Update on Cabin Heater
I’m pretty excited about the idea of an improved cabin heater for my plane, so much so that I decided to go buy one from a junked car for inspiration. I haven’t committed to this yet, but I would like to reverse-engineer an automotive unit and then design something...
Cabin Heater
Since I live in New England, having effective heat in the airplane will be important to me. As I was reviewing the updated fuselage manual for the Sling TSi, I noticed that TAF updated the cabin heater design, from a system that uses ram air flowing through a cuff...
Right Wing Build Underway, Big Announcement Today at Oshkosh
I received a replacement right wing rear spar earlier this week so now the wing can get built up. Perry from TAF came up with “quite the contraption” (as he called it) to ensure it made its way to NH undamaged – it’s mostly a long piece of 6″...
Center Fuselage Parts
In and around holiday events this past weekend I was able to put in a few hours on center fuselage parts. Not much to show, other than a bunch of floor ribs that have been cleaned and primed. Speaking of priming – I found that I spend a lot...
Right Wing Skins and Starting Fuselage Assembly
I consulted TAF about my damaged rear wing spar, and they advised against repairing it so they will send me a new one. That limits how much I can do on right wing assembly for now, but we had some nice weather this weekend so I decided to prime...
Fuselage Skin Rack
As I started inventorying the fuselage skins, I realized that I didn’t have a good place to put them. I found some unused space above my garage door and improvised a shelf out of reclaimed wood from the shipping containers for the wing and empennage. I’m now complete with...
Wing Rack, and Step Skin Solution
I put together a wing rack this week following plans from an EAA article. I had most of the material already, so it didn’t cost much – the straight sections are 2×4, 2×6, or 4×4 pieces of lumber I had laying around, while the gussets were made out of...
I Have a Serial Number!
I just found out that TAF has assigned serial # 180k to my kit! I’m guessing the ‘k’ indicates kit-build, as opposed to factory-build. It’s good to know that there are about 179 other Sling 4’s that are already built or in the process of being built! It’s a...
Wing Top Skins Riveting
Last weekend I riveted the upper skins on the left wing. As I did when clecoing the skins in place, I started riveting onto the strongest parts first (4mm rivets into the main spar cap), then ribs, then stringers. When pulling these blind rivets, it leaves an open hole...
Left Fuel tank started
I created a jig for assembling the fuel tank using the templates included with the plans. After transferring the profiles to a sheet of 1/2″ MDF, I cut the shape by hand with a rotozip-style tool, then filed and sanded as needed to smooth it out. Next I followed...