Companion Progress Thus far

[Utah-Jay]

Looking good

[Mark Dickens]

Now that I'm back in the saddle on the Bearhawk, I thought I'd bring things up to date.

Last fall, I had to replace my firewall due to a collapse of the dolly I had the fuselage mounted to...I had repurposed part of the shipping crate and added heavy duty casters to it so I could keep the fuse at a good working height. After mounting the engine, and attempting to move the fuse over, the dolly gave way and down it all came, landing on the lower corners of the firewall. This was after I winched it up off of the floor:

IMG_1901.jpg

Yes, that's the offending part laying there on the floor. I was extremely lucky (I can hear you muttering that and other things) in that the firewall gave up its life to protect the rest. It also happened to be only about 6" off of the floor. Some of the bottom paint was scuffed up and the whole thing landed flat. The transponder antenna just broke off and didn't end up punching a hole in the fabric...on top of that I somehow had an extra identical transponder antenna in my parts drawer. Talk about small things to smile about. Really notwithstanding the firewall, there was very little damage and it was all minor and cosmetic. I was very lucky

Anyway, I thought I could simply replace the bottom corners of the firewall and ordered some stainless...after trying that for a few weeks, I just gave up. I don't think there's a way to make repaired stainless steel look good, and so I ordered a new firewall...glad I did that, it looks so much better, but then I had to demount everything and remount the engine, which is what I've been up to for the last 6 weeks or so.

The engine is remounted and everything rewired

IMG_2264.jpg IMG_2263.jpg

I'm finally done with the blasted exhaust tunnel (hate that thing)

IMG_2265.jpg

Got the windows fitted

IMG_2266.jpg

Got the cabin top panel fitted

IMG_2267.jpg

There are a ton of things to be done, but I'm excited to be back on the project. Fortunately, I won't have an engine for the RV-14 to distract me until June, so it's all Bearhawk these days and hopes are to take it to the hangar in the spring and attack the wings.

[Mark Dickens]

Boot cowl part deux...the new firewall was not identical to the old firewall of course, so that meant that everything I had fitted to the old firewall would no longer fit...so I had to build another boot cowl over the past two weeks...what a pain, but it's done and now onto the cowl, something I haven't done once so far!

IMG_2274.jpg