Sunday, September 25, 2016

DOG Aviation RV-12 Receives Its First Ribbon

The DOG Aviation RV-12 received its first ribbon yesterday.


Nope, not an actual award …. It’s a florescent orange “REMOVE BEFORE STARTING ENGINE” ribbon. Frequent viewers of the DOG Aviation Blog may have noticed photos of the pitot tube which extends from the spinner has been covered with a piece of blue painters tape. This has been to prevent debris and insects from making their way into the pitot tube. The tape is a good temporary solution during construction, but not a viable long term solution for the problem on a completed aircraft.


The solution was to go to the aviation department of the local Menards store and purchase a package of 5/16" screw protectors. The aviation department at Home Depot had them as well, but they are much shorter and don’t work as well. The ones from Menards are much longer … so there is more room to install the ring that the ribbon is attached onto and still have plenty of material left to slip the protector quite a ways onto the pitot tube for a secure fit. Below is a link to the screw protectors the DOG Aviation procurement department located.


Link to 5/16" screw protectors at Menards


A rivet mandrel was sharpened to a fine point and used to puncture the rubber cap so the key ring could be inserted through the cap near the tip of the protector. This safety item took all of ten minutes to make, if that.


In preparations for the first flight, ran into a little bump in the road yesterday evening … in that, discovered both wings need to come off for about 10 minutes. While installing the center tunnel cover plates, I discovered the cover plate that slides over the flap handle can’t be installed with the wings on. The aft edge needs to go under the spars but the angles don’t allow this to happen with the spars in place. Bummer! This came as quite a shock, but fortunately there is a pancake breakfast at the MAPS museum adjacent to the airport later this morning, so will have some friends there to enlist for assistance with the unexpected wing removal chore.