Moving Day!
(July 3, 2025) The beginning of July was my goal for getting the Shineliner over to the airport, and I hit that goal! For the next few months the plane will be at Fitchburg Municipal Airport in Massachusetts, which is about 25 mins away from my house. I used...
Canopy Door Pockets and Latch Switches
When I designed the overhead panel lights, I included an input to sense the state of the door latches. This is to allow the cabin lights to turn on when the door is opened, and also to display a waring message on the lighting control panel as a reminder...
Windshield Defrost Outlets
The custom climate system includes a pair of outlets facing the windshield to demist in cold or humid conditions. This design diverts sharply from the kit design; the original Sling 4 kit had no window defroster at all, and when the TSi debuted it included an outlet in front...
HVAC System and Panel Progress
This is a long overdue update on my project, but I’ve been quite busy on a few different aspects. First major update is that the custom HVAC system is about 90% complete. I’ve gone through so many iterations of the design over the last 3 years, but earlier this...
Oil Lines Part 2
I completed most of the engine oil lines in early November but when I started to build the oil radiator supply line I discovered that the fittings I had for the oil tank and for the oil pump were the wrong size. A visit to the illustrated parts manual...
Firewall Insulation Revisited
I was about to spray adhesive for the Thermotec insulation I chose for the firewall, when suddenly I questioned how well it would insulate the cabin from engine heat (and noise). So, I performed a short test using 4” square test pieces of 26 ga. galvanized steel: one bare...
Firewall Part 3 plus a Flame Test
This kit uses a sheet of galvanized steel as the firewall and is further covered by a heat barrier to insulate the cabin from the engine heat (and noise). The galvanized steel is good as a fire protectant (per FAR 23.1191), however, I have seen several other builders dismiss...
Right Wingtip Work
For mounting the wingtip lights, my original concept for a upswept winglet wasn’t going to work – there is no place to run the wires out at the end of the factory wingtip. Therefore, I went back to the drawing board, and came up with a fairing that goes...
Visit to Sling Pilot Academy
My recent job change has me traveling out the Mojave CA about once a month. I took advantage this trip to make a visit back to where my airplane building journey started – the Sling dealer in Torrance, CA. My reason for visiting was two-fold: to get some flight...
Winglet Mod
Yep, yet another mod, but this one’s pretty minor. My wingtips are the older design that lacked a good place to mount the wingtip light cluster. Therefore, I designed a small winglet to attach to the wingtip, mimicking the design of the newer wingtip seen on the TSi kits....