Florida XL Build

[JSeitz]

Hi all! With certain life changes happening, I decided to just go for it and finally build an airplane. Ive been a pilot since I was 17, but havent been able to get in the cockpit for 7 years now. The Legal Eagle XL seems like just the thing to change that, and to finally check off building my own airplane off my bucket list. Now I have a few hurdles in my way unfortunately, namely limited funds (I will be financing the build through Door Dashing mostly) and I am giving myself one year. The ultimate goal is to be flying it into Sun n Fun.

Currently, I am trying to find any other builder or owners in the area to network with. So if you're in Florida, please let mw know. Ill be updating as the build progresses!

[Chuck in Indiana]

If you are working on it full time (other than door dashing)  it can be done in a year. I love project pix.. let's go!

[JSeitz]

Well today is the day that starts the build clock as it is the day I have officially received plans. Now I am deciding how exactly to tackle this project and how I will proceed.

Due to an abundant supply of spruce and ply, I plan on starting with the wings, specificall the ribs. Monday I will get the things I need to construct my rib jig, and will post pics as soon as it is together. 345 Days to go until Sun n Fun 2025.

[Chuck in Indiana]

I know Leonard says if you can't build one in 6 months you're slackin.  It took me that long to build the wings, working fairly steadily. If you don't understand something on the plans after studying them a bit.. ask. Several on here have BTDT. You'll not be able to waste time with the schedule you've set.

[jrbirdman47]

Check out the build logs on this site and you'll get some insights and lots of ideas for different ways to do things, or maybe even come up with your own based on what you see. the pictures will help give you a sense of the order of construction as well as construction techniques. I, and others came up with jig designs that allowed us to construct a rib per day, and that will help you a lot since the clock is running. (You'll find that you'll spend considerable time building and using jigs to make stuff just to save time. Yeah. I know that makes no sense) I built 4 wings, for 2 planes. The first took almost 6 months working off and on. The last one took 29 days, having had the jigs built and gained experience.
As Chuck says, don't be afraid to ask question here. There is a tremendous amount of experience contained within these pages!

[DA Miller]

to tap the information within these pages learn how to use the search function

[Chuck in Indiana]

I've found the search button on the home page gives more complete searches for some reason.

[JSeitz]

I started getting organized today and once the plans were all printed out, I put everything in page protectors and in a binder to keep the grubby fingerprints off. Also working on getting the shop setup and procuring a tablesaw.

[Kamcoman77]

Lucky You! You got a color photo of Leonard and the XL on your cover page. I only got black & white. Nice to have..... table saw, band saw, belt sander, brad point & Forstner bits, drill, lots of sandpaper. There a few gotcha's in the plans, but nothing serious. Be sure to ask a lot of questions. One thing I found was calling out 7/8" x 0.065" 4130 for empennage hinges and fuselage tailpost could be handled with less fitting & reaming by using 7/8" x 0.058" tubing. 0.058" wall slides right over 3/4" tubing, 0.065" doesn't. Also, the 1/8" x 2" x 4" ply doublers that go under the wing attach fittings work better if 4-3/4" long (page 35 LEXL).

[Chuck in Indiana]

Who doesn't like getting new tools?  I'm a machinist, not a woodworker, so I had that opportunity. I'll add to Keith's nice to have category. A miter saw makes short work of the millions of sticks. One of those vibrating saw gizmos with a sanding attachment helps sand them Do that before building the ribs. If you are going to scarf the spar webs, a router. Making zero clearance inserts for your table saw makes for nicer cuts without tear out.
I'm building a Pietenpol now, and just got a nice set of chisels from England, a block and smoothing plane. I wish I had those when building Bullet. That's all I can thing of at the moment.

[Kamcoman77]

Chuck has an excellent build log here on Eagler's Nest. Another nice log is from Darren (Australia). It can be found at this link: http://www.mykitlog.com/ontherun

Both of these aircraft are flying, one with a 45hp 1/2 VW and the other with a Verner 3-cylinder radial. Darren also has several YouTube videos using DC Squared as the provider. Be sure to watch Les Homan's YouTube videos about ORV. ORV is a high time XL.

[JSeitz]

Update time!

I decided to order the supplemental plans from Iron Design Iowa for the wings, as well as the wing fold mechanism from Leonard. I worked on redoing my wing rib jig, made a buch of templates, cut out all the wing rib gussets, and made the wing rib template pieces.

A word on the Iron Design supplemental plans: they are awesome! The full size patterns save a bunch of time and are accurate to the thousandth of an inch! I highly recommend them as they are worth every penny.

For now I'm hoping to have the wings ready for cover around September if everything goes to plan. We shall see.

[Kamcoman77]

If using Iron Designs ribs be sure to add the K-blocks instead of the 1/4x1/4 verticals on the appropriate ribs. Also remember the ribs that the compression struts fit against get smaller gussets in several locations. Here are some notes I made for myself about the ribs.