I put together a quick video with a few small clips of some of our traveling. We are enjoying our RV10 from sun up to sun down!

And I finally got to fly! =D It was awesome!

27 of the required 40 hours of the test phase have been flown so far. Loving every minute of it! I got in 6 hours today, which was draining but I enjoyed all of it. Much better than yesterday's 5 hours because yesterday's high was 105 degrees, ouch! I took a short clip today with my phone. Tomorrow I'll bring the GoPro camera that our buddy Keith loaned us. 

Brian and Brandi's RV-10, N42BU, took its first flight on 6/16/2012 after 20 months and over 2300 hours of construction. It flew like a dream come true and is everything we hoped it would be. Outfitted with standard engine configuration. Avionics include two 10" Dynon Skyview EFIS, Garmin 430w, Garmin 696, SL40, PS8000B audio panel. 

We had some final wire routing and tidy work to complete in the tailcone and thank goodness for little Brandi because she squirmed her way all the way to the back of the tailcone. She managed to route all the wiring and secure it. With one hand. No light. Sweltering heat. And seemingly putting an advanced Pilates class to shame. Eventually I put a light in there for her though, so I'm sure it wasnt that bad after that. I'm such an excellent helper. Oh, I also shoved her cup of delicious iced orange juice in there to her to give her some relief at some point. She had drank all the oj earlier though so it was just mostly melted ice with a slight orange tint to it. I think it was probably delicious but Brandi didnt seem to want much of it. Probably because of her complete focus and dedication to the build. 

An impromptu engine start erupted yesterday afternoon, which has sent my motivation level skyrocketing. I have already been busting ass on the project because I can see the light at the end of the tunnel but after hearing that big bad 540 cubic inch Lycoming roar to life, its all I can think about now! It was AWESOME! Special thanks to all the usual hangar rats, Keith, Dan, Bill, Jim for being my mentors and pit crew. Next step is to taxi Brandi and I around the hangar block a few time as a special treat and reward for all the hard work that we've put into it so far. 

Installed a potentiometer in order to indicate flap position to our EFIS. Got the idea from Michael Kraus via here. 

Showing off some of the tasks completed since the engine was hung. Have not had this inspected yet so some things might need to be changed. One thing that I have already addressed was to redo the exaust cabling system. The wire it hangs from is suppose to be pretty straight and I wasnt happy with how crooked it was. Also worth noting is our front baffling piece on the left side was cut a little short. This is different than plans because I kept the cowl inlet fiberglass a bit long. 

Shot another quick video of the cowling. Nothing too exciting really but I figured for people who were researching on how to get this task done it would be helpful to have some video of the whole process. I was pretty intimidated to start but once I got going its all feeling pretty easy (mentally) - just a lot of sanding. Per usual, you can view the video in 720p for better quality if desired. 

I was reluctant to get started on the cowling. For one I didnt want to sand any more fiberglass. Had enough of that mess. Secondly, I was worried it would be a long tedious road, like the doors were. Here are a few videos detailing my journey on the cowling. An aspect the videos dont detail that was important is we attached the bottom cowl to the plane and then laid the top on and temporarily clecoed the front center ring on the left and right sides of the center ring to hold the top and bottom together in a way that made the gaps fit ok. Then we were able to trim the back and sides of the top cowl. 

Decided to mount the spinner while the prop was on the engine. It seemed easier to rotate the blades and work with in general with it on the engine. The plans have you mount the prop after the spinner is done though. I was afraid of damaging the prop and didnt know how I was suppose to rotate the blades.. turns out you can just clamp a couple boards to the prop to give you some leverage.

bonus

Our good friend Kyle helped us acquire an engine hoist from a friend of a friend. That helped out a bunch. Thanks Kyle! Keith came over and helped us get it mounted and we were all so excited we ended up starting at like 9pm, which is when we got the hoist and then got a chain that we needed. I even skipped one of my hockey games, which is very rare. I play sick, injured, at midnight on christmas, when ever. Ask Brandi. I dont usually miss my games if it can be helped.

Note: It would have been easier to mount the trim relays to the wall that the stick passes through instead of on the spar. It was a challenge to get nutplates in the spar due to it being hard to reach between them. In hindsight this is what I recommend.

I made a quick video of the operation of the door latch system.

One thing to point out that the video doesnt show is to give some more detail about the lock. This is the lock that came with our ACS ignition switch. This works out great because the same key will fit our baggage door, pilot side door, and ignition. I made a metal bracket to give it more stability. There are some photos which show the final product. Also, the door lock was placed on the aft side of the door handle, which means the door handle covers the lock on the outside of the door. This just kind of ended up this way and fortunately worked out just fine. There is a little play before the lock catches the gear so in order to lock the door, the handle must be turned about 30 degrees to expose the lock. It actually looks pretty neat on the outside because the lock is almost completely hidden when the door is shut. Probably very slightly more aerodynamic like this too.

I got a new phone and it does decent video so I decided to shoot a quick video of some of the status of our build. I think that I'll start shooting more videos and go in-depth about certain areas of the project. Hopefully it will be helpful to future builders and enjoyable to all others.