Return-Path: Received: from rook.innercite.com ([158.222.5.8]) by ns1.olsusa.com (Post.Office MTA v3.5.3 release 223 ID# 0-70783U4500L450S0V35) with ESMTP id com for ; Fri, 2 Mar 2001 00:19:39 -0500 Received: from colwell (host-56-117.dialup.innercite.com [158.222.56.117]) by rook.innercite.com (8.11.2/8.11.2) with SMTP id f225SJA22712; Thu, 1 Mar 2001 21:28:20 -0800 Message-ID: <007c01c0a2d9$c3ad6ea0$7538de9e@colwell> From: "Steve & Claudette Colwell" To: "a" Cc: "theresa barnard" , "sunny atkins" , "stan johnson" , "reuven silberman" , "ray arceneaux" , "mhgoldwing" , "Manfred Stumpp" , "laura & mark bryant" , "Ken and Carolyn Clary" , "karen agee" , "John Lynch" , "jim robinson" , "jim critchfield" , "Jack Compere" , "Harold A. Pischke" , "gene nora jessen" , "Gene & Deb" , "fred baron" , "fred & jena alleman" , "ernie cuff" , "doralee stancil" , "don & judy keown" , "dobby dobson" , "b ob russell" , "Amber Riddel" , "alan shackleton" <103346.1772@compuserve.com>, "al narkewicz" , "al herron" References: <24DDC9DD969019469DF5AFE64FB5894502E835@cosmo.brightcode.com> Subject: Re: Legacy workshop advice? Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2001 21:28:49 -0800 X-Mailing-List: lancair.list@olsusa.com Reply-To: lancair.list@olsusa.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Legacy workshop advice?

We just unloaded our Legacy kit and returned the Ryder truck today.  The following is our builder's log and commentary on the workshop:

Monday morning,  My wife and I and another Legacy builder and his buddy since the 4th Grade (Paul Newman) were given an orientation on the Workshop, extensive Q & A and a temptation tour of the Avionics shop. 

Monday afternoon,   Cleaned and sanded bonding surfaces of horiz stab, verified vent holes, trimmed stab skins for clearance of elevators, installed counterweights and closed with hysol/flox in the jig.  (impressed with knowledge and attention to detail of Cary who we are assigned to for the week.  Mark and any of the other people were always available for questions and assistance it seemed.  Lance's personal little Italian Helicopter Kit arrives and Don is uncrating it.)

Tue.   A. Trimmed center section/belly pan, aligned to fuselage in the jig and floxed load pads to fuselage.  B. Cleaned up Hysol squeeze out on horiz stab, fitted and clearanced elevators for 26 deg. up, 11 deg. down.  Made phenolic elev. up and down stops, installed with one bid carbon.  C. Sanded vertical fin halves and rudder halves.  (very interesting employee Legacies in process,  the first Lyc 540 installation which is targeted for Sun n Fun and a 550 Fadec with sequenced inboard main gear doors that will close when gear is down also with prototype landing-taxi lights and baggage area storage compartments with lids level with elevator tunnel)

Wed.   A.  Fabricated small prepreg bulkhead to retain rudder counterweight.  B. Prepped and epoxy/floxed rudder-vertical fin halves and installed along with horiz stab in jig. (stab is within .1 degrees incidence and 1/32" fore and aft alignment, rudder trailing edge is perfectly vertical)  C. Pre aligned center section fore and aft with clecos to fuse.  D.  Clearanced right aileron and sanded and trimmed bonding surfaces of right wing.  (early 2 place builders would kill for access to this tooling which makes it so easy, although to be fair, the pre assembled parts just fall into the jigs so jigs will not be required to bend-twist-force parts to fit.  3 factory guys are mixing and helping us apply fast Jeffco with flox to vert and horiz. Lancair has really knocked themselves out to produce well engineered, accurate and easy to align parts.  Several guys want to know if Claudette has a sister.) 

Thur.  Sanded bonding surfaces of both wings, inspected for thin sealant and touched up suspect areas with Jeffco sealant.  B. Clearanced left aileron and trimmed left and right wing skins.  C. Sanded centersection closeout and cut fuel line transition hole.  (Walther turbine arrived and is being installed in prototype IV fuse, cowling looks very sexy.)

Fri. A. Installed centersection closeout.  B.Cleaned all interior surfaces of both wing fuel tanks and bonded with Hysol/flox in jigs while attached to center section and with ailerons attached to align to wing tips.  Cleaned out squeeze out with a Wifferdil scraper cleverly designed to reach into wing tips and under flap housings.  Life is wonderful!  (a set of Legacy Mystery Wings is being modified internally for, I am told, the Mexican Navy to hang "Drop Tanks."  I wonder what the recoil loads are??  The shop has a constant flow of interesting people and equipment, including one of the early Legacy builders who has a black box with articulated arms hooked up to a 3D computer plotter doing the firewall area for a Renault Diesel installation.

To sum it up, the whole experience was much more productive than my most optimistic expectations.  Everyone at Lancair has a positive, customer oriented, I like my job attitude (just like they had at Santa Paula in 88) which makes the process just that much more enjoyable.  The accuracy of the parts and fabrication done in the Philippines continue to amaze me. 

Don (not "the" Don) in the prototype shop makes a fuselage rotisserie in his off hours that is a work of art.  Talk to Orin to order one in advance and you can thank me later.  Works great to transport the fuse/horiz stab assy for the truck trip home too. 

Claudette has been looking at the Sierra Flight Systems EFIS brosure and asking all the right questions, can it get any better?

Steve Colwell