Missing Safety Wire
The jam nut on this flap motor is required to be safety wired to prevent the nut from coming loose. There is a lot...
Metal Magic: Installing Nutplates
Every screw needs a place to go, and for many metal airplanes, that's into a nutplate. KITPLANES editor at large Paul Dye shows you...
Metal Magic: Blind Rivet Techniques
Paul Dye discusses blind or pull rivets—and why they're not just like hardware-store "pop" rivets.
Leads for Avionics
To troubleshoot your system and wring out some wires, you will need to find a good way to make contact between the multimeter test leads and connector contacts.
The Case of Electrical Dropouts
Electrical gremlins can be tough to track down. This month’s case involved a non-builder owner of a fairly new RV-8, and it took us...
DIY Adjustable Rib Centerline Marking Tool
As a new builder I came quickly to the step of needing to mark rib centerlines to align the ribs with the predrilled holes in the skin.
Improperly Installed Intake Gaskets
We noticed the intake gaskets were leaking on cylinders 3 and 4 on the Lycoming IO-320 in an RV-9A. There was a logbook entry...
Watch Where You’re Going!
You can track on a smartphone or laptop the flight paths of Experimental aircraft as they fly in real time.
An Approach to Airplane Maintenance
If we put maintenance and repairs together, we can easily see a link between maintenance well done and minimizing repairs. Of course, too much...
Another Drill Guide
The cordless hand drill is a marvel of engineering. Lightweight and powerful, it can do just about any drilling job on an airplane. But...
In Case You Missed It
Rocket Life
All it took for author Doug Rozendaal to gain additional respect for his F-1 EVO Rocket was a couple of months without it. Even though he didn’t have to go cold turkey and had other airplanes to fly, they weren’t the same. He offers an appreciation for airplanes with that fighter feeling.
25th Anniversary: The Glasair-Lancair Wars
The origins of Stoddard-Hamilton Aircraft precede Lancair Aircraft by a few years, but once Lancair entered the game, competition was not only fierce but also productive; by Marc Cook.