This past Friday I gave a presentation to my local EAA Chapter (106) on the whole journey of building Sadie.  It's an hour long, so if you're interested, buckle up. ;-)

I've been trying to work down my squawk list, with the top item being the rudder/nosewheel alignment.

I assembled a simple laser pointer alignment tool and started working on the issue.

My alignment tool ready to go.

Taped to the sides of the tire and pointing down.

I dropped a plumb bob down from the tip of the prop spinner and marked it.  The rudder is perfectly straight in the back and you can see that the nose wheel is a bit to the left.  I loosened the jam nuts on the pushrods near the wheel but will need help loosening the ones inside.  It's just too tight in there for me to hold the pushrod and loosen the jam nut.  So, I'll need someone outside holding the pushrod while I loosen the jam nut.  I honestly don't know how anybody bigger than me can get under the panel at all.  Once the stick is installed, it's crazy tight under there.

I installed the plug that comes with the OptiMate charger so it'll be easy to plug it in whenever I need to (e.g. updating SW takes a long time, so you can just plug in the charger when it's doing that - it has a special mode for just that task).

Went over to the hangar tonight to check the alignment between the rudder and nosewheel and they definitely seem off a bit.

While the rudder shows a bit right (this is just how it ended up when I pushed it back)...

...the nosewheel shows a bit left...  At least eyeballing it with the towbar attached.  This means if the rudder were straight, the nosewheel would be even more left and pulling the nose left - hence the need for heavy right rudder in flight.  I may need help to do this, but the next chance I get I'll lift the nose (maybe not necessary) so I can straighten the rudder then I'll use some attached laser pointers to see how the nosewheel points.  Then I'll adjust the nosewheel pushrods to get it perfectly straight.  I didn't do any of the rigging - otherwise, it would have already been perfect... ;-)

 I've been continuing to address some of the squawks for the plane.  This weekend I added a rudder trim tab, updated avionics databases, and tweaked the left flap a bit more (still a slight left roll, so I brought that flap down a bit more).

I saw this video on testing various spray can primers for aluminum, so I picked it up at the local ACE Hardware (how convenient!).  If I had known about this when I started the project, I probably would have gone with this vs. the Cortec primer, since that was so hard to obtain.

A few coats of that and it was ready (I got the rudder trim tab dimensions from BobZ).  20cm long x 4.5cm wide, with the bend at 1.5cm.

BobZ recommended this tape for attaching it.

Two strips of that (I couldn't find 1/2" wide of that exact product) and it was ready to attach.

That tape is crazy strong!  Should fly this week, so we'll see if that works to alleviate the right rudder needed at cruise.  After that, I'll paint it the matching red.

Updating all my databases!  Very easy!

Oh, another thing I needed to address was the coolant.  The coolant that comes with the kit is Castrol Radicool SF, but that's impossible to find in the US.  My coolant was right at the minimum and I wanted to put some more in there, but I couldn't find any more of that particular coolant...

If you read about coolants and the Sling POH, you can't mix different types of coolant, so I wanted to make sure I got something that was completely compatible.  So, I contacted BP, the maker of Castrol.

They pointed me to Final Charge Global Coolant Extended Life, which they said is precisely the same as Radicool SF and can be mixed.  I looked at the specs and agree they're the same (they're both OAT-type and ethylene glycol).

Castrol SF-O (same as the SF)

Final Charge Global and more here.  I bought a gallon here and added some to the reservoir.

Well, I addressed two of the top-priority issues and was able to get Sadie back flying today.

Issue #1 was the ADS-B's GPS source to the GTN 650 (so no ADS-B Out).  I suspected it was a bad cable/adaptors between the 650 and the antenna, so Midwest Panel Builders made me two new custom cables for the G3X and 650 GPS antenna connections.  In the process of doing all this, it was discovered that I was using the wrong Garmin GPS antenna for the G3X.  It has to be the GA 56 and not the GA 35 that the 650 uses.

Once both of those were addressed I took the plane out of the hangar and to my great pleasure, both boxes began acquiring satellites.

Issue #2 was that the flaps on each side were slightly off.  The left side was slightly up and the right was slightly down, causing a slight left rolling tendency.  I fixed that and it's much better.  I still need to address rudder trim because, right now, you have to jam your foot on the right rudder pedal to make it fly straight.  I'll be making a rudder trim tab this week, so hopefully, that'll be fixed too.

That's not right....

And that's not right....

That's better!

Why did I not know that these 3-blade coax cutters exist??  Makes it SO easy to cut the cables right!

Nice!

Much better!

Anyone want a slightly used GA 35?  Great for GTN 650's!  If not, it's going on eBay...

So happy to see this....!

She flies! :-)

Well, Sadie is home at 6B6!!!!  It was about 10 hours of flying over 2 days from Norman, OK.

On the first leg we stopped in Mount Vernon, IL for fuel and lunch, then it was on to Dayton, OH for an overnight.

Then from Dayton we did it non-stop to 6B6 in 4 hours 22 minutes, burning 28 gallons of fuel.  Our average fuel burn was about 6 gph and we trued out at 115 kts.  We had amazing tailwinds for the whole trip, with our ground speed reaching nearly 180 mph (155 kts)!

Thanks SO much to Vergil Caskey, Jean D'Assonville, Bob Zaleski, Midwest Panel Builders, and Mike Busenitz of STOL Creek (Rotax!) for helping me get it finished and home!!!  There's NOTHING like the aviation community.  Great people.

Here's a video my local EAA chapter (196) put together of the arrival in Stow (thanks to Michael Smith and Andy Goldstein!):

Some other great pics:

Sadie rode in the backseat. :-)