Merry Christmas to All!

Van's has released an update about lead times and a promise to give more detailed information after the new year. They also plan to provide updates biweekly which would be a nice change. I haven't gotten to do any work in organizing this week prepping for the holidays. I hope to get some done next week if the kids let me.

 In the meantime to everyone, I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Van's Aircraft Lead Times

 So for anyone that is waiting on a Van's kit, the talk of the forums are the lead times.  Van's has recently updated the lead time charts and everything has been pushed out.  I will give Van's a "B" for their information because they don't give much.  I ordered my kit in August and was told a 4 month estimate for the empennage kit.  This would put me in December.  However, the timeline from past people says that Van's will reach out about a month before about "Crating" and final payment.  Once this is done you have about 4-6 weeks for crating and shipping to occur.  Well, I haven't got that message yet so I am figuring the wait is pushed out until February at least.  Van's is now estimating 8 months for the empennage and 10 months for the wing kit.

Van's had setup a status website for us to track the status.  However its been over three weeks since the website has been updated, so its pretty useless.  The staff at Van's has a few people who peruse the forums out there and they have indicated its a work in progress as it is pretty new.  As well, global delays in material processing, significant order surges, and shipping delays are causing havoc.  Van's has increased their workforce, ordered additional materials, and is working around the clock, but the demand is so strong right now they cannot keep up.

I hope to have an update on the estimated ship/crate date sometime after the new year.  In the meantime, I am going to finish assembling the DRDT tables and organize my toolbox completely.  I have gotten most of my tools in now, just a few odd pieces I want to pick up after the holiday.  Maybe I will get lucky and get a few for Christmas from the family.  I don't expect much to happen this coming week, so Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

Instrument Rating Update

 So I meant to update this prior to my Fundamentals Class last weekend, but I had too much going on and never got to it.  I had my Instrument Rating oral about two weeks ago.  I have to be honest, I despise oral exams because you are truly walking into the unknown.  Every DPE is totally different, goes after different things, and considers different things important to them.  My instructor had not had anyone take an instrument rating exam with this DPE so we truly were kind of blind.  I arranged for the conference room at my FBO and went in as prepared as I could get.

I took some advice from the internet and brought a "checkride binder" with me that had all the important information.  I put my license, medical, and ID in front to start.  The next section had my IACRA and FTN information for access purposes and my logbook printout.  I use the foreflight digital logbook, so it was simple to print out.  After this information, I put a spreadsheet which I called my airworthy checklist.  This spreadsheet had all the required documents, inspections, and other items needed for me and the airplane to be ready to fly.  I wrote in all the important dates and tabbed out the logbooks to make it easier to confirm.  The last section had my flight plan and performance data for the requested cross country planning.

The Paperwork
My DPE ran a bit late the day of the exam which made me a wreck waiting.  It didn't help my nerves, but I have to admit, the minute he got there he began to small talk and try to make me comfortable.  We spent about ten or fifteen minutes just discussing his history, the "ground rules", and required FAA advisories before we began.  After this, I honestly was very distracted and felt much better.  We took care of the IACRA paperwork, verified the aircraft inspections, and reviewed my logbook.  This was my first "hiccup" of the day.  The DPE was verifying the required items in the logbook and asked about my long cross country.  In my long cross country, I entered it as one big entry, notating the two airports and all approaches in the remarks section.  He said that I had to show the airports in the "From/To" field and made me make a pen and ink change to it.  Not a big deal and we moved on from there to start the actual exam.

The Oral Exam
The exam started with the basic items of any checkride.  We discussed the aircraft inspections, pilot currency, and some basic decision making regarding these items.  My DPE was a big believer in what I refer to as "situational decision making".  Many of his questions were leading to another topic or built up to the "big question" on each topic.  

After we got through the aircraft and currency stuff, we moved into my cross country planning.  He had me plan a flight from KFRG to KHFD (Republic to Hartford) and had previously given me his weight for weight and balance.  I had done the planning the night before and utilized a published TEC route.  This made things easy and we went down the TEC route and Preferred IFR route path for a few minutes.  This was an easy discussion and we got into the "situational decision making" next.

We started to discuss a bunch of "what if's" about my cross country.  We discussed low ceilings, NORDO procedures, weather, diversion, and navigation a bit.  Most of it was pretty straight forward and leaned towards the basic regulations and knowledge you are expected.  We went through fuel planning, reserves, and even a situation about diverting with low fuel and the airport you finally land at has no fuel.  So we discussed options to make it back to the original destination, it was a fun conversation actually.  We also discussed ways to get additional weather and resources available during flight, don't be afraid to ask for help (ATC or FSS).

After we beat my cross country planning up a bit in good fun, we moved onto weather.  We discussed general weather terminology, discussed the metar, TAF, Sigmet, Airmet, and other weather concepts briefly.  We then went on to a very thorough and long discussion about icing.  This was a big conversation and lasted for awhile.  It was obvious this was a big item on my DPE's list and we beat it up pretty good.  One thing that I was briefly a bit stumped on was a question about performance during unexpected icing.  He asked me how ice would affect performance and I discussed the change in airfoil shape, loss of lift, etc as I was expecting.  He kept driving on about how to manage performance though during unexpected icing and was trying to get me to acknowledge reducing the visible wing in icing.  His big point was that by climbing or descending at high vertical rates would expose a much larger surface of the wing and be a high risk of more icing.  So the big item we were getting at was that if you end up in icing, you need to minimize your climb/descents to minimize ice accumulation.

We then went on to airport and approach markings.  This was a pretty harmless topic where we discussed various markings, discussed plate and map symbols, and their meanings.  It was really a three or four minute conversation as I was able to rattle them off quick and easy.  I did make a small slip up about the runway edge lighting colors but we rectified that and moved on. The next question he through at me involved the runway edge lighting.  He asked me to imagine I was on approach in low fog conditions and I ended up floating my landing.  As I was trying to settle the aircraft down, I noticed the edge lighting change from the white to amber.  He then asked if I noticed that what it meant.  So I responded I was approaching the runway end and that I should immediately go missed at this point.  He was happy with the answer but then he dropped the hammer, "At what distance does that color change occur?"  I was not sure and I told him I thought it was three thousand.  He asked if I wanted to check, so I said yes (assuming I was wrong) and immediately grabbed my Tabbed FAR/AIM.  He took this moment to refill his coffee, but I found the answer in thirty seconds thanks to my tabs.  Sure enough, the correct answer was 2,000 feet or half the distance of the runway if less from the runway end.

We then continued on this low visibility question and I just stumbled and confused myself about Special VFR.  We discussed what it was, how to use it, and the appropriate requirements.  However, when he asked me the visibility requirements, I confused myself and screwed up.  I told him there were different requirements at night (I told him the correct answer was daytime) and mentioned the required Instrument rating.  He looked at me funny, and I asked to confirm which he obliged.  I corrected myself, smacked myself out of my stupor, and we wrapped up the exam.  I had successfully completed the oral... thank god that was over!

After The Exam
We took a look out the window and noticed the ceilings were dropping and the windsock was fully erect.   I pulled out my Ipad and sure enough, the ceiling was about 3000-3500 feet in the area and the wind was  sustained at 30 knots gusting up to 40 knots.  I immediately told him that we were not flying and requested the discontinuance.  He laughed and joked that I didn't want to have fun in those conditions.  We did the paperwork and rescheduled for two weeks later to try again.

Two Weeks Later....
Two weeks has come and my checkride was scheduled for tomorrow (Thursday).   Well last night (Tuesday) the DPE called and advised he had an issue come up and asked to do it today (Wednesday) instead.  I told him I was available but the weather didn't look promising.  We said we would check and go from there.  Of course, this morning came and the weather was rainy with ceilings between 2000 feet and 3000 feet once again.  As well, the TAF showed lowering ceilings and temperatures were near freezing.  ?Between the dropping ceilings and near freezing wet conditions, I had to request another reschedule.  He totally agreed and understood and now I am scheduled for next Monday afternoon.  Of course, tomorrow (Thursday) is looking to be a gorgeous day, too bad we couldn't do it.  So I am hoping everyone will keep their fingers crossed that Monday turns out nice.  Maybe the third time really will be the charm.    

Synergy Air Fundamentals Class

 So the day finally came and I headed out to Atlanta to visit Synergy Air South.  For those unfamiliar, Synergy Air is a builder assist company that has a large amount of experience building all models of the Van's RV aircraft.  They offer a builder fundamentals class once a month for $250.  This full day course is mostly all hands on and they demonstrate and give practical time to try all the tools that are commonly available/used and the methods for using them.  For someone who has no aircraft building experience or metal work experience, this class was an eye opener for a few things.  But more on that in a minute.  They also offer a empennage build assist class where you would build the empennage with one of their experience technicians.  The nice part is you can bring other help yourself and make the best of the time to maximize it.  This is useful for people looking to build quickly or to get a lot of help at first and learn the basics.  The problem is, you need to be able to take two weeks of time off, pay to stay down there for two weeks, plus pay the additional cost for the build assist time/materials.  Now many people are willing to do so, but working full time and having young kids at home, I think doing the empennage build would land me on the divorced list quite quickly.  But back to my class....

Flying down to Atlanta... Got to sport the aviation facemask.

The Fundamentals Class

Die and Bit Holder.  This was an easy way to organize everything.

After my short one night stay I headed out to Synergy Air for the early morning start.  The class starts at 7 AM which is rough, the town is about 10-15 minutes away from the airport, so it's an early rise and start to the day.  I was up so early that the hotel breakfast had not even been started when I left.  I arrived at the airport and the conditions were heavy fog with an extremely low ceiling.  With the inability to see much, it took a few minutes to find my way to the hangar, figure out parking, and get inside.  I was about ten minutes early and I was shocked to be the first arrival.  The class is capped at six students and they pair everyone up to work in three groups.  The class has two instructors, Allan who is the lead for the whole facility and then one of his techs.  While we were waiting for the rest of the class to arrive, Allan was kind enough to show me around his hangar at the airplanes currently being built.  There were three RV-10's being built in the main hangar plus two other models.  He also mentioned he had some other aircraft his secondary storage hangar (we got to visit and check those out during lunch).

After a short wait, the rest of the class showed up (Well most of them...).  Four gentlemen had signed up to take the class together who were local to the area.  The fifth student we were waiting on actually never showed up, so we ended up with only five people.  This worked out for me since the four guys that were together naturally paired up, leaving me alone to work on the project by myself.  This was great as I got additional hands on time with all the tools, techniques, and project in general.  Allan had me work with his tech on some of it just for time purposes, but he let me do much more than I would of if splitting it with another student.

We started the two projects after about a twenty minute discussion of building techniques and basic terms.  We were given a small book with this information to take home.  The first project was a simple example of riveting two aluminum sheets together and then to a J-Channel.  It made us demonstrate dimpling, deburring, counter-sinking, and riveting.  We used the Cleaveland Main Squeeze and DRDT-2 for this project.  We also discussed some techniques for drilling and using a rivet fan for laying out holes.  It really was a fun little introduction.

After we finished the first project, we continued on to the large project, the small "wing".  This project is the same one Van's sends out and was a great reinforcement to the techniques we used.  We continued and expanded with using a pneumatic squeezer, pop riveter (manual and hydraulic), various deburring methods, and other techniques.  It really was eye opening to see how things came together and the various methods  I will have to use later in the build.  I did get a laugh that I was moving along faster than the other two groups with both projects.  I actually had to keep stopping to let them catch up.  I guess it means that I was doing a decent job, my partner (the Synergy Tech) had complimented me multiple times on nice work for being new to it.  

My Final Thoughts

After we were all said and done, the day wrapped up and we were able to admire that we completed the two sample projects.  Apparently, when our kits arrive, the same two practice projects will be in the kit.  So, I guess I will probably get to do it alone in my own workshop and configure/setup some of my tools before the real build.  So what were some of my takeaways?  I realized that having an organized workshop is quite helpful.  I also realized the importance of monitoring your air tools and insuring you use proper pressures.  I will definitely be making a few changes to my setup than what I originally had planned.  I will detail some of this later when I get it all done.

So what are my final takes?  The fundamentals class was 100% worth the trip.  I really wish I was able to do the empennage class, but I prefer to keep my wife and kids around.  However, I did like that you can come down at any point in the build and pay for time with a tech later.  In the back of my mind, I think it would be more beneficial to get help during the avionics, interior, fiberglass and engine hookup at the end.  Right now, I think this is gonna be the biggest thing for me.  But I got quite some time before that is even a discussion or thought.