Starting this chapter on Monday, May 30, 2011.
In this chapter you build the nose of the Cozy MK IV. This will prevent the 200 MPH air from blowing up my shorts while I am flying I hope. I will also be installing the nose landing gear, rudder pedals, pitot tube, static port, taxi light and landing light. This is one of the larger chapters.
I ordered the nose lift system (the nose wheel
retraction system) along with most of the metal parts for this chapter from Jack Wilhelmson with the exception of the rim for the nose wheel which came from the C.G. Products. The rudder pedals came from Dennis Oelmann (319) 234-6109. The rudder pedals are heavy duty, nice looking pedals. All of these companies put out great parts and I would recommend them.I started this chapter poorly prepared. I needed a small amount of birch plywood that I didn't have so I ordered it. I also didn't think about the lead time needed for ordering the landing gear. So I am going to see how far I can go into this chapter before the landing gear gets here.
Today I started by cutting all of the foam
parts needed for this chapter. I cut the fiberglass cloth for the parts that get
fiberglassed before being installed. I set everything up for a fiberglass
session tomorrow.
Some of the parts
can't be glassed until they are installed. I cut the floor and the walls and cut
the contour into the floor. I roughed the floor contour in with the router first
to make this easy and then finished it with sandpaper.
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.
Below is a picture of the MG-30 with the mounting bracket. When installing the mounting bracket you will need to add the center hard point. That one is not in the plans.
Here are some pictures of the nose gear retraction system. Below are some pictures of the assembly ready to be installed onto the fuselage. I do not have the center bolts for the mounting brackets installed because I didn't get enough bolts and it will be all taken apart again. Anyway I added these pictures to the web page because the instructions were not too clear to me and I couldn't find any pictures on line. A picture is worth a thousand words.
Next I
installed the assembly onto the fuselage with BID fiberglass tape after an
afternoon of plumb bobs, squares, levels and clamps. I made sure it was
perpendicular, square, level and straight with the longitudinal axis and on
centerline. If you are off here the nose of the aircraft won’t be straight. This
step almost emptied out the clamp drawer.
I next
installed the N-0 bulk head with the required lay ups.
I then
installed the floor. The floor gets contoured before installing it so it isn't
flat and boxy.
Then I installed the
sides. The sides need to be built up a little due to the steep curve in the nose
of the airplane. The walls and floor are made of two inch urethane foam. To add
the foam for the buildup I used poor foam as an adhesive. The poor foam will
sand easier than epoxy when I sand the outside of the fuselage.
Later the
sides and bottom will get sanded to the finish later.
The next
step is to install the rudder pedals. I purchased the rudder pedals from Dennis
Oelmann and they look nice. The installation is simple. You first make a nut
plate, epoxy it in place and bolt your
pedals in place.I
then drilled the shafts
for the rudder pedals and installed the AN 4 bolts. I then installed the assembly
in to the fuselage. Next I installed the master cylinders. Like most aircraft
the Cozy MK IV will have independent braking. I was careful to get full travel
of the master cylinders before the pedals hit the sides of the fuselage. The
Cozy MK IV will have two master cylinders. I used Matco part number MCMC-4A master
cylinders. This installation will have a brake fluid reservoir for each master
cylinder. Next I made brackets to attach the one end of the master cylinders
to the floor of the fuselage. Then I floxed the brackets in
place and added four ply of BID fiberglass over the
brackets.
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.
Next I
finished assembling the nose wheels strut including mounting the tire onto the
strut. Most of the bolts that I purchased for the strut are too short so I used
hardware store bolts until my AN bolts arrive. I then reinstalled the strut into
the fuselage and cut the fuselage so that the nose wheel can retract. Below is
what it looks like now with the fuselage upside down.
I then flipped the fuselage back right side up and started to make a
cover to enclose the wheel and strut inside 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.
By adding the telescoping pitot tube, it only took about an extra two hours of work.
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.
The last part for this chapter is to make a brace that connects to the F22 bulkhead and the top of the nose. Below is what this looks like.
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.
Questions, comments or concerns, feel free to email
me @ Jfisher59@gci.net