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My cub rebuild...

WanaBNACub

Registered User
Off Airport
I have debated for a long time on posting anything online, but decided to do it after all... On Nov 6th, 2016 I was on a duck hunt with a good friend in western Alaska. I had a severe wind shear event on takeoff that quickly changed from a quartering headwind to a strong quartering tailwind just as I started to rotate. It pushed my cub over 30' off course just as the mains lifted off the ground and into a huge cottonwood log and then into a steep narrow creek bank. The right gear pushed up into the fuselage and tossed the plane sideways. As it came back down on the left gear, the gear leg collapsed under the side load. The resulting cartwheel did significant damage to my cub and changed my life for the near term... I have always tried to make the best of everything in life and have decided that with the help of a really great IA, I was going to try and do the entire rebuild myself with his advice, help and him looking over my work. My plan is to work on getting my A&P out of the rebuild and working with him on several other projects. The second objective lighten up my cub significantly and make it a more capable workhorse cub! It will be quite an adventure and will lead to a lifetime of adventures when it is completed! I also started a facebook group for those that are on there that is documenting my rebuild and also an open forum for other bush plane rebuilds. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1837244029862308/
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It all happened in a flash and was pretty violent. I was able to keep it from flipping over and flew it all the way to the stop... Someone was looking out for me and I walked away without a scratch. The troubling thing to me is the 406 ELT was never activated... Didn't leave me a very warm fuzzy about their effectiveness... I always fly with a sat phone and an Inreach and my wife tracks every single flight with the Inreach. This reinforces its value to me! Currently I am about halfway done with the rebuild so I will be posting quickly over the next few days to catch up. We got started on disassembling it a few days after the crash so I could get it back in my hangar, but didn't really get to start the rebuild until Dec 1st.

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The right side gear fitting and left wing took the majority of the damage. I started stripping the fabric off a few days later to see just how bad it was.

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Glad your ok also. I cartwheeled my beloved Pa11 twice and walked away also without a scratch and my ELT never went off either. Good luck with your rebuild, I couldn't even look at mine for a couple years because it hurt doing so. I look forward to following your rebuild and all the great hunting pictures that you'll post after its done.

Glenn
 
Mitch's jig was tied up for a bit when I got started so he suggested I start with the aileron/wing rebuild first. That way I would learn fabric work incrementally, from an easy part to more challenging stuff. The left Aileron got tweaked pretty good on the end, so I started by learning aluminum fabrication and repair on a small surface as well as the fabric work. Mitch showed me the ropes and turned me loose on it. I drilled out all the rivets and disassembled the damaged end, rebuilt it and put it all back together. Then he taught me the basics of fabric work and I got started on that. It turned out decent, so he trusted me to move on to the wing.

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Then I moved on to the wing. Those repairs went together a little easier than I expected they would. It was very tedious, but with Mitch's knowledge it was pretty easy to pick up on. I am really enjoying fabric work. We had to replace all but 3 ribs and lots of wing parts. Leading and trailing edges, flying wires, etc...

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Most of the older A&P that live around here started down the road by first bending an airplane, Your in good company Cory

Glenn
 
Most of the older A&P that live around here started down the road by first bending an airplane, Your in good company Cory

Glenn

Not the way I envisioned this would work out, but necessity is the mother of invention! After getting laid off from the North Slope Oil Fields last summer and then shortly before the accident, beginning a new "full time student" career to get my commercial pilot ratings, there was no way I could afford to do the rebuild other than what the insurance would cover. So my decision to do as much as I could myself was the best option I could come up with. I have a solid mechanical and welding background from 26 years in the military as a mechanic, so that helps a little.
 
It initially was a pretty serious jolt that was straight ahead when the right tire and gear hit the creek bank and shoved the fitting 4" up into the fuselage folding it under. It felt at least as bad, if not worse than the cartwheel after it ended up sideways. Should that not have set it off?
 
The fuselage welding took the longest. To get it to fit in the jig we had to remove a significant part of the lower front structure. Lots of cutting, coping and fitting, but after about 9 days in the jig I had had it fitting like a new airframe. With a few improvements that my IA likes to do, it should fly better than it did before! And we lightened it up by around 8 lbs...

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We had to cut a front gear cluster out to get the fuselage to fit in the jig, but this was just the beginning of the cutting and cleaning up of the fuselage.

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The new cabane v held things in place while I coped and spliced the framework back together.

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We also had to spend some time tweaking the rest of the fuselage to get it to line up perfectly in the jig, but once we did it fit like a glove!

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After the welding we still had to do a little tweaking to get the door and window to fit back, but now it fits way better than it did when I bought it even. Going to be nice to be able to shut the door without twisting it a little!

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The gingerbread for the boot cowl and false boot cowl took some time to shape it right...
 
Once the fuselage welding was done and it was time to send it off to powder coat with Mark Bills and the guys from Advance Powder Coating. Marks experience and reputation up here made it worth the trip just for the time spent talking with him!

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The finished product was better than expected. I gained about 2 lbs back over the painted fuselage I sent in, but I think it was worth the tradeoff... There is lots of other weight savings to be had in other less important areas.

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Now its time to really get moving on the build! :p
 
I picked up a full set of Carbon Fiber flooring and rear seat material from Randy Apling of Carbon Concepts, and the weight savings continues... I straightened out the old floorboards enough to use them as a template, and started by tightening up the fitup with tape. Then layed out the new floorboards, seat bottom, and forward and aft baggage floors. Saved just over 12 lbs between all those items over my old stuff... Thats huge to me! And that is before I did any cutting on the carbon fiber. Probably closer to 13 lbs as it sits now...

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This stuff is super nice quality and very light. Its easy to work with and very easy to cut with a jig saw and hole saw drills. I definitely recommend it for anyone doing a full cub rebuild or a re-fabric.

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Fitup went fairly quickly!
 
The next step was putting all the pedals, brakes and brackets in... Gotta love installing and adjusting the rudder and brake pedals... That took me most of the day, and lots of cussin by itself...

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The next step was putting all the pedals, brakes and brackets in... Gotta love installing and adjusting the rudder and brake pedals... That took me most of the day, and lots of cussin by itself...

back when Univair or was it when Univair ran out of pipers New Old Stock... rudder pedal springs were not hard to install... but since the late 1990's univars BOGUS PARTS do NOT match the dimensions of the drawing... still surprprised the FAA have not busted them on this..

this is how it SHOULD BE... not the WIDE weird thing they try to pass off as the proper one...

http://www.supercubproject.com/drawings/pdfs/A3290338.pdf
 
I wondered about that...there is no reason they should be that difficult. It's such a simple design.
 
The next step was putting all the pedals, brakes and brackets in... Gotta love installing and adjusting the rudder and brake pedals... That took me most of the day, and lots of cussin by itself...

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WanaBNACub,
I see that you have the North River Brakes. Here are a couple of pictures showing a reservoir attachment with a needle valve to each. Any container can be used for the reservoir. I made this one out of a Lucite rod. This simplifies adjusting the fluid level for temperature changes and brake wear. You can even adjust the level in flight if you are so inclined.

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WanaBNACub,
I see that you have the North River Brakes. Here are a couple of pictures showing a reservoir attachment with a needle valve to each. Any container can be used for the reservoir. I made this one out of a Lucite rod. This simplifies adjusting the fluid level for temperature changes and brake wear. You can even adjust the level in flight if you are so inclined.

That looks interesting. Do you have a close up picture of the reservoir?
 
A few more pieces of the puzzle are starting to come together. My old interior with diamond plate floor boards and thick kydex interior panels was really heavy. The Carbon fiber stuff from Randy is going to be a huge weight savings...
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This cub came with it, but Airframes, atlee, and lots of other places sell them. That is definitely a must do mod for me.
 
Randy at Carbon Concepts made me a one of a kind panel from an aluminum mockup that I had designed for the cub. I am going to tweak the mounting just a bit yet as I am not totally happy with how it fits in the boot cowl, but I really like the design. This picture shows what goes into making a one off carbon part from the aluminum mockup we started with at the bottom. From that he made the wooden plug above it to make the mold from. The second from top is the finished mold and the top is the finished product.We made it so that the CF wraps around on all sides for strength, and also for ease of mounting into the boot cowl. No angle brackets are needed.The top portion of the panel slopes back at an angle, so the flange around the top had to be made to the proper angle for mounting.


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The finished product before cutouts is 12 oz. After cutouts we should be down in the 9 oz range.

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I am going to raise the panel up 1 1/2" from this picture for better stick clearance. I am also going to make a 2 piece boot cowl over the top that will have a larger removable center section for access behind the panel from the top as well as the bottom for future upgrades or repairs...

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