Building a Cozy MK IV

I built the NG 30s. This took a little while. There are many hard point and aluminum blocks that get added to the NG-30s for hard points. These hard points are what the landing gear will bolt to.

The rest of my parts came so I sanded down the NG-1 which is the arm that runs between the front wheel and the fuselage. I ordered this when I ordered the main landing gear bow about a year ago. When I ordered it from Feather lite they didn't have any Cozy Mk IV front struts. He had struts for a long easy and he said it can be modified easily for the cozy. He was right, it took about five minutes on the bench belt sander and I was done. I then test fitted the NG-1 into the NG-6 which is the upper pivot point of the front landing gear and the MKNG 15-16 assembly which the assembly that the wheel attaches to. After everything fit nicely, I applied the two layers of BID fiberglass and then I floxed the NG-6 to the NG-1.








While waiting for the epoxy to cure, I mounted the front tire onto the wheel. This was simple and the same process as done on the main landing gear. The front wheel is also a split wheel.

This is what the MKNG 15-16 looks like. This is what the front wheel will mount onto.

I then made two nut plates and installed two Matco brake fluid reservoirs. Below is what this looks like. Opps this is a bad location. I move them to the outside wall of the fuselage.

Below is a picture of the nose gear retracted into the fuselage before the cover is installed.

Next I made a male form from PVC foam of the wheel cover. I then covered the wheel form with fiberglass and the next day I removed the foam leaving only the fiberglass. Below is a picture of the form. This form didn't have all the angles on it yet.

Below is what the box looks like with the foam removed, window installed and BID fiberglass taped in place. The window is so that you and your passenger can see the position of the landing gear (up or down).

In the background you can see my not so fancy but only temporary landing gear wire job. I needed to get it wired far enough to operate it.

I then flipped the fuselage over on the saw horses to work on the bottom. In the process of flipping the fuselage over on the saw horses, the fuselage managed to get away from me and earned it first real garage rash. Notice the big gash out of the foam, an easy fix though. The fuselage is getting heavy.

Next I sanded the foam to the proper fuselage nose contour.







 

The next step is optional and is not in the plans; however it is what all the "cool kids" are doing. This is making landing gear doors to cover the nose wheel while it is retracted. There is no real reason for doing this other than it looks a lot better than the plans way of doing it, as if anybody will ever see it when you are flying by at 8,000 feet.

I started out by making the door (I made the door in one piece and will cut it in half later) by covering a quarter inch piece of PVC foam with four layers of BID glass on one side. At the same time I made a flat piece of two BID lay up for the nose wheel arm. The next day I took the doors and put reliefs in the back of the doors for the tire and covered the second side with two layers of BID. My tire just so happens to be far enough into the fuselage that it will allow the doors to be flush with the bottom of the fuselage. The plans show the tire sticking out about a quarter inch below the bottom of the fuselage. If I would have thought of it I would have raise the rudder pedels an 1/8" of an inch higher that the plans show for some extra clearance for the nose wheel strut. This would allow the nose wheel to retract further into the fuselage. I don't see any problem in doing this yet.

I took a piece of quarter inch plywood and made blind nuts with aluminum block as done for the landing break and epoxy the nuts to the back of the plywood. I then floxed it into the landing gear opening. I attached my landing gear doors and added the spring and it was completed. Below is a link to the retract in action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ov8QULRrg1c

I made the cover for the nose wheel strut and floxed it in place. I weighted the cover in place to keep it flush with the bottom of the fuselage.

I then applied the two layer of BID across the bottom and covering the nose wheel strut cover. After the epoxy set up I cut the strut loose and sanded the edges of the cover and opening to make everything straight again.

After this I installed a taxi light and a landing light. I am using two light fixtures with 55 watt halogen bulbs. Below is what this looks like.

The landing break is used to slow the aircraft down during landing. It is a door looking piece that drops down from the belly of the fuselage.
I next installed the landing break actuator. I purchased this from Jack Wilhelmson at the same time I purchased the nose lift system. The landing break actuator came with all of the goodies like all of the brackets, a pair of nut plates, a control switch and wiring harness. This took a couple of nights including the fiberglass work to complete. It is supposed to be done in chapter 17; however I had the parts and the time so I took care of it. There wasn't anything tricky about it. I measured for the location of the brackets that get bolted onto the landing break. I fastened the brackets to the landing break with bondo to start with. Once I knew for sure the location of the brackets were in the correct location and the landing break was achieving the full 60 degrees when deployed, which is called for in the plans, I drilled, floxed and bolted the brackets in place.

Next is the nose cone. I purchased the nose cone from Feather Lite. It comes with the ballistic door already cut in. This is what it looks like with the door removed. You then cut the hole through the rest of the way. Before removing the door I drilled four small holes for alignment purposes.

I then experimented with shaping some Acrylic (Plexi Glass) in order to make lenses for the landing and taxi light, which will shine through the nose cone. I heated the Acrylic in the oven in our kitchen at 375 degrees and then I used the outside of the nosecone as a mold for the acrylic. You have to move fast between the oven and the nose cone because the Acrylic cools fast. After making about six lenses, I had two that was usable. I then cut the two holes in the nose cone and fitted the lenses into the nose cone. Well the lenses still didn't fit very well so I laid them inside the nosecone and heated the acrylic up with my heat gun carefully and pushed them down to take the necessary shape of the nose cone. Below is what it looks like with the Acrylic lenses installed.







I then started working on the top of the fuselage nose. I cut the foam per plans and fitted it to the top of the fuselage. After I had everything fitting nicely I temporarily glued it to the fuselage with 5 minute epoxy. While that was setting up I made a template out of some hardware store foam to check the contour of the top. Below is a picture of the template.

I then started shaping the top with a knife. After looking at the drawling again I notice my template was incorrect so I fixed that and continued. After I got the top of the fuselage shaped to the proper contour, I laid out the hatch that is on the top of the nose section. After marking its location I covered the area with box tape and laid three layers of BID over the area. After the epoxy set up I removed the fiber glass and laid the three more layers around the edge of the hatch to add thickness. I then laid the hatch in place and marked it exact location on the fuselage and cut a relief into the top of the fuselage with a router. This allowed the hatch to lay flush with the surface. Below is what this looks like.

After looking at my attempt of making the hinge arms I decided to order a pair from CG Products.  It is hard to compete with the quality that comes from a CNC machine.

Now this brought me back to the nose of the aircraft.

I had to back up a bit. I made a new NG31 and a new NG32. The new NG 31 I made has two removable covers that block the opening so that my ballast won't fall to the bottom and block the light from the landing/ taxi lights. The new NG 32 I made doesn’t have any hole so that it stops the bleed through light from going to the side that isn't turned on.

A pitot tube is used on an aircraft to collect ram air pressure which then passes through tubes to the airspeed indicator. Simply put a airspeed indicator is nothing more than a pressure gauge that had the P.S.I. face removed and a M.P.H. face put on it. There is a little more to it but not much. Almost all aircraft use this system. Most power boat speedometers work the same way but with water pressure.

My plan was to improve on the plans idea of a pitot tube setup. I read many complaints of people getting injured by the plans pitot tube and the pitot tubes getting damaged by getting stepped on while the nose of the plane is on the ground. Some people have made them to be removed after every flight and reinstalled before every flight.

I thought it made more sense to make it retractable. It looks simple enough. I went online and only found one person who has done this. I wanted to try a more simple design though. This is what I came up with. I purchased a  pitot tube  that is designed to be installed into a 3/4" OD tube. I then purchased a tube with a 3/4" (.750") OD and another tube with a .755" ID. I then floxed and fiberglassed the .755" ID tube to the NG32. I then put the smaller tube into the larger tube to make a telescoping pitot tube. They fit each other very nicely and slide smoothly. Here are some pictures that will show what I did.

I drilled a hole in the center of the nose cone for the pitot to stick through and a hole through the F0 bulkhead for the .755" ID tube to pass through.

I am planning on hooking somthing like a throttle cable to the .750" OD tube to extend and retract the pitot tube. We will see if this works, it is a very simple setup with only a couple of extra parts. I next floxed the NG-32 to the F0 bulkhead and while the flox was setting up I kept the Pitot tube extended through the nose bowl and temporarily taped the nose in place with duct tape. This assured a perfect alignment. The next day I fiberglass taped the NG 31 and NG 32 in pace. After cure I sanded any rough edges and installed the nose bowl.

Covers for the NG 30's follow this link.

I next installed the hinges for the access door that is located on the top of the nose area of the fuselage. I made hinge points from aluminum angle and floxed the aluminum angle and hinge arms in place. This is what this looks like. The hinges are installed allowing for 1/4 door seal.

I then applied two layers of BID fiberglass over the angle aluminum hinge points and two around the edge of the door opening. I then applied the single layer of BID over the whole underside. After the epoxy partially set up I installed the top onto the fuselage with flox for the last time. This I allowed to cure overnight. I then applied a single layer of BID tape around the joints.

I finished this chapter on Saturday, September 17, 2011.

At completion of this chapter I will be approximately 33 % completed with the Cozy MK IV.