Construction of our TBIRD I

by Gretchen Watson

November 10, 11, 12 & 13th, 2004

    Late Wednesday afternoon, November 10th, 2004, we (Mickey & Gretchen) left for Iowa - again.  I had to be back, at the latest, Thursday at midnight and Mickey assured me that we would.  I had to be in Clarksburg Friday morning by 9:00 a.m. for my daughter's State Volleyball Tournament.  We drove straight to the other side of Demoines, Iowa, stopping only for gas - which we managed not to run out of for once.  It was close a couple of times however.  My dinner was raviolli out of a can.  It was now 2:30 a.m. and we only had about 20 minutes of driving before reaching the Desoto (Golden Circle's) exit.  We got a hotel for the rest of the night and got up the next morning in time to be at Golden Circle by 9:00 a.m. est.  I really love visiting Golden Circle.  Dorly, Bob, Guy and Mike are such nice people. 

    I took several pictures of the TBird I in the showroom and Dorly gave me many other pictures.  These will help out greatly in the building process.  Mickey helped load the parts and by 10:30 a.m. we were headed toward West Virginia.  Mickey did good at getting me back on time.  We pulled into the driveway at 11:50 p.m. Thursday night.

    While I was in Clarksburg, Mickey took all of the tubes to our building in Midway.  Saturday, November, 13th, I took inventory of all of the parts down to the last rivet.  I counted, tagged and binned every last tube, nut and bolt.  This time I bought storage bins for all of the small parts.  We ended up taking wire to change out for the strings on the tags.  We then used the wire to hang the tubes and other parts in the paint booth.

Friday, Saturday & Sunday, November 19, 20 & 21st

   Friday, November 19th, we began transporting the parts to the paint booth, which was almost right across the road from our building that we rented.  We hung the parts by the wire tags.  On the long tubes, we used paint sticks in the ends to let them sit on.  Mickey and Raine primered and painted all day on Saturday, November 20th.  They used a really good self etching primer and then bright yellow acrylic enamel paint. 

    On Sunday, November 21st, at around 4:00 p.m. Mickey and I picked up the wing tubes.  We had them assembled within an hour or two, minus the wing horn assembly (wing and root horns were missing parts).  We did not put the cover on because of the missing pieces so we just leaned the skeletons on the wall. 

    It was still early so we went back to the paint booth to pick up the aileron tubes.  The first one took a little while to complete.  These tubes are tight in compression in the fabric.  We had the second one finished in around a half hour. 

Monday, November 22, 2004

    Mickey returned all of the painted yellow parts from the paint booth to the building.  He then completed the horizontal stabilizer and the elevator.  I got there around 2:00 p.m. and by 4:30 p.m. we completed the rudder and vertical stabilizer/tail assembly. 

Tuesday, November 23rd, 2004

    I helped Mickey build the fuselage during the afternoon.  We ended up taking a trip to Charleston to find a couple of 5/16 grade 8 bolts that were 5-1/2 inches or longer.  We found them in Kanawha City and headed back to Midway to complete a major portion of the fuselage.  Later, I took some of the landing/tri gear parts to the paint booth, hung them up and painted them black.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday - November 26, 27 & 28th

    We got quite a bit accomplished such as putting the fabric on the front nose, yoke assembly, gas tank, seat, part of the tri-gear, rudder/stabilizer and one door.  We received a shipment front Golden Circle containing the root horn and wing horns as well as our caster.  These we also added.  Mickey is seen changing a cable mounting plate on the yoke.  We accidentally put it on upside down the first time.

Saturday - December 4th

    Mickey has been out of town working most of the week but when he returned, we were again able to make some progress.  We mounted the instruments, minus the rate of climb guage which hasn't arrived yet.  A good portion of the landing gear was attached including the wheels.  However, we don't as yet have a rudder cable.  This should be arriving soon.  We also mounted the engine.  We took Sunday off to go flying at Leon airfield.  Mickey won't be back again until Thursday the 9th. 

Saturday - December 11th

    We only worked on it for a couple of hours this weekend.  It's the finishing touches that seem to take so long to accomplish without actually seeing any large results - yet it has to be done.  We finished the brakes which are mechanical.  Mickey had a few parts made for him at a machine shop.  He also uses one continuous cable from wheel to brake handle to the other wheel.  He did this on our previous Tbird II and it worked great. 

    We also nearly completed the wiring.  We measured and cut some of the streamline fairings.  These will be taken to the paint booth next weekend when Mickey returns from Detroit.  If all goes well, hopefully we can take the entire plane to the body shop, assemble it, shrink the fabric, add the fairings then trailer it on down to our hanger at the Leon airport. 

Monday - December 20th

    Well - we took most of the weekend off to look after sick grand kids.  However, we did do a few small things which actually is quite time consuming.  I added the Rate of Climb and Mickey worked on some more wiring and fuel/primer line.

Friday - December 31st

    I forgot to bring a camera that day.  The TBird, for all intent and purposes is finished.  We attached the wings again and I ironed them to shrink the fabric.  Mickey added a slip indicator and a compass.  I also added a few more rivets that I had missed to one of the doors.  We were hoping to take it to the field for the January 1st flight but our prop is still on the missing list.  Rumor has it that it was shipped a couple weeks ago - hope it wasn't in a UPS fire somewhere.

Monday, January 3rd

    The prop is in Iowa waiting to be shipped.  It should be here by the end of the week.  Starting tomorrow, we will be transporting the plane in various stages to the airfield. 

Wednesday - Sunday January 5th - 9th

    While waiting on the prop, we decided to go ahead and transport the fuselage and wings to the airfield.  We took two evenings to accomplish this and it rained the whole time.  Curtis helped on the first evening.  Saturday we worked on finishing it up and by evening it was ground hop time. 

    I took the controls and taxied it several times.  Mickey then got in and did the same.  After a few times he lifted it off of the ground and flew it nice and straight down the runway.  He did this several times and then I took got back into the plane.  My nerve level is not quite as high when it comes to "ground hopping" a new plane but I did it.  I did shoot off of the ground a little quick and a little higher than I had planned but I brought it back down with a good smooth landing - porpoising a few times first however. 

    On Sunday it was time to fly.  Mickey took off and flew for about 20 minutes checking everything out and it was ok.  I climbed in and took off.  It was great!!!  I flew and flew and flew.  I landed twice and took off again.  I can climb out at right at 1000 foot a minute.  Mickey climbs out at about 800.  This single place is somewhat more sensitive on the controls than the two place which makes it a fun little plane to fly - not that the two place was bad at all.  After the third landing Mickey went back up again.  Before sunset, I took it out one more time. 

    While I was up I flew around with the trikes to see how well I could stay with them at slow speeds.  They pulled up next to me and I backed it off to around 40 and let them fly on by and then I stayed behind them with absolutely no problem or fear of stalling.  My stall speed is in the low 30's.  Mickey stalled it around 34.  I cruised the TBird at 65 comfortably.  At around 70 it seemed to pick up a little tail flutter vibration.  I believe that once we put on the streamline struts that this may smooth out a little - not sure however.  All in all I am quite happy with the little plane.  It fits me like a glove.  I don't even need to use a pillow to reach the pedals for once!

    Here are a few pictures.  I forgot to take any while it was flying but I was far too excited.  I will include some of those next weekend.