Latest Work Completed Mantua, New Jersey
Original Site:
September 2004
E-mail: usav8or@yahoo.com
Building the Skybolt, Model M14
aka Radial Engined Skybolt..
October 27, 2008 Spending time... looking for time
Just thinking out loud...
I've been putting a lot of time in on the biplane for the past two years... but it's not quite as many hours as I would like it to have been. I needed to sit down and take stock of my days and how I can plan on working more hours on the plane; a concrete schedule that is printed out so that I can see where the hell all my time is going... time not spent on the biplane.
We'll I dutifully completed my homework assignment and came to the conclusion that I'm not doing a whole lot more than buidling this plane. With that said, I'm just going to need to make the best use of what time I have.
Easier said then done, to quote an old cliche.
The plan is to put thirty hours a week in on the plane. This would require me to get up an hour earlier each day during the week. Put in four hours a night, three nights out of the week. Working on it at work an hour instead of having lunch. Putting in five hours on Saturday and three hours on Sunday. (Or any other combination that will get me to that magical 30 hours a week.) This should allow me to put a little over 1500 hours on it in the next year.
OK... so I have my schedule... all I need to do now is have enough projects to fill in all this time. First project is to start planning out each of the smaller steps I need to take to get me to the end goal of a flying biplane. Something that I can do tomorrow during lunch. I know I still have CAD work that needs to be done for several of the fittings. Something like that can be done first thing in the morning where I don't need to get much prepared for the task. As a matter of fact I have the blue prints sitting on my table with a few fittings just dying to get drawn up.
I better hit the sack. It's almost 1AM. Only four hours before I need to wake up.
November 20, 2008 Another visit from Whitey...
Had Whitey stop by this past weekend to take a look at my welds. Got the thumbs up on them. No paperwork turned in this time. Apparently he can only turn in four reports for any given project, per EAA. Doesn't make sense to me, but hey... I don't write the rules.
Anyways... glad to know that my welds look good.
Here Whitey is explaining how he welded additional straps to his motor mounts. Good idea since the Jake is close to half the empty weight of the Skybolt. The next day I took a ride over to the airport to see the actual straps he welded onto his mount. Took a few pictures of the Jake too.
Note: Above sundial photo credited to Wolfram Burner on Flickr.