John Sumner is using our Builder Assistance Program to build his brand new A600 TALON.
Follow his progress in this regularly updated presentation of pictures.
Other Technique help sections Updated Sept 2005
| From John Sumner: |
| A little background
first: I'm an airline pilot, recently retired from the Boeing 747-400;
so I have plenty of fixed wing time but no experience in rotary
winged flight. Nor have I ever built any kind of aircraft from a
kit. So I have the usual home handyman skills, with good workshop
tools and space at home. I live on a farm, so am used to maintaining
a variety of machines but employ experts from town for anything
serious. The 2 major reasons I was attracted to the Builder Assist program are : 1. Time: Although I'm retired, I'm far from idle, with cattle and cropping taking up much of my time. A major project like this would take me many months to get done at home, with all the distractions available. There are lots of components in this kit and finding out what is what would be a task in itself. 2. Quality of Build: While I expect to become knowledgable during the building process, I don't have the experience to build a high quality finished product the first time around. Mine will be Kevin's 9th. new build (his 2nd. Talon) and his input is essential, if I'm to enjoy flying an excellent helicopter at completion. So I have taken myself to North Queensland for a month this time, staying with Kevin and Enid, to concentrate on building my Rotorway. The kit had been delivered sometime earlier and the photos show the kit in its many boxes; a parts card, on which many small parts are shrink-wrapped and labelled; collections of parts cards and some of the larger body panels. Kevin immediately sorted parts cards into some we would need now; some soon and some much later; as he recognised all the parts and we didn't need to refer to any manuals at all. The manuals are however excellent and comprehensive. The first phase of construction started with the airframe, which is constructed from chrome-molybdenum steel, covered in a greasy substance, which certainly prevented any deterioration during transit. Unfortunately, this steel is very tough to drill but we added many components -- lots of measuring and drilling! One photo shows how we smoothed the legs that attach to the skids and little niceties like this always save weight and add that extra quality, as well as losing lots of sharp corners. Then we added the tail boom to the rear of the airframe. This was a very tricky task of alignment, with many plumb bobs and a level surface. Horizontal stabilisers were added, measured level with a digital protractor, drilled and bolted to the boom. The boom was drilled and bolted to the airframe and when everything went together nicely, we took it all apart to send it to be sandblasted and powder coated. It should return a lot less greasy and much nicer to work with... Cheers for now, John Sumner |
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My
Kit Delivered ...
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A collection of Parts Cards
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A
Parts Card
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Seat Backs & Floor |
The
basic Airframe
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| Rounding the Skid Attachments |
Aligning
the Tailboom
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Tailboom
on for the first time
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Levelling
the Horizontal Stabilizer
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Next
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