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Christopher's Web Site
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Date: 12-18-2015
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Number of Hours: 2.00
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Manual Reference:
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Brief Description: Oversites and Repairs
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Today was a good day. We finished up the ship and polished off all the loose ends. Before I share the happy photos of the finished project, I have to share some of the frustrations.
The first frustration was the “impossible rivet”. A hole was drilled by Safari in the side of the cabin at the radius of the lower pilot side door frame. Due to the location of the rivet in comparison to the rivets above it, there is NO WAY to access and buck the rivet. The hole was drilled right on the corner of the channel piece and over a 1/4” too high. Given how many holes were drilled correctly, this was not really a big deal, but the problem was that there is a damn hole that can’t be used right on the side of the cabin. As I mentioned yesterday, I found a material that could patch the hole, which I did, and it worked amazingly well. I then redrilled the hole lower in the proper location and finished riveting the door frame together. I’m very happy with the repair, but it was very stressful to solve the problem.
The next issue was the fact that Tom’s cabin was prepared for him differently than mine. Luckily, he is still several weeks ahead of me and he noticed that I didn’t have bolt access holes drilled in the firewall for the main rotor head support mounts. This would not be a big deal if I would have known about it before I riveted the panel in place, or if it noted it anywhere in the Safari Construction Manual (At least I couldn’t find it anywhere). Tom got creative and found a way to drill the holes in place, even though it’s not as pretty as it could have been if noted before. I feel very lucky that he caught it now, because I have NO IDEA how I would have taken care of it at a later date. That was close.
The final close call was that Tom noticed that the wire access hole hadn’t been drilled in the rear of the pilot’s collective. As with the firewall, Tom’s was drilled for him, but mine was not. If he didn’t catch it, I don’t know what I would have done. Thanks Tom.
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Missing bolt access holes
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Collective wiring access
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Relocated rivet
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