tonyslongez

O.K. I'll do that. Tony

Lynn You are correct. What I meant to say was Shirl Dicky. It was really late, and I must have been hungry:D . My thought was not a gear retrofit for existing Long EZ's but rather for new construction. Now the nose on the other hand can certainly be grafted onto an existing Long Ez. BTW this is just to see if anyone wants a pair of Berkut Gear. It's no skin off of my back if there's no interest for them, It's just an opportunity that has presented itself that I wanted to extend to the group. just trying to be generous. Tony

I have a question for all that have been following along here. I may have a very unique opportunity to purchase the new all billet aluminum Berkut upper gear legs, trunions, A , and H arms and actuators for those of you who want drybread gear. This offer would be for a very limited production run. I will have pics of the gear for my Berkut next week. the new Berkut gear are good for a 3400lbs gross weight airplane with a safety factor of 2. The upper gear are CNC machined out of 7075 billet with stainless bushings. the A and H arms are billet as well. . These gear are not cheap, but if you have the means. I highly recommend grabbing a pair. This post is purely for getting an idea if there is a need for the gear. Also would anyone be interested in a pre-molded berkut nose with bulkheads as a retrofit for the long Ez? These are really good looking retrofits for the Long Ez's. All orders will have to be paid in full for the landing gear and noses. (if there is enough interest) Tony

Dave It's a toss up between fishburne and the greek god. Lawrence did have some cool glasses:cool: Tony

Pic 6) Here I'm stippling two plys of bid on the front of the spar face. this is to be a very wet layup. per plans. It sucks becasue the MGS is so expensive and I used quite a bit on the spar face. Pic 7) Here is the two plys of bid partially cured and ready for knife trimming. Pic 8) O.K. all done Knife trimmed and ready for nine G's:thumbsup:

O.k. Here are the final pics for the spar face close out. Next step is to install the spar. Here we gooooo! Pic 1) Here is the flox on theT-Tapes Pic 2) O.K. Once the 2 plys of bid on the back side of the spar face where semicured. I flipped the spar face back over right side up. Now I place the spar face into the spar, allowing the semicured bid to lap up onto the bottom and top spar caps. Pic 3) Here you can see that the bid has been knife trimmed and the spar face has been weighted down with scrap aluminum. Pic 4) I wanted to make Damn sure that I have a good bond between the spar face layup and the spar. What I did here was peel away the bid from the spar cap and inserted wet flox. This was done all the way down the spar on both sides. Pic 5) This is the flox joint that fills the gap between the spar face edge and the spar cap.

I like that Dave. I was thinking Morpheus. Tony

Thanks Jack I hope to be on the gear at the end of the month. I have some realy good pics of the spar closeout. I'm at work currently:sad: and will have to post them later tonight. Tony

Finally!! I had some time today to start the spar close out. Not real exciting for pics but you'll be able to see how this was suppose to be done initially. Here we go. Pic 1) I sanded the back of the spar face. Pic 2) I marked one inch inboard from the edge. Pic 3) This is the first ply of bid. I didn't cut the glass along the bias because it would've used to much. This is not a load bearing layup. It's just to seal the spar from fuel Pic 4) Secound ply of bid Pic 5) It's hard to see but I raised the spar face off of the table slightly by sliding a 1x2 underneath it. Now I have to wait for the layup to partially cure. I'll then flip the spar face over and do the layup on the front side of the face this will be the final close out layup.

Today I was able to finish up the last bit of layups on the spar attach points. Pic 1) Outer attach point Aluminum 1 ply of bid 3 plys of spar cap tape 1 ply of bid Pic 2) I did this the other night during inboard layup. I went back and read the plans "again" to make sure everything was correct. I realized that the layup didn't go all the way around the spar. The layup stops about three quarters of the way down the shear web. I confirmed this as well by watching one of the wing videos. Luckily the resin was partially cured and I was able to knife trim it back to where it should be. I'll sand off any excess resin and flox. It will be as though it never happened:thumbsup:

Pic 6) This is the other side of the spar again the line was drawn prior to drilling and the holes are right down the center. Pic 7) This is the inboard pilot hole. Not much to see here moving on. Pic 8) This is the outboard aluminum plate. I screwed up earlier when I cut the original plates to short. These plates where cut from 2024 aluminum flat stock. Well because I don't want to wait to get more. I milled out two new plates out of 7075 flat stock. I have to fit the new plates to the spar, I cut them longer than stock. Once that is done I'll start the layup. Tony

Big-T sounds like alot of fun. Keep us posted. O.k. Here is what I was able to do today. I wanted to give myself the best chance at drilling my wings correctly the first time. To do this you have to really start with a good pilot hole. In order to make a good pilot hole you need a realy big drill press. I just happen to have one of those Here we go. Pic 1) The first thing I had to do was level the spar area to be drilled. I did this with the help of these handy little stands. I bought these from harbor freight a few months back. Pic 2) Once the spar is leveled, it's clamped to the drill press base. Pic 3) I thought this would've been a good picture just to see how flat the spar was sitting on the table. BTW I indicated the table to the drill spindle a few days ago. Something you definately want to do if you have a press that has a rotatable base. Pic 4) Just to make sure that everything was good to go. I threw a level on the aluminum plate. Time to drill the hole. Pic 5) I mean this with all honesty. I drew the red line prior to drilling the pilot holes. When I turned the spar over to check the holes allignment. I was very happy to see the holes lined up perfectly. Just a quick note here, look how far off the original holes where. Next post. Tony

Thanks T. BTW how is your project coming along? I don't know if you have seen the videos. Go to youtube, in the search bar type in "4 rotor madness" Holy S#!@. these cars with four rotor rotarys are unbelievable. Tony

This was the last thing I wanted to do before I went to bed. I installed the conduit. The conduit I made a few weeks ago was O.K. but I wanted to make something that didn't need plastic fittings. The problem with the first conduit was the wall thickness was very thin and I couldn't bend it very well without it crimping. I bought some more shower rod from home depot and this time I filled it with the sand from my blasting cabinet and was able to bend the tube with out it crimping. BTW that aluminum shower rod has a very thin .025 wall thickness. I had to bend it very slowly and use a fairly large radius about 3"in. Here are the pics. Pic 1) I used a popsicle stick to radius the micro around the counduit. Once this drys I'll go back and sand any excess micro and make it nice and pretty. Pic 2) Here is a shot of the spar with the new conduit. A sharp contrast from when I got it 4 months ago.

I started the outer spar attach point layups today. These layups seemed to take a bit longer to perform than the inner layups. I was able to complete the two inboard outer attach points. I'm unable to do the outboard layups until tomorrow. It's just getting to cold out in the garage. The spar will have to spend the night in the laundry room:D O.K on to the pictures. Pic 1) With the radius router bit chucked up in the mill. I fabricated the aluminum plates for the inboard outer attach point. Pic 2) Not the greatest picture. You can see the aluminum plate surrounded by flox. The plate and flox are covered with one ply of bid four inches wide. lapping one inch onto the spar cap front and back Pic 3) Three plys of spar cap tape are applied over the aluminum and fiberglass layup. Each piece of spar cap tape is cut a half inch shorter than the last, so the ends will taper in a nice transition to the upper spar cap Pic 4) Once the three plys of carbon are layed up. One ply of fiberglass is applied over the carbon. Once again lapping one inch onto the spar cap front and back. This ply is to insulate the aluminum bushing that will later be pressed into the spar. Pic 5) Here is the entier layup finished. The other side is identical to this. Tony

Thanks Steve. A little time consuming but well worth it. Tony

I had some time today to finish the layups on the spar attach points. Pic 1) This is the inboard attach plate. The layup is identical to the outer attach points. (previous post). I'll trim the layup at the red line above the lip Pic 2) Outer attach point layup. Same as the other side. When these layups cure, I'll flip the spar over and do the outer spar attach layup. The outer layups are a little different than the inner spar layups. You can see the pilot holes that where predrilled thru the glass layup. When the outer layups are complete, I'll jig the spar to the drill press, and drill the pilot hole the rest of the way thru the attach points. Tony

I'm prepping the aluminum plates for tomorrows layup. I didn't realy want to change the angle on the mill to cut at fourty five degrees, so I simply used a carbide router bit to do the jod. I finished it all up with a radius bit for the edge facing the shear web on the spar. Per plans Pic 1) Here is the router bit in the mill spindle. This is just a standard 45 carbide bit. They cut very nicely. Pic 2) Here is the radius tool I used to radius one of the four edges on the aluminum plate. the rest of the edges on the plate where cut at 45 deg.

I had a little time before the festivities started today. I did the outboard wing attach layup. Here are the pics. Pic 1) I layed up one ply of bid over the aluminum plug. I also made a small flox corner Pic 2) I grit blasted the bl23 pads and immediately dipped them in epoxy. Pic 3) Here is the lay up 3 plies carbon fiber spar cap tape one ply of bid (to protect the aluminum) Aluminum pads grit blasted and floxed into place one ply of bid over the entier layup Tony

Don't cessna 150's have piston engines ???? That was for you T Tony

Big-T Yeah, I like those rotary's too.

Has anyone heard anything more about the Honda engine? Tony

Does anyone have an update on the Honda engine? Tony

Mak split the fuselage horizontally down the side. The fuselage has 2 plys of bid on the inside. Not sure what the outside is. I can find out. If the Berkut is going to be resurrected it really needs more modern layup techniques to build it in a timely fashion. There are alot of improvements that can be made to the kit to make it easier for the builder to assemble. I would really like to see more precision of wing and spar attachment. Either by a fixture or predrilled plates. The other thing that is unfortunate, the composite kit market is very soft. Vans has done very well with the Rv's, I can see why! they are fairly easy to assemble. Not to mention the shear number of RV kits sold and flying. Builders can wrap their minds around aluminum, screws, and rivets. When it comes to composites, builders tend to choose metal. So I think the Berkut needs to be "easier" to build by that I mean faster to build.(Tab-A goes into Slot-B) I think that can be accomplished with more modern tooling techniques. off the soap box, gotta go build now. Tony

Wolfman I'm glad you are enjoying the posts. I'm haveing a blast as well. I just wish I had more time to build. Tony