Ross

The kit, in three wooden boxes secured together, was sent by road from Bundaberg to the agent of a Leeton carrier in Brisbane about 300 km I think from where it was back-loaded to Leeton about 1350 km on a semitrailer and then transferred to a smaller truck & delivered to our place.

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Jabiru J160 about to be unloaded - Note the normal sky colour

At this stage the hull join, horiz stabiliser join and vertical stabiliser have been smoothed by filling with epoxy micro-balls and undercoat filler sprayed with a couple of coats. What you can see has then been sanded and refilled where necessary.There is plenty of spraying and sanding still to go with most of this undercoat to be sanded off.

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Inside all the control levers in the cabin have been fitted; rudder pedals with 4 pedal stops, rudder cable with stops aft on fuse & verttical stabilizer, elevator control lever and cable, trim lever and cable, aileron lever, flap handle & cross shaft, hand brake handle with ratchet stop & master cylinder, engine throttle lever & cable. The fuel lines with valves for each tank and sight gauges (wet wings) have been fitted in the cabin, still to finalise the header tank. Electric fuel pump & filter have been fitted.

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This one is a lot later with the base of the rudder pedal stops stiffened up with an extra layer of Al strip and the firewall has now got a layer of foam and felt glued o it.

Static line and strobe wires have been run to the top of the tail and a pitot line has been threaded from the panel area under the passenger seat through the hull near the hull strut connection point long enough to reach the pitot tube to be installed in the right hand side strut.

The main UC has been sanded, undercoated and final painted and fitted to the hull with larger bolts than originally specified.

To be continued maybe....!

Hi Geoff

Your enquiries will be welcome. But I am no expert.

I have plenty of photos. Our J160 kitwas delivered on about 14thDec 2004 and is number 14 of the J160 series with wet wings and mechanical tappets. I had a major interruption to the work from June 2005 till March 2006 but now have no excuse aside from family & friends visiting occasionally. Geoff Waddleton from Mildura helped by sending photos of various parts.

Not having anybody to talk to about it was a major obstacle. It took me a while to make the contacts forfinding infoon handlingepoxy, filling rough areas, paint, aircraft grade bolt supplies, sandpaper grades and solving some of the problems while building the aircraft. The factory people were very helpful and will give advice on any area required. One of the troubles was the quality of the English in their construction manual whichwas better than Japanese English but did result ina number of vague instructions.

For handling the epoxy mixing I obtainedand old set of Post Office Scales, $20, without weights.I use about 50 only5/16" nuts as counter weights so that many different sizes of mixes can be done in a ratio of 3 epoxy to 1 of hardener by weight. If the mix is too large, because it is exothermic when mixed, its temperature rises rapidly giving off poisonous fumes. It also rapidy sets when the temp is raised above about 25 degrees C resulting in a loss of the batch unless it is cooled artificially say by sitting the mix on a cold pack. I have found it easier to simply use smaller mixes. Jabiru said that the setting process, if interrupted by low temps about 15 degrees C I think, will continue once the temp rises again. Because it is a chemical reaction it is important that the epoxy and hardener be mixed in the correct ratio accurately.Thisinterrupted setting is typically the case if abatch is mixed and used late in the

afternoon followed by a rapidly cooling evening. It does need some hours at the right temp to set to full strength, maybe 12 hours. Of course this can be helped by raising the temp with say fan heaters.Wagga is a bit colder than Leeton.

The fuelage is half painted with a high fill paint to fill the pin holes,the bare fibreglass areas and the joins which I have alreadyfilled with a microball epoxy. The microball epoxy was not used structurally only as a filler.It is fairly easy to work. I initially, after setting,use a paint scraper with a carbide blade on the filler then a rectangular random sander.

The firewall is fitted after I made a wooden folder to fold it in two places. The engine mounts are painted and fitted. The engine has been mounted a couple of times and a quick release G type clamp modified to facilitate compressing the engine mount rubbers while doing up the mounting bolts.

I purchased a manual hydraulic"engine crane and engine stand" to facilitate handling the aircraft fuselage and the engine. I got a sling made to lift the

fuselage. I made an adapter plate for the separate engine stand so that the engine can be mounted on it using the engine mounting holes and simple clips ( narrow three point linkage typeclips) to secure the engine on the stand. The stand has been modified so that I can rotate and lock the engine in 90 degree steps around its longitudinal axis.

Gotta go. More later if you want it.

Regards Ross

Hi Geoff

The only one I know of is at Mildura being built by Tom O'Donnell. It is a J170, longer wet wings,the fuselage is mostly completed (I have not seen it). He has not purchased the wings or engine yet that I know of.

Hi! Is anybody out there assembling a J160?