HP-24 Project

Update 13 April 2004: Tehachapi trip photos

Not much happened in the shop last weekend. I did a little work in surveying the planform of the right wing plug so that I can replicate it on the left plug. But I spent most of my Sunday shop time kitting an HP-14 flap crank and getting some Essentials packed off for an HP-18 builder who drove down from Alberta Canada to pick them up. And Saturday was spent at the nearby rock climbing site called the Grotto. My first ever outdoor climb was a 5.9 sport lead on the route called Sidesaddle. It was also my first ever lead climb - which was probably a damnfool stunt on my part. But I felt pretty safe once I'd clipped the first bolt.

However, this week I did receive a CD full of photos in the mail from Mark Boyd, who many soaring enthusiasts will recognize from his postings on the rec.aviation.soaring Internet newsgroup. I met Mark at Tehachapi while I was down there on 3 April 04 to supervise and inspect the alignment of my forward and aft fuselage plugs. He just happened to have flown in for the day in his Corben Baby Ace, and he just happened to have a digital camera with him. So I enlisted him as the official HP-24 project photographer for the day. Many thanks to Mark for his patience and skill!

Here are the photos:

A general view of the forward and aft plugs joined. The yellow string follows the axis of the aluminum boom used as a spindle for the aft plug.

Another general view.

The plywood bulkhead that Harald installed in the first-article forward fuselage for just this purpose. The number on the boom is a virtual station in inches from the nose.

An aft-to-front view of the fuselage.

This view shows the station where the string enters the aluminum tube. The string is anchored at the front on the centerline of the ventilation platform, and at the back at the center of the tail spindle. We straightened the fuselage by arriving at the orientation in which the sting was exactly centered at the front of the boom as shown in this photo.

Here's me holding the inboard profile sketch of the alignment that Harald worked from.

And here's me with my Howard Hughes snap-brim fedora at Harald's wing table.

Here, Harald and I discuss the fit of the face pattern for the canopy transparency frame molds. This pattern embodies the mating face with sealing strip channel, but is not yet fitted with the surface that bonds to the transparency. We're figuring out that I need a mating face at the front where I can place a ventilation outlet.

Nose hook in a day!

Tha canopy pivot and ventilation plenum bulkhead, temporarily pressed into position. The pencil lines you see on the shell through the hole in the bulkhead is where the bulkhead for the Tost 85-series nose hook goes.

Precomtec R+D principal Harald Buettner, justifiably proud of the canopy frame pattern.

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page updated 13 April 2004 all text and graphics copyright (c) 2004 HP Aircraft, LLC