Category Archives: Miscellaneous

New Sling Pilots community website & forum

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A small non-direct building post for a change to talk about the new Sling Pilots community website & forum.

We recently had a discussion on the Sling Builders Facebook group about the very visible growth of the Sling Airplane community. With the bigger size, the community is slowly growing beyond the size of a Facebook group. There are also some people do not use Facebook, so a separate forum allows more inclusion for everyone.

So armed with that, we have started a new community organized standalone website and discussion forum that will hopefully help both active builders, people interested in possibly becoming builders and active Sling Pilots to come together and discuss all things Sling.

Check it out at https://www.slingpilots.com/

Cheers,
Philip

Oshkosh 2019 recap

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It’s been a busy few weeks after returning from Oshkosh, so it’s been a while since I’ve written an update.

Since I spent the whole week at Oshkosh, I had a lot of time to figure out various bits and pieces that will go into the airplane and talk to the various vendors. I also finally got to meet Adam and Steve from Midwest Panel Builders who I’m working with for the Avionics.

It was great to get a feel for various things including the control sticks – I will go with the Tosten grip.
Tosten control grip

Another thing I was looking at is the TCW Control Valve servo for the vent shutoff valve that the TSi has. The standard design for this is a physical shutter that I’m not a great fan of, as I feel it looks a bit out of place in the panel. So I was looking for alternative options and Adam mentioned this servo as a possible option. After I checked it out, I think indeed it might be a nicer solution and I will try to make it work. In fact I might also use it for the heating control.
TCW Control Valve servo

Aside from figuring out things for my own build, I also attended a lot of seminars, saw a lot of cool airplanes and the airshows and met a lot of interesting people and stories.

I also spent a lot of time lurking around the Sling tent and checking out various details of the completed Sling TSi that they had on display there. It was nice to see how a lot of the small details to the plans for the fit and finish were in this plane, which didn’t exist in Wayne’s TSi yet.

I was also able to meet a few of the other Sling builders at the Sling Ding meeting and had a long chat with Craig and Austin about our various builds. And I got to meet John & Marta King who I have to give credit to getting me through the ground school of my private and instrument training and ran into a few other people including Angle of Attack, Aviation 101, Jason Miller, JP The Candourist and Mike Patey and Draco the bush plane.
John & Martha King Angle of Attack, Aviation 101 and Jason Miller JP aka The Candourist Mike Patey Draco

EAA Airventure Oshkosh 2019

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I’m at EAA Airventure 2019 in Oshkosh for the week until Saturday.

Yesterday I had the chance to stop by the Sling booth and have a chat with Mike Blyth from The Airplane Factory.

I had a chat with Mike Blyth about the Sling

If you’re at Oshkosh and would like to meet up with me to chat about my build, feel free to contact me and I’ll also be at the Sling Ding Party on Thursday Evening at 5pm.

Stopped by the Sling Tent Hello from Oshkosh 2019

Leveling the playing field

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Not much progress, but I took a couple of closer looks at the tailcone of the Fuselage and ran some fishing wire through it for the VOR/LOC/GS wire from the tail.

Inside the Tailcone looking forward Inside the Tailcone looking aft

I also had an exchange with Matthew, one of the other Sling TSi builders, about the countersinking and fitment of the tips for the elevators and rudder. It looks like he is missing the reinforcement on the tips that adds material to allow the countersinking. I took some pictures of mine which shows the extra layers of fiberglass (in black) to allow enough material to countersink the tips:

Rudder and Elevator tips reinforced material for countersinking

Today is one of those few winter days with nice sunshine, so I went to the airport in the evening and did some pattern work and got a bonus moment when the Boeing Dreamlifter came in to land on the parallel runway.

Boeing Dreamlifter landing 34L at KPAE Boeing Dreamlifter landing 34L at KPAE

After getting home, I was doing some inventory and trying to figure out which part to put together next. I don’t want to close up the Rudder yet since I don’t have the light yet and want to fit that first. I got the Sealant I need to close up the Horizontal Stabilizer over the weekend, so I took that back out and put it on my workbench.

Then I got out my laser level to see if it all aligned and realized that my working surface is actually pretty slanted, so I spent some time to even out the tables. As it turns out, the garage floor has a pretty good slant as you can see below – 3 pieces of wooden shims on the far side, versus none on the near side.

Far side of the garage needed a few blocks of wood to level out the table Level table & Horizontal Stabilizer

Waiting for the kit & making a LED METAR Map

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The wait for the arrival of my Sling TSi kit is almost over and if all goes to plan it should be in my garage in the next 7-10 days after it finishes it’s way across the Pacific ocean.

In the meantime, my girlfriend and I were inspired by a post on reddit of someone making a flight conditions map using a sectional chart and some LEDs.

I can visualize my flight instructor shudder every time I refer to a sectional chart as a map, but it’s a lot easier to talk to normal non-pilot people about a map we put up on the wall with lights than calling it a chart.

So here it goes, we made one ourselves of the Puget Sound area and hung it up.

If you’d like to make your own, I’ve written up the detailed instructions here.

METAR Map of the Puget Sound

Welcome

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Hello and welcome.

The time has come and I have ordered the Sling TSi kit from The Airplane Factory.

After visiting them in Torrance, CA and having the opportunity to test fly the Sling TSi, I was happy that I found an airplane that satisfies my mission criteria and economic consumption.

This is going to be my build log in the journey of building the Sling TSi aircraft from the kit from The Airplane Factory.

While I wait for the parts to arrive I will have some time to clean out the garage and accumulate a healthy amount of tools and knowledge to prepare me for the project.

Here’s some images from my visit of TAF in Torrance, I also recorded the test flight and will post a link to the video once I’ve finished editing it.