Craig has been busy working away grinding away the glass transition between the canopy and the windows. He has also started to get into the canopy itself, so soon the fuselage will be in all primer and being worked to a magical state of slick! Craig has also been busy finishing up the pinhole/primer of the gear fairings as they are readied for paint.
At Craig’s urging, I decided to redo an access hole in the main pants. I had original drilled a 1″ hole to be able to refill the air on the main gear. I had small plastic covers in the holes when not in use. But he showed me how on his Long EZ that he had built an access door that looked a lot better. So I glassed over the hole I made and we cut out a 2 1/8″ hole. Today I drilled screw holes, countersunk them and floxed in some nutplates. Once these cure I will remove the access door, and then remove the glass from behind to make an opening to the wheel and leave a flange on both sides of the opening where the nutplates are. In addition, I glassed in a piece of high-tensile low-visibility retaining line – AKA fishing line. I added it to the flox on the nutplates. Once the door is removable, the other end of the wire will be floxed to the inside of the door. This will make it so that the access panel is attached to the pants even when its open. So the door wont blow away or get stepped on when it’s opened up. If the idea doesn’t work well, the line can be easily cut and removed.
I also came back and worked on the top cowl. I had previously added some glass to the inside of the upper cowl at the leading edge. This will be used to retain the hinge pin holding the upper and lower cowl together. The hole in the tab will allow the hook in the pin to be inserted. The decorative pin cover will then sandwich the pin between itself and the tab. No chance of it working its way through the cowl split and hitting the prop!
We also had an unexpected surprise. As we were working away, Gil came in and asked if we want to go for a ride – “YES” was the answer. So Craig and I quickly cleaned up and found our selves going along in a Citation CJ2 for an aerial 2-man formation to view an L39 that flies at the Reno Air Races. They were working to find aerodynamic issues with the wing tips and other parts of the plane and the engineer was in the CJ2 with us so he could see varies indicators on the side of the plane as it flew. It was a total blast!
I added a “Jet Flights” category to the blog – perhaps this wont be the last time I get to go for a ride in a Jet!
myrv10factory 
Your living the Dream. Progress is remarkable.
Hopefully Phil figures out why his entry door latch on the Albatross released allowing the step to drop down into the slipstream. His tufts look pretty darn good. Gil does great work just like you have.
Thanks – it has been a ton of fun. So happy to have selected Craig to do the paint – so many thing I never even thought of.
The step we noticed right after our first departure. So we returned to field and refueled. Apparently it was missed by his “ground support staff” as it can not be seen or retracted from inside the cockpit.