Building a Quick Build RV6A
in 10 months
Don McMullen & Bob Nauman
On February 11/98 at 5:00 PM my front door rang and the UPS Man Delivered two packages to me. It was my Empenage Kit
Friday 2/13/98 my tools arrived from Avery's
Saturday 2/14/89 bought a forced air kerosene heater for the garage and worked on the gig for the horizontal stabilizer
Monday 2/16/98 fabricated a level table on top of the gig & worked on the horizontal stabilizer.
Tues., wed, Thurs., worked on horizontal stab. Made mistake and had to order two new parts so worked on vertical stab.
Friday 2/20/98 worked on Rudder & stiffeners.
Saturday 2/23/98 worked on rudder skeleton
Monday 2/23/98 worked on elevator
Tuesday 2/24/98 Primered skeletons, stiffeners drilled and dimpled right elevator
Wed 2/25/98 worked on rudder Skeleton took rudder to Cecil Hatfield’s and he showed us how to back rivet and I back riveted the rudder stiffeners to the rudder skin.
Thursday 2/26/98 worked on horizontal stab skeleton and left elevator. Dimpled skins & stiffeners.
Friday 2/28/98 worked on horizontal stab skeleton, right elevator & stiffeners. Primed stiffeners and inside of skins
Saturday & Sunday Worked on Horizontal stab skeleton worked on elevators primered stiffeners & other parts. Riveted stiffeners to skins. Tuesday 3/3/98 Worked on Horizontal stab. & Elevator.
Wednesday 3/4/98 Worked on Elevators & trim tab
Thursday 3/5/98 Worked on Elevators drilling out holes & clekoing skins on elevator skeletons. Friday 3/6/98 Worked on Elevators dimpled holes debured & primered parts.
Saturday & Sunday Finished riveting the skins onto the skeleton of the elevators.
Monday 3/9/98 Worked on Elevators riveting them together.
Tuesday 3/10/98 Put vertical stab. Together.
Wednesday 3/11/98 riveted vertical stab. Together.
Thursday 3/12/98 took down table from gig and mounted horizontal stab in gig aliened the skeleton.
Friday 3/13/98 Put skins on horizontal skeleton and drilled holes took apart and deburred and dimpled, primed skeleton and skins and got ready for riveting.
Saturday 3/14/98 Finished riveting horizontal stab. Pop riveted bend in elevators and rudder. Complete except for trim tab and fiberglass tips.
R V-" Quick Build Kit
Going to Vans Aircraft at North Plains Oregon On March 24 to pick up Quick Build
RV-6A
3/26/98
Arrived home with my quick build kit
3/26/98 to 4/7/98
Fabricated armrest
Working on wings pitot tube. Conduit for wires, Ailerons, Bell crank, floor in fuselage
4/7/98 to 4/11/98
Modified fitted and installed wing tip ribs on left wing
Worked on wings aileron & Flaps Flap brace Hinges and Mounts. Fitted and drilled, clecoed cockpit floor and baggage floor.
4/11/98 to 4/26/98
Modified, fitted and installed wing tip ribs on right wing
Worked on flaps aileron flap brace and aileron gap seal fitted and drilled and dimpled top wing skin on both wings also primered all parts. Also completed bell cranks and push rods for both wings. Put together seat drilled and installed with clecoes. Installed landing light in right wing
4/26/98 to 5/5/98
Installed Left & Right armrest and Top right rail. Worked on floor Put in plate nuts for front and baggage floors.
5/5/98 to 5/12/98
Installed landing light in left wing. Removed badly installed center aileron mount and reworked it and reinstalled it. Worked on rudder pedals and breaks, and control rod for elevator.
5/12/98 to 5/25/98
Cut holes in Fuselage for vents, installed more plate nuts in baggage floor to make it removable, cut out Instrument panel and fit it in place, Installed conduit for electrical and antennas back to Empenage, Removed and dimpled rear & forward skins, Painted control stick & Rudder peddles Installed rudder cables.
5/25/98 to 6/14/98
Mounted empenage horizontal stabilizer elevators and control linkage & control stick, adjusted elevators for max. Deflection. Installed Vertical stabilizer & rudder cut out and adjusted for maximum 25 degrees of deflection. Installed rudder & elevator stops. Installed rear top skin. Installed motor recess in firewall. Installed shoulder harness mounts installed horizontal stabilizer fiberglass tips and elevator fiberglass tips
6/1/98 to 7/1/98
Riveted on rear skin, Received instruments from vans, figuring out how to set up instrument panel, put plate nuts on main wing tips. Made brackets for break lines. Fit, trimmed, and clecoed forward rear skin on. Fit, trimmed and clecoed forward skin on
7/1/98 to 7/9/98
Put plate nuts on main wing tips. Cut & trim rear fuselage for rudder to fit. Removed rudder stops to re-position for 35 Degree swing.
Trimmed skin off the rear of vertical stabilizer and lower rear of fuselage. Made brace for break hoses up front. Installed plate nuts on Instrument panel so as to make it removable.
7/9/98 to 7/23/98
Waiting for finish kit to arrive from vans. Doing a little pre planning such as drilling holes in a plywood template Instrument panel for the gages. Trying to figure out where the gas lines, break lines, fuel switch will go?
7/24/98
Finish Kit arrived
Bob come over to help me unpack and inventory everything.
Going on vacation for a week up to the sierras Courtright & Wishon reservoir
Finish Kit.
Getting Side tracked from being able to work on kit. Having to fix up house on Myrna dr. To sell it.
8/1/98
Finally getting started on the finish kit Started working on the sliding canopy frame sliding rails side and rear. Riveted on rear forward top skin. Put in some more break lines. Mounted windscreen roll bar and forward support brackets
10/24/98
Had lots of trouble with sliding canopy, couldn't get canopy frame to fit right we bent and bent and then bent it again. Until I got it as close as I could.
There were some gaps of almost 1/2 inch where the slider met the roll bar so I cut some of the left over plastic from the canopy and made shims out of it. I hope this works.
I put on the side skirts and the rear skirts and didn't like them so I reorder some more aluminum sheet and made them over.
Bob is putting the Empenage on and we found the rudder hit the elevator when moved to the extremes. So we had to move the stops.
Drilling holes in the instrument panel for the gyro's, radios, etc. and the Rocky Mountain Engine monitor.
We are also pulling wires in the conduit leading to the rear of airplane.
11/11/98
Built new skirts for rear of sliding canopy they are better but not perfect. Re drilling all the holes in side skirts & rear skirts of canopy dimpling and counter sinking all the holes for pop rivets & screws.
11/18/98
Bob & John are going to help me today but I am getting side tracked again, had to put a timing belt in Joan's car and now I have to roof the house in Boyle Heights and my house.
11/24/98
Riveted skirts on canopy. Filled front bow cracks with micro balloons. Getting cracks around screws on front bow Plexiglas, drilled out holes and put lock tight on screws put them back just snugly.
Drilled final holes in instrument panel getting it ready to paint and install. Bob installed Elt & strobe power supply.
11/30/98
Primered and painted Instrument panel. Painted inside of sliding canopy starting to pull wire through the
Conduit that runs to rear of fuselage.
12/15/98
Working on house in Boyle Heights. Finished house in Boyle Heights.
Installed inset in Wing tips for position lights and strobes. Also installed push to talk buttons in control stick’s, installing bolts in wooden wing spar to put the airplane up on its wheels.
12/26/98
Roofing my house.
1/12/99
Working on airplane again. Installed wing attach brackets, drilled holes in fuselage for fuel lines, gas tank vents, and installed brake lines through fuselage. Installed plate nuts on wing for wing attach faring.
1/14/99
Yippee the airplane went on its wheels today. Slipped off rear support and put a dent in the rear fuselage. Installed engine mount, drilled holes in brake lines, had to replace brake lines.
1/17/99
Installed fuel lines and fuel selection switch. UN crated Engine bolted on governor. Looking at engine to see what else I can bolt on before I install it?
Installed Engine Oil filter too long will have to take engine off to change oil filter to a shorter one.
2/6/99
Installed fuel lines & selector valve, installed fuel tank vent lines, installed breaks & break lines. Primered all parts and re assembled them. Installed transponder antenna, Installed wheel pants, fit together bondoed and sanded. Installed vacuum pump and system.
2/15/99
Installed Engine control bracket and Throttle, Prop, and Mixture controls. Reinstalled Engine and new short auto oil filter. Installed RMI egt, cht senders and Made up oil & air temp. Sender’s mounts.
2/20/99
Working on RMI components and installing them on engine. Working on baffling and cowling. Cowling is mismatched badly I have to cut and grind out lumps and bumps and re-lay-up.
Epoxied on the air scoop. Soldered the wires on the R.M.I. EGT CHT selector switch.
3/16/99
Had Glaucoma surgery slowing me down a little. Installed Battery cables, fire safes through firewall. Also working on sliding canopy cracks on forward edge due to cleaning off marker pen marks with lacquer thinner. Stop drilling and grinding out and filling with acrylic glue.
3/22/99
Built air box 7 modified front intake hole for match up to air box. Working on baffling, installing cooling hoses spark plug wires holes, oil cooler, etc. Torqued motor mount bolts and installed cotter pins.
4/4/99
Wiring up instrument panel to airplane. Put oil door on top cowling. Riveted and painted baffling getting it ready for the baffle seal material. Hooked up all the hoses for the vacuum and pressure instruments.
4/7/99
Ran a smoke test on instrument panel and systems. Corrected a few mistakes and it works fine so far. We are using an old battery that isn't any good 1
Amp pulls the voltage down too much. Mounted baffling getting ready for the flexible material seal.
4/21/99
Installed all the control cables throttle, mixture, prop, carb heat, and cabin heat. Installed inst. Back lights and a Map light.
5/21/99
Working on cowling for what seems like a very long time. Installed baffling seals. Fiber glassed and
Riveted hinges on cowling now trying to make them fit together. Installed steps on both sides.
6/9/99
Installed leg fairings that I bought from Tracy Saylor. Installed leg intersection farings. Installed prop & spinner. Turned engine over with the starter motor. I have lots of RE from the electric turn & bank Coordinator. Installed RE filter in T&B and it removed some of the static.
6/11/99
Fabricated lower intersection farings on leg farings.
6/15/99
Started engine it ran great.
7/1/99
Installed Hartzell prop, Fabricated upper & lower leg intersection farings, Installed wings, set angel of incidence, put on plate nuts for wing farings, put connectors on wires for landing lights, strobes, nav lights, Fabricated aileron push rods,
8/1/99
Installed front top skin. Installed sliding canopy, front windshield & Fiber glassed it on to the front top skin.
Acid washed ailerons, flaps, main wings, cowling, and many other parts Sanded and primered them.
9/1/99
Painted all the parts white, Painted the fuselage white, Painted a purple stripe down the side with the N# N205DM in the stripe. Painted the wing tips Purple, Painted the empenage tips purple.
9/20/99
On Monday the 10th of September I called Willy the Hook towing and had him take the fuselage to the Camarillo airport. I took the wings and all the little parts to the airport in my pickup a little at a time.
I assembled the wings and empenage and all the rest of the parts day by day with the help of Bob Nauman, Bob Flippo, John Fisher, and the help of many other helpful people. Trying to get ready for the FAA airworthiness inspection.
