I'm sorry about not having posted in a couple weeks...things have been busy, or I just keep forgetting. You can decide what you want it to be. :) Anyway, here's a bit of an idea of the things we've been working on with 5Y-CMA. Caleb and I riveted the belly skins all together, so that was nice to have completed. Nate Killoren came down from upstairs and helped us by installing the Radio Rax, which is the new mounting for the radios. He did a really great job and really fast, too! Congrats to him and his wife and son as they welcome their new son/brother, Quinn! Continuing on, our avionics guy has begun working in the airplane, installing his wire harnesses and other equipment, while we've been working on other sheetmetal projects, like some cargo tie-downs and also fabricating the new floor skins. Thursday afternoon we began an inspection on 5Y-SIL, so that's what we'll be working on for the next week, as well as an inspection on N342EA. Hopefully, I can get some pictures of those and you can see what happens during routine maintenance. For now, enjoy the sheetmetal!
Belly skins, primed and ready to go.
We primed all the points of contact, to help prevent corrosion from growing within the lap joints.
This was Caleb's position for about 2 or 3 days, as he shot the rivets from the outside and I bucked them on the inside.
Teamwork is essential when shooting rivets. Caleb and I have shot a lot together and work fairly quickly. Notice that I'm always sporting the SP hat...gotta have the shout out!
Behold, the magic bucking bar. This is the bucking bar that I made when I was in A&P school at Missionary Aviation Institute back in NC. I still use it more than any other bucking bar.
Nate Killoren and his Radio Rax. Note the jig that holds the two Rax pieces the correct distance apart.
It really is a detailed installation. He did a great job.
Doing some final touches to it.
The finished product. Since he's installed it, we have also painted the instrument sub-panel gray, but I don't have a picture of that yet.
You can see that there is not a whole lot of stuff left in the airplane when we do these overhauls. We remove it all to clean, inspect, and repair when necessary. We have a visiting missionary aviation veteran who commented that he's never seen an airplane that stripped down before. Wow!
A close-up of Caleb...had to make sure he wasn't sleeping down there!
Me with my freshly shaven head installing a few Cherrymax rivets...booooo!
A shot of our finally installed belly skins. No more looking through the airplane and seeing the ground!
Jeremy Hamilton is back with us for a few weeks and he just installed the two green cargo tie-down doublers in the picture. It's great to have him around again. We really enjoy the time he spends with us serving the Lord with his excellent talents.
Don't touch my plane! Haha, this was my "bad guy" pose...probably not that intimidating though, huh?!
2 comments:
-That bucking bar is AWESOME.
-I was just thinking the other day how much I miss being a mbati fundi.
-Those pics of Nate installing the radio rax seem pretty similar to what he did on 90U!
Most of that work looks absolutely riveting. ;)
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