Recently in Other Category

One of the projects that occupied my bench for a short while last year was a set of speakers. I decided that after many years of headphone music it was time for a stereo system. There are beautiful speaker kits around that produce a nice sound for (relatively) little money, so I opted for Udo Wohlgemuth's SB18 kit. The first step is to build the cases from some MDF:

Some veneer to make them look nice. This was my first veneer job every. 19 years ago when I lived with my grandmother for a few months I came across a roll of rubberized paper tape and had no clue what this was. Now I know it's veneer tape and used for seaming veneer. Definitely a learning experience!

After gluing the veneer, I cut the holes for the drivers and connectors, and hot-glued the audio crossover into the case:

The finished speakers now live on my compressor enclosure in the kitchen and are driven by a tiny TA2024C tripath amplifier I bought from China for 30 bucks. The audio signal comes from my router which actually is a single board computer running Linux. Like this I can play all my music using my laptop, my phone, etc. Nice.

It's been a long, long time since my last post here. Many things have happened in the meantime -- both in the shop and privately. Not too much has happened with the RV, though. At some point I was very frustrated that I don't get to do anything on the plane, but then I checked my diary and realized that half of the time I was not even in the country.

Anyway. There was some progress, and many people are prodding me for an updated on the blog. I will try to cover some of the things that occupied the workshop, in no particular order. I won't show everything, but I will try to keep this place a bit more up-to-date.

Even though I haven't posted anything here for two months, I am still alive. And I have a very good excuse: I was busy flying and working on my other airplane. In fact I have already flown more this year than during all of 2010. Before you ask: That wasn't too difficult, unfortunately.

So what did I do? In March I attended the Ottsjö wave camp in Sweden, like the last two years, and it was great fun to fly from that frozen lake again. From there I took my glider to Germany for the annual inspection, and back to the UK. Some maintenance during the evenings after work, and more flying during the Easter/Royal Wedding/May Bank Holiday week. That's the summary, and here are some impressions from Sweden.

The Libelle on the ice, waiting to fly:

The wind is down to 35 knots, let's get going!

Any doubts why it's called wave? Look at the clouds.

At 18000 feet, climbing with 900 feet per minute:

That's what the world looks like from 19000 feet:

The same mountains, on my way down:

Lunch break on the ice, enjoying the sunshine:

Evening

Unfortunately the holiday came to a sudden end after the first week. The weather changed and within a few hours we had about 1 foot water standing on the ice, flooding the gliders. So it was time to go home, get the plane in the workshop and dry it. Luckily nothing was damaged.

Last year I had the flight with the largest altitude gain. The Trophy for that is awarded the following year, so this year I went home with the famous wooden moose:

Big jump in time and space, Easter weekend at my home club (Sutton Bank). It's a hill site, and we had beautiful morning fog in the valley. Just too bad that when it lifted, it stayed low enough to prevent us from flying on that day -- the visibility was simply too bad.

The past few weeks were dominated by work, work, and ... work. I haven't been home a lot, and the little time I was here I spent either at the computer or sleeping. Okay, that's not entirely true. I did actually take a long weekend off beginning of October (wow, that's long ago) to go to Milfield with a small group of people from my glider club. The aim was to fly in the wave, and I did three times.

Some fun with a mini-cumulus -- does this count as self-portrait?

Fast forward to today's afternoon. Work finally got a bit calmer (it will change again, but that's another story) and I took advantage of it and got into the workshop. Van's calendar on the wall still showed the September picture, so I flipped two pages and started to work.

I got the frame for my DRDT-2 welded, but they bolted the die holder on the wrong way. So I fixed that and adjusted everything. What a nice tool! I also got a backriveting plate, so I can now return Steve's tools.

Then I match-drilled the R-716 rudder bottom attachment strips to the rudder, and drilled all the remaining holes to final size.

Not a long session today, but it's good to be back on the project. The wings should arrive before Christmas; we hope to beat the VAT increase deadline. They are already in the container.

... but much tastier! A couple of weeks ago I got some bolts for the airplane construction from a close friend. Chocolate bolts. I meant to put this picture here for ages now, so before I eat the last one ... here it is:

No building today, as I came home late and had other obligations. But I have to share the evening sky with you:

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Last week I've been to a meeting in Berlin. My outbound journey was on 16 April -- one day after the UK airspace closed for IFR and the day when the German airports closed due to the ash cloud coming from Eyjafjallajökull's eruption. It took me a mere 24 hours pure travel time from Durham to Berlin: train, bus, ferry, taxi, hitchhike, train, taxi, train. I wished I had already finished the plane that I haven't really started yet: With the RV-8 it would have been a short hop, VFR below the ash cloud. Well, one more motivation to build ...

It's been a while now since my last entry, as I haven't been home a lot in March. The month started with a work trip to Switzerland, but a fair fraction was flying my glider from a frozen lake in northern Sweden. Every year in March there is a wave camp in a small place called Ottsjö, and this was my second time there. We had a really good time! Here are some impressions: