Out of Gas

Don and I stopped by the hangar while prepping for a musical performance at Starbucks.  We got the compressor fired up and filled the flat tires on the Bearhawk, and on the compressor itself.  We also topped off Don's bike tire.

This is the sad state of what passes for working on the Bearhawk these days.

Program Review: Flunking Grade for Bearhawk

Just got back from two week vacation, during which I got to try my hand at float flying, in a Cessna 172 on floats.  Very fun, very inspiring, very galvanizing, but upon returning to Hangar 2789M, reality set in and I had to conclude that the Bearhawk is very discouragingly far away from completion given our abysmal rate of progress over the last few months.  So I conducted a full review of the Bearhawk program.  This time I spared the rest of the team so I could do my project management thing, and really got into the nuts and bolts.  Bottom line: we get an "F."  Immediate and dramatic improvement is needed or this project is likely to be terminated.

The good news is I  have identified a number of ways to move the project forward, and I am in a surprisingly good position to execute.  It's part of my nature to rise to the challenge of a desperate last stand, so let's see what happens.

Welder Assessment

Mike McClusky looked over our project, gave us prep instructions, and very informally quoted about a hundred bucks to do the job.

Wing on fixture

Calling in the Hired Gun (Torch)

Mike McClusky, of McClusky Limited is going to come to the hangar tomorrow at 11:00 AM to check out the welding work needed for the Bearhawk wing strut attachment.


Nice.

A Welding Project

Thinking about how to reweld this little cluster.

Wing Stands are Finally Done

One hour spent bracing the corners.
Next: let's see if they work.

Hangar Storage

Trying to clear some workspace in the hangar again.

Rain

Hangar pretty dry, but a giant mess. Spent some 5-S time.

Wing Stand Deployment, 7 January 2012

Don and I spent maybe half an hour yesterday evening moving stuff out of the way and positioning the wing installation fixtures for a dry run with an actual Bearhawk wing.
We chickened out when we realized
(1) how heavy the wing is, with no longitudinal crossbracing installed yet;
(2) how high we would need to lift it;
(3) how little time we had.
We opted to delay the first wing lift until we add more bracing and come up with some kind of stable step arrangement.

Wing Installation Fixtures Complete

About an hour and a half spent by Don and I. Brandon helped too. Got the crossbracing on there. Kids were up too late.

January 2, 2012 - Wing Stands on Wheels!

Woke up to a strange sight: really dense ground hugging fog covering the LA Basin, but ending just about a half a mile from my house.  The tops of buildings and a crane were poking above the fog.

Then, after breakfast, took the family to the South Coast Botanic Garden, where I took this idyllic photo of children frolicking along the main thoroughfare through the gardens, laughing and holding hands.

Of course two seconds after this photo was taken, Brandon and Audrey tripped over each other and piled up on the asphalt, skinning Brandon's knee and leaving Audrey with a cut lip, and bleeding profusely from the mouth.  Clearly it was time to change gears and go work on the Bearhawk.

Lisa and I took up where Don and I left off on New Year's Day, installing the leg extenders on Wing Stand #2.  When they were both on wheels, we rolled them out on the ramp for a PR shoot:

The long spindly legs combined with the uneven ramp surface made the fixtures appear to tilt at crazy angles, so we rolled them right back inside.

All that's left now is to complete the crossbracing to give these fellas enough stiffness and strength to roll around with a wing on top.

January 1, 2012 Progress

Lisa, Don, and I Spent about 1.5 hours on the morning of New Year's Day working on the Bearhawk.  First task was installing legs on Wing Stand #2.  This was mostly Don and Lisa drilling indiscriminately while I covered my eyes.

In parallel, we got the Varner miter saw up running, and used it to cut leg extenders from pressure-treated 4x4 purloined from a long-abandoned Swamptooth landscaping project.  Unfortunately we ran out of lumber and had to take a very long long lunch break to steal another 4x4 from my front yard.

After cutting to length, with nice square ends thanks to the Varner saw, we drilled out holes for the casters, using a drill block intended for rivet removal, clamped to the square end of the post:

Next we enlarged the pilot hole with a worn-out 1/4" bit and then a 5/16 spade bit before threading in the caster (obtained at no cost from the Varner Compound).

Next was the tricky part: getting the leg extenders properly positioned onto the fixtures.  To do this we initially eyeballed the height and clamped them up.  By this time it was just Don and me.

We then fine tuned the height of each leg and reclamped everything to drill bolt holes to attach the extenders.  We got one stand done and partially crossbraced before Kent came over and our productivity ground to a halt.

We didn't keep careful track of hours, but the 2nd half was from about 6:30 to 9:30, so 3 hours times 2 belly buttons.  Total project time for the day: 3 x (1.5) + 2 x (3) = 10.5 hours.