New Hangar Space

We're official now with our own hangar space. 

The tailcone doesn't look so big now.  We are excited to begin work on the wings in the next month or two. 

Look at what we found just parked out in front of the airport restaurant - an RV-10!

Tailcone

Elevators

The elevator fun begins. Lots of small parts. Here the elevators are about half assembled for match drilling.

Here are the ribs and spars about 1/3 of the way
through the elevator assembly. All parts have beeen sanded at this point, assembled, match drilled, deburred, and dimpled. Here they are primed with labels to ensure all the parts are reassembled exactly in the correct position.

Zu is helping here back-rivet the ribs in place.













Stefan is helping glue the trailing edge wedge and the small trailing edge ribs. He's gone through about 5 pairs of gloves at this point. Where's your mask!

I'm preparing the trailing edge wedge for final installation. Stefan is gluing the ribs of the trim tab.

The hinged trim tabs were not easy. Make sure to hinge along the entire length of the breaking board to avoid waves in the metal and don't use a hand seemer to crease the edge. Also, make sure your blocks are tight when you are folding the edges. I know from experience and 5 total trim tab skins! I'm glad these guys are done.

Van's Trip

My friend Michael Gibbons says - have you ever been to the facility where they make these parts. Why no, I never thought of that. So Michael says, let's go!






This is the completed RV-10. Ken, our tour guide and pilot, opened up the hanger for us and took us for a spin. The plane is fast, solid, and very responsive.






This plane is just beautiful.










Here I am wishing I was done and this was mine.









Another view.










The stock interior is limited, but functional.

Horizontal Stabilizer

Bathroom break.










Stabilizer parts. Ribs along left, spars in middle. Skins in cradles on right. Stingers off in back left.








Front spar is four layers thick in the center here. The brackets with all the clecos here were hand-cut and are where the stabilizer mounts to the tailcone.






Stefan spent two days dimpling. I finished in another day. More holes that you would guess.








Stabilizer assembled for match drilling all holes. Drilled holes for a least a few days.








Riveting begins. Four day project.










Riveting continues here. Working my way up from the nose ribs, along the spars, and up the inspar ribs to the back.







Marek is in charge of the rivets. He likes to mix and match them and hand me more than one at a time.







Last rivets going in. Quickbuild kit starting to look quite attractive.

Flight with Michael Gibbons

Michael Gibbons and his wife Anne-Marie were gracious enough to take us for a flight in their beautiful airplane. So this is what they look like when they are done!

Here is Zu enjoying the flight. She's even more excited now to get her pilots license.








We took off from Bremerton and took a scenic trip around the sound. It was a much needed boost of inspiration to keep working. What a wonderful way to spend the afternoon - thanks Michael!

Rudder

Rudder pieces layed out. The skins are extremely thin and require careful handling. The stiffeners require trimming and a small mistake can cost you $20 and a week delay.





Parts have been drilled, dimpled, deburred, and primed. Assembly begins here with attaching the stiffeners to one skin.







Attaching the stiffeners of both skins together. There is a layer of sealant along the trailing edge, which wasn't included in the kit. Assembly was challenging due to the small spaces.





The sealant curing here for two days. There weren't enough clecos in the tool kit from Cleaveland tools - at least 50 1/8" and 75 3/32" are needed.






Examining my fine work. The front section here is completed last.








Finishing the last rivets here.









Here are the vertical stabilizer and the rudder together.












I'm through the initial excitement phase at this point. This thing is a lot of work and I'm settling in for the long haul. It's nice to see some real results though after just a couple of months of work.