the engine that I was pursuing at the time. I am currently waiting on a very new engine technology to mature in hopes that I will be able to utilize it in a totally new aircraft engine design. It will be designed to exactly fit into the space utilized by current engines and will attach to the existing mount so I have no need for these initial units.

I have 2 of the initial units available and more can be made with some notice. Here are a few pictures of them. You can contact me at davehertner@kitaircraftmods.com if you are interested in acquiring one of these for your project.

Dave

Hi there everyone,

I would like to thank all of you for taking the time to read my blog. I have been very happy with the numbers who have come to visit.

I will get a little bit of administration out of the way right off of the bat. I initially started this blog under the URL www.kitairplanemods.com. This proved somewhat awkward for me in that I kept telling eveyone that it was www.kitaircraftmods.com when it wasn’t. I have cleared this up by switching over to the current www.kitaircraftmods.com completely and I am much happier for it.

As well, I would love it it you would place a link to my blog on your home page or e-mail it to a friend. This will give you a daily pipeline to the modifications that other builders are incorporating into their aircraft.

I have already started to receive comments on some of the posts. Thank you for your kind words. Please feel free to make a comment on what you have read. As long as the comments are kept clean and constructive, I will post them for all to see. If you want the comment kept private then make sure that you stat that in the comment.

Dave

A while back I had the opportunity to have a look at a partially completed Murphy Moose that a local builder was working on. His name is Brent Davies and he was constructing his airplane in a hangar at the London International Airport in London Ontario Canada.

First of all, I have to say that a Murphy Moose is a big aircraft. I would say that its floor level would be even with my belt or higher and I am 5′11″. This thing needs a big engine. This was the tail-dragger version but I heard that Brent was going to put it on Clamar floats so that he could ply the northern lakes and catch lots of fish.

Normally you would slap on a 300hp Lycoming IO-540 to get this thing to perform respectably from the water but at ~US$50000 it is an expensive endeavor. This is where Brian Robinson and his Corvette engine conversion comes in.

Brian has been modifying Corvette engines for aircraft use for quite some time now. He has a Corvette engined Republic SeaBee that he developed the package for with over 1000 hrs running time. I have been to his home north of Toronto and have seen the engines being connected to the gearboxes. They are impressive indeed. You can see his site here. http://www.v8seabee.com

After getting all a number of Republic SeaBees running on Corvette power Brian turned his sites toward other aircraft that require high horsepower engines. Brent’s Murphy Moose fit the bill perfectly.

Brent had to do a lot of work, in consultation with Brian to get the firewall forward completed. This has been completed though and last I heard, Brent has successfully flown the aircraft.

I’ll attach a couple of photos to give you an idea of what the installation looks like.

This is going to be a potent combination providing that Brent can get enough air through the rads to cool the engine effectively. this has been the Achilles heal for many automotive conversions. I have flown in Brian’s SeaBee and if his earlier version is any indicator I think that he has a winner with this Moose.

Keep on riveting!

Dave

How many of you have had an issue, a bad experience, lost money, were poorly treated, received a poor quality product, received inadequate installation instructions, couldn’t get repair parts or ended up having to call a lawyer?

Why is it that dealing with supply of accessories tends to be one of the worst parts of building an aircraft? Here we are shelling out huge dollars to buy not only the kit but all of the various accessories that go along with it.

I recently purchased an overhead console for my RV-10 from a supplier in Utah. This is a fiberglass unit that fits into the upper canopy of the RV-10. It comes with eyeball vents, LED lights and a DVD player for the rear passengers.

At the time of the purchase I talked with the owner about payment and shipping as I live in Southwestern Ontario. He indicated to me that this console was very awkward and that packaging it was difficult. It turned up at the UPS depot in a heap of cardboard sheets and boxes that had miles of packing tape cobbling it all together. The smaller box on the inside had busted open allowing all of the contents spill all over the place. The lovely eyeball vents were rolling around and one of the small boxes that had the LED light in it had adhered to a bit of tape right beside a gaping hole in the outer cardboard box.

So here I am. Happy to receive my expensive box. I get it open and start looking for documentation on how to install it. No diagram. No instructions. No more than my own idea on how it needs to be installed. I sat there in my shop thinking, “Why do I have to figure this out myself?”

So I buck it up and flip the canopy over on my work bench and place the console in place. Sort of. This thing doesn’t really fit. The design has a fairly contoured shape that is supposed to fit over the front bow of the canopy. This fits not too bad but as you move aft there is another pronounced flange feature designed to fit the jog where the canopy thins. If you set the front in place the mid step doesn’t fit by about 3/4″ and you can’t easily reposition it because the aft most end of the console has a flange that has to mate with the bulkhead at the rearmost end of the baggage compartment.

This has stopped me in my tracks! Do I cut the thing in half? This seems like the only way to resolve the issue. What gets me is why the thing wasn’t designed as a 2 piece system from the get go. Then it would be able to allow for the variance in quality and dimensions of the non-tool side of the canopy. We have to glass the thing into the canopy anyway.

When are the people who supply accessories and components for our airplanes going to get the fact that we expect high quality?

I am interested in hearing your stories. We need to get the word out to the industry that we expect more. I am not saying that there aren’t great companies out there. There are! It is those who think that quality assurance is a cost who need to wake up and realize what they are losing. Word-of-mouth can make a great year for a company but it can also do the opposite. I had someone contact me the other day regarding a product I am about to market. He wanted to know if I would take them back if they didn’t work out. He indicated that he had been burned a number of times by being an early adopter.

How hard is it to source proper packaging to ensure that your product gets to its destination unscathed? How hard is it to make sure that there are proper instructions and diagrams in the package to support the product? Why don’t you understand that we are your bread and butter?

I’ll say right here that Total Customer Comfort is going to be the mantra that my company lives by. A 100% Satisfaction Guarantee is no longer enough. I am going for 100% customer comfort as well.

I am still in the set-up phase of this blog site so some of the page links have yet to be set. If you want to contact me please feel free to use the following mailbox.

davehertner@kitaircraftmods.com

Dave

I found what I think is probably the coolest positions lights in the whole universe. Jeff Bordelon has taken some very powerful LED lights and embedded them in a plastic housing that is highly mirrored. It reminds me of the tail lights on many vehicles today.

Here is a couple of photos of the housing that holds the LEDs

What strikes me about this design is its efficient use of actual lighting to do the job. Usually you see this array of LED lights that are attached to a visible circuit board. I find that this is somewhat unfinished looking. This is the first LED set-up that I think has a purposeful design. What a bonus that the inclusion of mirroring adds to the overall efficiency.

Here are a couple of pictures of Chad Jensen’s wing tips with Jeff’s LEDs installed.

I would like to say bravo to Jeff for his fine work. He is offering these for sale on his web site http://www.jeffsrv-7a.com I think that I am going to put these in my RV-10 and there is no doubt that they would look great in your airplane.

Keep building!!

Dave

The other day I was hanging around www.vansairforce.net in the forums and I saw an interesting modification to the spacer holding the fiberglass wheel fairing on the outboard side of the main wheels. The original spacer, which is made from a threaded hexagonal extrusion has had a small number of attachment bolt failures thus far due to vibration. A couple of fellows from Texas have come up with a replacement that looks much stronger. Their names are Russ Davies and Dr. Linnard Griffin.

The picture below shows the old spacer sitting above the new beefier one. They both attach to the wheel nut in the same way but the greater amount of surface area that the new design places against the nut reduces the amount of stress on the bolt.

Here is a photo of the new spacer mounted on the airplane. The slots that are cut in the center of the spacer are there so a wrench can hold the unit while the bolt going into it from inside the nut is torqued.

All in all, I think that this is a great fix for the problem. It adds a little weight close to the CG which might be a problem for people who want the leanest machine possible but I would sacrifice a few ounces in exchange for the piece of mind knowing that my wheel fairings are secure and not prone to failure due to vibration.

Dave

A while ago I came up with a cool little modification that allowed for a better mounting of the Whelen taillight/strobe on my RV-10.

The problem that I heard others were having with the design of the lower rudder fairing was that it was difficult to get the 2 nuts that anchor the aluminum retainer ring epoxied in place. Mostly, this was due to the very cramped area within which you have to work.

I thought long and hard thinking that there had to be a better way to mount this thing. It dawned on me one day that it would be better for servicing the light if it were easy to remove from the plane altogether. The epoxy job tends to make the installation somewhat more permanent.

I got out a piece of 1/4″ aluminum and drilled a hole that was a little bigger than the outer diameter of the Whelen light housing. I transferred the outer retaining ring dimensions to the aluminum and started cutting it out.

I then located six holes around this ring of sorts that were away from the holes that hold on the retaining ring. I drilled these out to 1/8″ and countersank them till there was less than 1/8″ thickness remaining. The diameter of the counter bore was the same as the O.D. of a CS-4 pulled rivet.

I located the retaining ring’s mounting holes on the aluminum, drilled and tapped the holes to accept the machine thread mounting screws. From there I took the unit and cleaned it up and primed it. I placed the unit on the lower rudder fiberglass fairing and centered it in the location I wanted it and drilled out the six 1/8″ holes into the fiberglass and clecoed it on.

I then carefully removed the fiberglass in the center hole out to where it met the aluminum and trial fitted the whole assembly. I then blind riveted the ring to the fairing and installed the light assembly to make sure that everything fit as planned.

This modification worked to solve a couple of problems. First, it made the installation a much easier affair where you don’t have to work with epoxy and in a very tight area. Secondly, it makes the servicing of the light a breeze later on.

I will be making this adapter ring available for purchase in the near future. It is the perfect example of the type of modifications that I want to highlight on this blog.

Dave

I would like to say hello to all you experimental aircraft builders out there who love to make modifications to their aircraft or its systems.

I am starting this blog to provide information and reviews of the many modifications that are out there already and provide a space for those yet to be thought up.

My name Is Dave Hertner and I am currently building a Van’s RV-10. I have made a number of modifications to my own aircraft and as a result I have started a company named Effectus AeroProducts to manufacture high quality accessories and sub-kits for experimental kit aircraft.

I will be on the look out for modifications that have been made by ordinary builders just like you. I want to discuss them and post your design stories so that everyone can appreciate the effort that goes into the modification process.

In this blog I would also like to discuss the dismal reputation that many companies have who aspire to supply us with accessories. I will bring to your attention any shady companies that I come across so that we can all avoid the often devastating financial losses. It costs enough to build a plane already. We don’t need shady business practices.

All we have to do is look at the Direct2 debacle to understand a need for this type of communication.

I will be posting regularly here so I would appreciate that you spread the word that I have begun this endeavor.

Dave