8 Year Anniversary

Today marks the 8 year anniversary of purchasing the Long Ez project. When I originally bought the project with Marty, I figured we would have it flying in 2-3 years. I have heard other builders jokingly say, “take your cost estimate times three, and your time estimate times four, add 10% fudge factor, and you are probably in the ballpark.” I always thought it was all in good fun. Turns out the joke is on the builder because there is no joke about that statement.

In all seriousness, it really isn’t that bad. I have moved, had 3 jobs, got married, and had a few other life events go on during the course of the project so that added quite a bit of time to the project thus far. In addition, I didn’t come anywhere close to following the plans, which is responsible for at least an extra 2 years on the build. But I digress. If you aren’t a Facebook friend of mine, here is the last 8 years in photos. Each one is taken on or as close to September 17 each year.

Its been an interesting but overall fun 8 years, but the project isn’t done yet, so lets keep going, shall we?

I cleaned up the layups from yesterday, and I am happy to report that the relocation of the rudder conduits and enlarging the aileron bays is done. The ailerons operate to more than the minimum travel with more than minimum clearance on the bottom skin. So we can move on to finishing the rigging.

I also cleaned up the layup from the intercom jack mounting plate and mounted the jacks. Nothing special there.

Since this worked well, I decided we would do the same mounting method for the rest of the peripherals that are in the arm rests. So I made and mounted a plate for the left side of the front cockpit that holds the 12V receptacle as well as the seat heater switch. I actually have an engraved cover to put over this one. Though I made some errors in how I designed it and we will eventually need to have a new one made.

While I was working down there, I made a replacement U-shaped fuel line for the inlet to the fuel pump. The last one we made worked really well until we tried to install the left console, which conflicted. The best way to solve that issue, in my opinion was to make the U shape longer to put the fore-aft part of the tube behind the console.

I also bonded in a ez-point nut as a hard point to accept the bolt of the adel clamp that secures the fuel filter. Now the fuel filter is rigidly mounted and the fuel system redesign can be called complete.

Eric also came over tonight and worked on wiring. He finished the last of the antenna BNC connectors, this one was for the ADSB. He is going to bring over his ADSB transmitter so we can see if it is working. He also fished wire through the wings for the nav/strobes and we got them final mounted.

Of course, then it was time for a light show. And Eric took a video of it. Never mind the goon working with 5-minute epoxy in the video.

Not bad for a celebratory, leisurely anniversary work session.