Build Update January 20th 2020: Cowling Riveting and Side Panels

The cowling has had pilot drilled hinges held on by clecos for a while now. It was time to updrill and rivet. I updrilled from the pilot #40 hole to the rivet sized #30 (about 1/8"). An important step I performed was sealing the fiberglass. After the holes were updrilled and carefully deburred, I dropped just a little bit of super glue into the hole to wick into the fiberglass and help prevent deterioration of the hole.

With the holes updrilled all that remained was to rivet the hinges on. The cowling looks so much cleaner now that it doesn't have 30 odd clecos hanging off, ready to catch on something at any time.

I also worked on my side panels for the cockpit interior. These started life as scraps of cardboard tapes together load a crude template but we're refined until I had perfect patterns. Once I had reliable patterns I cut them out from corrugated plastic.

I played with what I wanted to the designs to look like and eventually settled on some pocket locations and a stripe that falls in the shadow of my tilt back canopy arms.

This is a big part of my color design philosophy is to accentuate the features rather than trying to hide them. In this case I am highlighting the shape of the canopy pivot arms .

Obviously these haven't been attatched with spray adhesive yet but I snapped some pictures of a rough installation.

The next steps are to glue the fabric to the side panels, to fabricate the joiner tab between the two cowling halves for the southco, and to continue sanding and blending the fusion of cowling and blister

Plane Painted

When I flew my plane to OSH23, I saw an artist painting a small depiction of an airplane. She was painting a very small photorealistic scene from a phone image. I could not believe how detailed she was able to make it! She let me watch over he shoulder as she worked. I was so impressed that I commisisoned a similar painting of my sonex. Id like to share that painting with you all. Her name is Rhonda DeGarmo. She has a lot of other work. If you're interested in getting in touch with her please reach out to me and I will pass along her information.

Build Update April 5 2018: Dissasembling the Aerovee

The engine I bought was already built, and had not been run. My dad and I planned to take it all apart to give me a better understanding of the engine, as well as to identify any problems before they got bad. The Arovee engine was heavy and awkward to move. at the time it was sitting on the workbench with everything installed. Going into this I had only enough sense to tell you which cylinder is the #1, 2, 3, and 4, and I knew some of the terminology, such as crackshaft. I frequently asked my dad "what do you call that part?" we began unbolting stuff in roughly reverse order from the manual (if you're familiar with sonex plans, you're used to backwards) In under an hour we had stripped many of the external parts off and the engine had lost at least 20 pounds! A box was designated as the hardware box, so it'll be like legos trying to find the right bolts and nuts again when I reassemble it. the important part is that they're all together and no

2016 Kansas City Turkey Shoot Report

This Thanksgiving my family went to Kansas City to visit friends and family. Well, when you have two or more old aviation buddies in the same city, you tend to form a bit of a gathering. Thus the 2016 KC Turkey Shoot was created. It involved 3 Sonex , and a beautiful Cessna. And consisted of a flight from a Gardner Airport to We-B-Smoking BBQ at Miami County Airport. I Flew down with Bob Mika's in Katie, his Sonex, while my dad and two friends ,Zander and Laney ,flew in Mr Ron's smooth Cessna. I even got to fly for about 10 min! It may not have been hours, but the Aerovee-powered plane flew wonderfully in the morning air. Once we arrived, my nose was overrun by the luxurious scent of pancakes, and when I surveyed the room, I saw countless airplane pictures. (I lost the photo, Y'all will just have to go) http://www.websmokin.com/ Sitting down to eat at a table that seemed average, we awaited the rest of our troops.

Isaac Shultz's Sonex Project

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