Weekend progress

Saturday I flew the NG-1on three flights which went really well.  Our club had a great currency day with spring checkouts, towpilot checkouts and general currency flying all around.  Everything was sled rides although I managed to delay in some zero sink a few times.  We did 29 tows for the day, not bad!

Sunday was forecast to be at least overcast and possibly rainy so I started working in the garage in the morning. First thing we did was pull 373Y out of its trailer and get it in the garage.  I have some stuff I want to do to it before the season starts.  Specifically wire up a new electrical system with tefzel wiring and generally better electrical practices.  What I had last year was probably somewhere between cheap and dangerous.  I also will probably work out a new instrument panel while I'm at it to accomodate the LX16 Audio Vario and allow space for a dock for the Oudie and Nano. Also will probably switch from cheap radio shack fuses to klix on circuit breakers while I'm at it.  I also need to rig up some sort of seat back and probably some under leg support for comfort on long flights.  A relief system is also in order after having two 6 hour flights last year.  Finally I'd like to get the bubbles on the leading edges of the wings flattened out.  Might try to paint the contest ID (YYY) on it while its in the garage.  It will be in need of an annual inspection May 1 so I might as well get that taken care of too.

On to 53T, when I cut the scarf for the longerons it ended up cutting into the gussets where the truss comes together under the horizontal attach.  So i spent most of the morning working on removing nails and cutting scarfs on that gusset for some new plywood to make it whole again.  I was about done doing the glider side of things when Jerry called and said it looked like soaring weather at Sunflower. So we hit the road!  I ended up giving Jerry a tow and then Leah and I flew the 2-33 for about 40 minutes until the weather clouded over. We managed to gain about 1000 feet with Leah doing all the flying and had a lot of fun.  Back home I started cutting plywood for the gussets.  I got the four pieces cut and trimmed and also cut plywood for the plywood piece that goes over the back of the vertical stab.  I got the scarfs cut on that piece and one of the gusset pieces before I decided to call it a night.