Author: Cyrus

Nope. Not at all. I’m just way behind in posting updates to the blog. I still have all the photos and details and will post when I’m able to!

Who would have thought that Florida was hot in the summer? I can’t say I really thought this project through all the way. 🙂 Since it’s too humid to prime any parts, and I didn’t have anything prepped and ready to go, what else can we do? How about prevent this for next year? Yep, let’s get some new A/C installed in the garage, along with a new paint booth (rev 3) that will fit all the skins, allowing for everything to be primed indoors and not be weather-dependent in the future.

Time spent these months: 2 hours

Total time since start of project: 78 hours

I’m going to call this month a wash. I spend nearly the entire month on active duty orders, and didn’t really accomplish anything on the plane. So goes life.

Time spent this month: 1.75 hours

Total time since start of project: 76 hours

June was another slow month. The garage doesn’t have really good A/C, and it started getting hot enough & humid enough that the primer was having issues sticking to the parts. I ended up redoing a lot of the work that I was going to do because of this. Only ended up getting the spars taken apart, primed, and put back together correctly (see the last post about a used kit causing more work than it was probably worth).

Time spent this month: 9 hours

Total time since start of project: 74 hours

I spent most of May trying to figure out next steps. Picking up a used kit was likely one of the poor decisions I made while building, as I found a few critical issues that will need to be fixed. But, in the meantime, more prepping of parts.

Time spent this month: 11 hours

Total time since start of project: 65 hours

This month we really started getting to work on Flaps and Ailerons. All of those got primed, cleaned and put together. It helps that I had Carl, one of my friends who is also a geek and a pilot here for a week to get some work done. While we didn’t get to the point of putting the fuel tank together, it was nice to have a few extra hands to finish up the first major airfoils that I completed myself.

Time spent this month: 43 hours

Total time since start of project: 55 hours

When deciding on an aircraft to build, the first thing you need to consider is the mission. My mission is mostly going to be long treks back home to the family with my wife and myself. This doesn’t mean that I wanted a 2 seat aircraft, since I also wanted the ability to carry friends around when they come visit.

With my mission defined, I came up with a list of criteria that a possible aircraft would need to meet:

1. 4 seat.
2. IFR capable. In the experimental world, this is nearly everything, since the builder can choose avionics.
3. Relatively fast. I was targeting planes that can do 150ish KIAS in cruise.
4. Fuel-efficient & modern. I’m a fan of technology. While there is nothing wrong with POWAH, I’d rather see that power come from a fuel-injected, turbo engine than pure engine size and more fuel being let into a cylinder that was most recently designed in the second world war.
5. Aluminum, not composite.
6. Good builder support. This is my first aircraft build, and I’d like to be successful right out of the gate instead of needing to redo a lot of it.

That was really about it, and I was amazed at the lack of options that are out there that meet those needs. Surprisingly, the combination of relatively fast and aluminum knocked out a lot of potential contenders. In the end, I was going to decide between an RV-10 and a Sling TSi, and actually let my wife make the decision at Sun n Fun. However, a used Sling came up for sale virtually next door, and although I really didn’t want to start building until 2022, the deal was too good to pass up. After taking the EAA Sheetmetal workshop together, we discovered that we liked pulling rivets so much better than bucking them, so with that knowledge, we would have likely made the same choice.

Someone will ask if I flew a TSi prior to pulling the trigger on the kit. No, I didn’t, and that was rather intentional. I’m currently a very low-time pilot, and have very limited experience in flying different aircraft, so I relied on other’s opinions who have much more time in both the RV-10 and the TSi. I compare it to asking a 16 year old which they liked driving better, an F150 or a Sliverado. I’m not sure if the typical 16 year old would be able to tell you that if you removed the badging… I did do a discovery flight in a Sling 2 though, if that counts.