Airacobra, Bunny and Cora

Wednesday morning the van wouldn't start so I took the Blazer to morning coffee at the Vault.  We had a record turn out of eleven people.  I left early so Vera could go to bible study.  I was working on the P-39 when I got a call from our friend Horty.  He was in Longview and asked if he could stop by.  No problem, we had a nice visit and I found a motor that would fit his new glider.  I did a little work on the ailerons for the P-39 before calling it a night.

Today:

Vera spotted the bunny out the kitchen window this afternoon, we are starting to see more of them now that the weather has warmed up a little.  We made one run to town so I could get the new wiring harness for the P-39 wing.  I think it is going to work great, but I kept forgetting to take them to the shop so I could check.

I got this picture of Cora on my phone just after we got home from town.  It appears that like most kids she likes to be right where her toys are.

I got all 52 of those ribs glued onto the ailerons today along with the hinge blocks.  I also did some work on the rudder adding the counter balance and the ribs to one side.

Frost Again!

I had planned on working outside on the blow down limbs, but when I saw the frost on the roof this morning I changed my mind.

The hexacopter has never worked right in the GPS loiter mode.  I was trying to program the flight controller, the GPS stopped working and got hot.  It has always drifted more than the others I have so it looks like I will have to get a new one.

Since I couldn't do any more on the wing until the wiring gets here I rearranged the shop so I could clean off the building board and store the wing in a safe place.  I had it perched on the treadmill for a while but I decided that was a bad spot for it.  After clearing off the East bench I had room for it there.

With the building board clean, I started on the first step of building the ailerons.  While I was marking the rib locations I was surprised to find out I will have to make up 52 of them as they go on both sides of the aileron.

Sun, Wind, Rain and Hail

It was a pretty laid back weekend for us.  I did lots of work on the P-39 and got to the point where I couldn't go any further until I put the wiring in the wings.  I got online and I should have the wiring harness Wednesday.    As normal, we went to church Sunday, it was Palm Sunday and there was a pot luck afterwards.

When we got home I went up to let Sam out and play with him for a while.  Their tree sure looks nice.

This picture is today, a branch off the cedar tree.  It was a crazy day weather wise, sunshine during which I got a flight on the FPV quad, the wind that took off the limb, rain an absolute downpour, and finally hail.

1040A, Wind and P-39

Wednesday I went to "Coffee with the Pastor" as normal and Vera went to Bible Study.  When I got home I had decided to do our 2016 Income Taxes.  I have been using H&R Block online for the last couple of years, it is nice because after I logged on it fills in a lot of the information.  After I finished with that I got a little sheeting done on the P-39.

Thursday Vera had a dental appointment in the afternoon, I did some more sheeting before we left.  After the appointment we had dinner at "Freddy's for the Halibut" then did some shopping before heading home.  I got a little more sheeting done on the P-39 that evening.

It was blowing pretty hard Friday morning and then at about 10:00 the power went off.

I had been checking the wind speed on my phone of a weather site that is located by the Toledo flying field and the gusts were pretty high around 10 when the power went out.

I made a mail and grocery run about noon, stopped and wished Cathy a Happy Birthday on the way home.  I had picked up lunch in town and after we ate I went up to let Sam out.  He had a great time breaking limbs the wind had brought down into little pieces.

I sat up a couple of work lights in the shop and got the P-39 wings joined.  I also did some filling and sanding on the fuselage.

After six hours I was getting a little concerned that the refrigerator freezer might be thawing out so I got out the generator and fired it up.  Usually when I do that the power comes on right afterwards but today it didn't.

The house was feeling a little cool, so I started the fire for the first time in many years.

A sight we have not seen for a while, smoke coming out of the chimney.

 Thursday afternoon had been nice so I mowed the lawn and got a lot of the limbs that were blown down this winter cleaned up.  Today's wind took care of undoing that work.

Blown off the field

I took this picture of frost on the shop roof Monday morning, like I said the other day winter is putting up a good fight.  Monday we made a run to see if we could find the weed spray I like in Castle Rock, no one had it so we headed for Longview.  We finally found out where the store had moved to on our third stop and I was able to get a new gallon.  It was close to lunch time then, so we ate before stopping at Safeway for a few things.  I was going to start loading the motor home for flying Tuesday and it wouldn't start.  I ended up running to NAPA for a new battery just before they closed.  I put it in and the motor home sure starts a lot better.  I also got some more sheeting glued onto the P-39 this evening, it is starting to look like a fuselage now.

Today we headed up early before the wind was forecast to blow and sprayed Mrs. Herren's yard.  When I was done with that I got out the string trimmer and did some areas I couldn't get to last Friday.  Steve came and did some pruning to make it easier to mow while I finished up.  Some of the limbs were big enough that I had to use the chainsaw on them.  After we cleaned up the debris we headed over to do some flying.

We had a pretty good turn out for a kind of cold day, eight flyers were there.

I hadn't had the Corsair out for a long time and I really had a good time with it.  During the last flight the wind suddenly came up so hard that I could hardly make any headway against it and the Corsair will do 74 Mph!  I had to wait for Ken to land his plane which was running out of battery and then I got to land and it turned out to be my best landing of the day.  The wind was so strong everyone packed up and headed home and we were the first ones out of the gate.  I spread moss killer on the lawn after we got home just as it was starting to rain which this stuff needs to work right.

It is not giving up!

Winter is still trying to hang on, I got up this morning, looked out the kitchen window and there was frost on the shop roof.  I checked emails and messed around on the computer until it was time for church.  Church was great today, Pastor Pam related a funny story about riding the bus back from Seattle  when a slide had blocked the train tracks.  Lots of humorous parts, like when the WSP stopped them for speeding.  After church I went up and helped Josh with his shop light's wiring.  I got a nice tour of their new place.

This evening I installed the paper tubes I made yesterday into the nose to create the gun ports.  That is what they are on the real plane, I am using them for air inlets to cool the speed control.  I still have some filling and sanding to do on them but it looks like they are going to work fine.

Working on the Airacobra

I had a good day of working on the P-39, this morning I started sheeting the motor cover and got it done tonight.  I also cut out the gun ports in the top of the nose that will function as air ducts to the speed control.  I was thinking about using some large straws for the liner, but they cracked too easy when sanding them so I made up some tubes out of paper.  That took a while, the first two attempts would not come off the dowel I used for a form.  I finally used wax paper instead of plastic film and made the tubes by wrapping it with paper strips.  They turned out great and came right off the dowel, I gave them a coat of epoxy after the glue dried.

While the glue was drying on the motor hatch I worked on the sheeting for the lower half of the rear fuselage.  I got one piece on and once it had dried I glued this piece on the opposite side to dry overnight.  The last thing I did tonight was put the spinner on for a few minutes to see how it fit and looked.