I had an 8:00 a.m. appointment with the
ophthalmologist this morning for a follow up check of the recovering right
eye. The white frosty mist with floaters has now cleared up. The internal
eye pressure has been reduced down to 17 this morning and the eye pressure
drops have been discontinued. I have also discontinued the antibody eye
drops, although the anti inflammatory and steroid drops are to continue.
Most of the cornea edema causing swelling and distortion of the cornea is
gone with only a "tiny bit" of distortion left near the center causing a
slight defocusing at distance without glasses. However, this is expected to
be cleared up by my next appointment in two weeks. So on a scale of 1 to 10,
my right eye vision was improved to a 9.5 this morning
(Praise the Lord!)
Now for some progress on the Sailplane. Right
from the start I was concerned about the strength of the aft fuselage
structure under the stab. If you recall in Report No. 1 last October, I
added a spruce doubler to the top of the middle longeron under the stab as
shown below.
Close up of the 3/32" X 3/16" doubler.
Once I got the fuselage's sides joined and the
primary structure completed, I was still worried about the strength of the
fuselage structure under the stab because it is so narrow. So I decided to
also add a spruce doubler to the two bottom longeron under the stab as well.
To keep from interfering with the bulkhead pieces to be added later, the
doublers were placed to the inside face of the bottom longeron as shown
below.
This picture shows the two additional doublers on
the bottom longerons glued in place.
This is a view of the reinforced aft end of the
fuselage with the first four 1/16" X 3/16" diagonals installed. After the
servos are mounted and the routing of the push rods determine, additional
diagonals will be installed.
The Futaba S3101 servos were selected for the
Sailplane's rudder and elevator actuators. The initial structure and the two
1/8" X 1/2" transverse plywood servo rails are shown below. This whole area
will get beefed up once the servos and push rods have been installed.
Later on this morning I have to drive over to
Hurst, Texas, to pick up a new R617FS FASST receiver, switch
harness, and Ernst's charging jack. Then I start installing the rudder and
elevator servos and push rods.....................................Tandy