Home Preparation Empennage Wings Fuselage Finish Kit Favorite Links W & B Calculator Van's Aircraft Email Me

Fuselage December 2006 Updates December 02, 2006 Engine Arrives.... - 0 hrs On Thursday I got the call from Superior that my engine was ready so I called up Meteor for pickup. It was snowing and icing up in Dallas so they could not pickup that day. On Friday Meteor called and said they picked up at 12:11pm. YooHoo its on its way. I called up John D and David Jr {I call him David Jr. because he is Harley Daves son) my buddies to help unload it as I knew from Jeff B it was going to come on a pickup truck mounted on a pallet. Meteor called me several times during the day to let me know how the trip was progressing. As I got home they called to tell me the driver was in Houston and they were right by the hangar so I told them how to get there. One last call to my buddies who were in route and 5 minutes later we were all at the hangar and ready to unload. I had picked up up a couple of wheel dollies from the house to make it easier to move around and we unload the bad beast to the dollies. I took some pics but not going to unwrap the plastic until I get the engine hoist from Phil and move the fuselage from the shop at home to the hangar. Now its time to get back to building. The only thing stopping me from removing the top skins to dimple and prep for riveting is the F-6111 stiffener ribs. Reseaching on VAF I found an update I thought I would try. I messed up the first ones back in October so I reordered a set from Vans. Tonight I started on the right side and it came out great. Basically all you do is mark a center line on the flange that you drill to and starting at the bottom drill and cleco working up to the top. As I got about half way I started marking the top edge and using the scotchbrite wheel to grid off to the mark. It took about 3 trips to the wheel after remarking each time. As you work your way up the additional bending to follow the center line as you drill keeps moving the top edge closer to the 705 bulkhead. Tomorrow I will do the left. Hopefully it will go quicker. Once these are done I can remove the top skins and prep for final riveting. Before I take this baby off the rotating stand I want to make sure I have all of the little details like wiring and tube rigging done so as not to have to crawl back into the tail if at all possible. This is one of the main reasons for the Rotating stand. Again I cannot stress enough how great this thing has been. If you are building you should order one of these from Jeff B at http://www.jeffsrv-7a.com. What a back saver. This website was built to document my work in compliance with the FAA requirements needed to certify my aircraft. My experiences and comments are by no means to be considered as instructions on how to build any aircraft.