1093- Main Spar- p.13-2 step 1-3 & p.13-4 step 6-11

Section 13: Main Spar- 5 hrs 59 mins (Main Spar 5:59, Wings 8:59, Empennage 265:24, Total 292:19)

Rivet count: 16 (Total 5,337)

This post covers three days of work between 4-6 September 2015 and two hours of priming not seen in the video. These were the last days in MS as was discussed in the last post. It marks the official start of work on the Wing Kit. I had shipped the Wing Kit to MS not knowing if there would be lots of free time to build or not. It turned out that I could have saved myself some trouble by not doing so, since it took a year to finish up the empennage and only 6 hours of work were done on the wings. However, I'm sure that this happened only because I had shipped the kit early. I'm sure if I hadn't, I would have had ample time and be wishing I HAD ordered it. Murphy's law!

We started by pulling the plastic off of lots of parts, labeling them, and deburring lots of edges. Then we got the main spar web extension in place to include match drilling and deburring the holes. The last bit consists of fabricating the wing tie downs (cutting and tapping threads), match drilling them to the main spar, and machine countersinking them to allow nutplate installation. This is one of those depressing moments where 4 hrs of work are spent to tidy up a lot of pieces and four pieces to the assembly. I get the impression that the wing kit will have plenty more of this in the coming months. Onwards we go!

1092- Tailcone- p.10-23 step 3-5 & p.10-24 step 1-3

Tailcone- 2 hrs 19 mins (Tailcone 89:52, Empennage 265:24, Total 286:20)

Rivet count: 0 (Total 5,321)

WOW! It's been over two years since my last post. So much has changed on blogger and youtube, and even more has changed in my own life. This post and the next one will actually be old videos and work that were done LESS than two years ago when I was still in MS. 

The last few weeks there were hectic with the move and I obviously never posted anything. We moved our household to NC, then spent 6 months in OK. We moved back to NC but lived in an apartment for a year and there was no chance of arranging space for a build. Then I deployed for 2 months, only to come back home and have a career change (a good kind, and one I was hoping for). That created 3 more months of living away from home for training. In the middle of that training, we had our second daughter which extended training by another month. So there is two years time accounted for in a single paragraph. 

I don't regret a single moment of it, as the past two years were spent ensuring a career path that will allow for the continued build of this project as well as growing a family to fly around in it! There's going to be a lot of technique and procedure that I will have to relearn as I move forward, but I'm sure it will be well worth it.

Anyways, on to the video! This represents the last steps in the construction of the tailcone. All assembly took place with bolts and clecos. There really isn't much to say about it. The video speaks for itself, and of course, I can't really remember much of the detail to be able to tell you about it anyways. 

TAILCONE COMPLETE!! (in just a hair under 90 hours of work...)

1091- Tailcone- p.10-22 step 1-3 & p.10-23 step 1-2

Tailcone- 4 hrs 48 mins (Tailcone 87:33, Empennage 263:05, Total 284:01)

Rivet count: 230 (Total 5,321)

This post is actually three days worth of work done a few weeks ago. I'm finally complete with pilot training!!!!!! so I'm catching up on administrative things such as updating this blog!!

In total, the top skin was attached and riveted to the stiffeners, longerons, and frames/bulkheads. That really sums it up! Some of the hardware was attached where the plans called for it. I noticed that I forgot to prime two pieces a few weeks back, so I am going to work ahead to chapter 13 of the wing spars and prime the two pieces along with those from the next chapter before jumping back and finishing up the tailcone with about an hour more of work. -M

This image is here for a question asked on vansairforce.com. Please ignore.

1090- Tailcone- p.10-21 step 1-5

Tailcone- 3 hrs 56 mins (Tailcone 82:45, Empennage 258:17, Total 279:13)
Rivet count: 203 (Total 5,091)

Famous last words indeed! Barely did anything this weekend since we spent Saturday in Huntsville, AL checking out space vehicles and rockets! We've actually got 3 nights worth of work here (Fri-Sun-Mon), even though last night barely counted with less than 30 minutes of work. We continue with assembly by riveting the nutplates to the bellcrank rib angles and then the angles to the bellcrank ribs. Then the ribs get cleco'd and riveted to the bottom skin and 1007 frame. 
We continue by riveting part of the longerons to the aft part of the side skins where they don't match with a skin. The aft deck gets cleco'd to the longerons as well as to the bulkheads and bracket/spacers. All of this is of course much easier said than done, particularly when some of the rivets have to be drilled out and re-done. We finished by riveting the 1009 frame (small piece) to the aft deck. We managed to place our 5,000th rivet today!!!
We'll continue tomorrow with the doubler. Lots of different sized rivets which means lots of adjustments and time consumption. However, once that is complete, we attach the aft top skin in place and start to rivet that! Then just a few more pieces in the forward part of the tailcone, and the tailcone is complete. -M

1089- Tailcone- p.10-20 step 2-7

Tailcone- 4 hrs 11 mins (Tailcone 78:49, Empennage 254:21, Total 275:17)
Rivet count: 483 (Total 4,888)

Lots of riveting today. Having a relatively lax day at work allowed me to spend quite some time on the project. I riveted the rest of the stiffeners to the side skin, and then all the bulkheads and frames to the skins. Then I did the aft bottom skin and the two stiffeners in the very aft part of the tailcone. This evening, -G came back to help otu and we knocked out the remaining rivets between the bottom skin and the side skins and the hard to reach rivets between the skins and frames at the curved part of the cone. We didn't do any of the F-1006 rivets since that happens after the fuselage is made, and we also skipped the longeron rivets since that won't happen until we get all the aft parts assembled and after we add the top skin. Tomorrow I'll continue with the small pieces and I hope to be done with the tailcone by this weekend. Famous last words, right? -M

1088- Tailcone- p.10-20 step 2 (part 2)

Tailcone- 1 hr 38 mins (Tailcone 74:38, Empennage 250:10, Total 271:06)
Rivet count: 311 (Total 4,405)

The riveting continues! -G came by to help out with riveting the stiffeners to the bottom skin. What a difference having another person helping. I highly recommend it. We did 1.25 times as many rivets in less than half the time. Tonight, I also had a bit of good luck. We started to rivet the side stiffeners from the aft end and immediately noticed the holes weren't quite in line. Had we started from the front, we wouldn't have noticed until after riveting a lot rivets. Turns out I had installed the D an E stiffeners in a swapped configuration. So it took nearly 30 minutes to disassemble half the side skin to swap the stiffeners and cleco everything back up. Smooth sailing from there. I'll finish up the stiffener-to-skin rivets tomorrow before moving on to the frame/bulkhead-to-skin rivets. -M

1087- Tailcone- p.10-20 step 2 (part 1)

Tailcone- 2 hrs 20 mins (Tailcone 73:00, Empennage 248:32, Total 269:28)
Rivet count: 246 (Total 4,094)

A milestone day! At 73 hours and counting, I've now spent more than 3 days and counting working on the tailcone. This also surpassed the 71 hour mark set while working on the elevators. The real milestone was in setting my 4,000th rivet! At an estimated 14-16,000 rivets on the project, that puts me at 1/4 of the way with the structure. That's not including the endless hours that will be spent on things like electrical, engine, interior, fiberglass, etc. (All the things without rivets) At 248-270 hrs, I'm roughly about 10% complete with the project! This is both super exciting and depressing that it has taken me nearly two years to get to this point with all the delays and stoppages due to work. More on that tomorrow hopefully. I'm waiting to hear back from a job-related assignment.

The video will show me riveting the the three stiffeners to the right skin. There's still and equal number of rivets on the left skin, and even more for the bottom skin. I have reached a point where I will have to recruit outside help for bucking. In theory, I could back rivet the stiffeners to the bottom skin, but I would imagine Van would have determined the proper building method for a reason, so I'll stick with the bucking bar for now. This one step is on pace to take 7 hours to accomplish. Onwards and upwards! -M