signed propeller balancer and adapts it for wheel balancing

By Bruce Sturgill

bruce@pursuitofflight.com

Photos: Morgan Hunter

CONTACT! Magazine readers may remember Bruce’s contribution, “Building a Corvair Cruiser”, in the May -June, 2007, issue where we featured the Personal Cruiser. As a beta-builder we asked Bruce to keep us posted about his progress and provide us with follow-up articles. So with that, here’s number two in what we hope will be an ongoing series. ~Pat

I’m building a sporty, sexy little plane, the Personal Cruiser, a kit aircraft that’s manufactured by ProComposites Inc. Some time back I produced a TV story on a couple of builders who were going through “Lancair’s Builders Assist Program” at their factory. I thought it was a great idea but at a cost of $4,000 per week at that time, it was way out of my budget, so was their plane, but that’s another story. The builders I interviewed really liked their program and thought it was well worth the time and money. Having someone walk them through the building process certainly gave them a jumpstart on completing their plane. So I thought, how could I get some type of assistance like that with my plane?

IT SEEMS TO MAKE SENSE

My reasoning was building with someone who has already built a plane like the one I’m building should be a really good shot in the arm for both the plane and myself, being a new builder. So I called Scott VanderVeen at Pro -Composites and asked if they had such a program. He said they do offer a builder assist program where they come to your garage/hanger and assist you with the construction of your Personal Cruiser or the Vision Aircraft. Being a beta builder of the Personal Cruiser, the thought of having someone come to me never really crossed my mind during my construction process so I jumped at the chance.

Arrangements were made, plans were discussed, materials were ordered and Morgan Hunter of Pro-Composites came out during the first week of October. He arrived on Monday around noon after a long flight from Florida to Portland, Oregon, and we didn’t waste any time getting to work. He looked over the plane closely to see exactly how good my construction skills were, patted me on the back, and said I did excellent work but also pointed out some things that could be “a little more excellent.” And thus we began by making an attack plan for the coming week, including correcting a few minor mistakes that were made during my construction. Morgan’s attention to small details of my plane helped make assembling other parts a lot easier.

THE WEEK BEGINS

Over the course of the week (Morgan left very early the following Sunday morning), we took my “tub” and turned it into a “tub with wings” or something that really resembled an airplane. We aligned spars, drilled holes, poured liquid foam, mixed epoxy, laid a lot of fiberglass, microed wing cores in place to make those spars look like wings and mixed a lot more epoxy. I also got to experience what happens when you have micro that’s too thick and you get an exothermal reaction. You don’t want to do that with wing’s cores and pour foam; it’s a lot of work and time fixing that little mess. Morgan did comment that construction goes a lot faster when you have someone mixing micro and cutting glass for you; loosely translated, “slave.”

I found out that what you think you should get done and what actually gets done are very different. I planned out all the things that we were going to accomplish during

Morgan turned out to be the resident photographer so the best photo available of him doing any work is this one where he’s fitting a rib to the spar.

Morgan’s visit, yet we only completed about half. During the course of construction little things would pop up that needed to be fixed, purchased or moved that I didn’t anticipate. One of those things that I didn’t think about, we had to move the fuselage from side to side in order to accommodate putting each spar on so the wing foam cores could be attached. I could have opened the garage door and had both wings on at the same time, but that makes heating the space a little difficult in the Northwest. There were other little things like this that I didn’t anticipate which took time, like driving for two hours to purchase pour-foam. Even though mixing epoxy and cutting glass for Morgan speeded things up a lot, most of the time we’d be working on separate parts of the plane and we’d prepare our own epoxy and fiberglass, thus building more parts. Here’s a tip: Measure out exactly how much glass you have on hand, not about how much you think you have. Un-roll the roll and measure it; it looks like you have more than you think (at least it did for me). I ran out of bidirectional glass two days before Morgan left and no one had any locally. We still worked other tasks that needed to be done, just not the ones I would like to have accomplished during Morgan’s stay.

Was I disappointed that we didn’t finish all the things I had planned? Yes, at first. However, after looking back on what we just accomplished and all the little things that I didn’t anticipate, I’m very pleased. My disappointment could have also been separation anxiety of a good building partner, but I’ll save that story for the Oprah show. You have to take into account that with two wings, a fuselage and a 4’ X 10’ table in a two car garage, you start to move a little slower, especially if you don’t want to break any foam parts.

I would highly recommend to everyone if you can, take advantage of some type of builder assist program or help. My experience with Scott and Morgan’s program was just great. Did everything go according to Hoyle? No. But at the same time a lot of things were accomplished. We spent virtually no time just standing around chatting, except when one of my flying buddies or a neighbor would stop by to see how things were going with the plane. We were busy from the time Morgan arrived to the time he left and it just takes time to do a job right. I learned where I was doing a really good job and where I could speed up in other areas, plus I feel a lot more confident about my abilities to finish the Cruiser in a reasonable amount of time. It was to say at the very least, an enjoyable experience to have Morgan there for the week. He’s a very smart and enjoyable person to be around, even for 10-12 hours a day for 6 straight days. Not only did I learn a lot of other things about airplane construction, but also my little jewel is getting closer to becoming a plane. I still have a long way to go but it doesn’t look as far away as it used to. I just wish I had started building at the young age he is and not put things off for one reason or the other. So for you guys that are thinking about building a plane, get started!

Morgan said he wouldn’t mind if I shared what the cost of this week was for me. Total including putting Morgan up in a hotel (not a classy one but not a dump either) and meals was right at $1500 and worth every penny to me plus I got a little break being a beta builder of the Personal Cruiser. I could have saved the hotel bill by having him stay at my house, but I thought after working 10-12 hour days together I’d need some time with the family and Morgan needed his personal time too. Now, this price didn’t include the “trade” with my wife, which is one week for plane construction and one week for the kitchen destruction. Considering all new cabinets and appliances, maybe this wasn’t so “inexpensive” after all. I’m still waiting for her to order the cabinets, so maybe that week for “kitchen” duty won’t happen until after January sometime. In the mean time I’ll be in the garage working on my Personal Cruiser N73BS and something else. Bruce Sturgill

The wing spar attachment. Although the plans call for 3/8” bolts, Bruce felt better with 9/16” bolts.

The current condition of Bruce’s project. More BID is required to finish the wings. The left wing is ready for sanding and the right needs the trailing edge put on. The gear legs are under the table and ready to go.