Two steps forward, one step back

Having opened up the engine box, I thought I'd better have a go at installing the new engine mount we'd ordered and which came with the engine.  Nice looking piece of work it is, too. But, you guessed it, things didn't pan out as I'd hoped.  Initially I thought the problem was with the vertical distance but a bit of brute force (on the part of a much younger man than me) settled that score.  It was then that I discovered that the horizontal distance was the REAL problem -about 4mm short of the requirement. Lots of thoughts went flooding through various minds but what we've opted to do (at this stage anyway) is to elongate each airframe bracket by 2mm each inwards.  That way the frame won't be able to move and we can keep the mounting properly centred. All we have to do now is elongate the holes -something I strongly suspect will be neither easy to do nor quick to action.  If that fails then Plan B will have to come into operation -fabricate new brackets.  Well, it is winter now so a bit of arm exercise will keep me warm, assuming my round file will fit........

But there is good news on the wing front: Rex has managed to source the necessary metal to fabricate the fittings for the compression ribs and we have a volunteer to build the lower spars for us (we've got the wood and the design -just missing the expertise). There's an expression about "on a wing and a prayer"; I'd like to think that as far as our wings are concerned, prayers won't enter into it.  We don't want to suffer from the original Fokker Triplane syndrome.  If you don't know what that is, the Internet is a good place to start looking!

Plans? Who needs plans?

An interesting disovery about the wings: we have plans drawn up by the Germans of a captured N17 plus plans of a scaled N27, neither of which match our wings!! Believe it or not but this does constitute a bit of a problem since we don't know where certain vital pieces of internal stressing need to go. However, having gone through some of the correspondence which came with the goods, I happened to come across some drawings which now explain all. Well, I think so; I have still to discuss them with the others to see if I'm right. If so, we can start to look at what fittings will be required where and therefore dimensions, etc. Plus the engine supplier is in contact so that other piece of the jigsaw can get underway. And the welding on the fuselage is now complete so we can start to get rid of the surface rust and prime it. The weeks are going to start to get busy!

Flying has come to a temporary halt as I await the return of my doctor to give me my medical clearance for the next 2 years. So it's time to do a bit more swotting for another exam. Just one more after that and I can rise to the dizzy heights of "Intermediate" and therefore be allowed a bit more licence about where I can stray to.

Second as opposed to Last Post

Having mastered(?) the first effort, let's try a second one. "Why a Nieuport 16?" I hear you say. Apart from the obvious "Why not?" the main reason is that we got it cheap! The guy we bought it from had only bought it himself to get the engine, so wasn't too fussed about the rest of it. It is actually a 7/8th scale Nieuport 17 but the dimensions fit nicely for a full size '16'. Again I hear the cry "Why?". Apart from it being an overpowered '11', it was used by a notable English RFC pilot called Albert Ball, VC. And we plan to honour him by painting it in his colours.

My bookshelf is rapidly filling up with books about the Nieuport concern, the aircraft it built and the pilots that flew them. Where did this zeal come from? My 'work' at the Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre (www.omaka.org.nz) has sent me down the research path finding out interesting snippets about the exhibits (well, I think they're interesting, even if everyone else doesn't). The most interesting thing for me is discovering just how clever, innovative and resourceful our forefathers were. Just one example: the cylinders of the rotary engines were milled from solid metal to make the walls just 1.5mm thick. I think we'd be hard pressed to do that these days with all our high-tech equipment; it's hard to imagine how they could do it back then.