Tonight was a milestone - I'm basically done with rib preparation. It took me what - 2 months? I was busy with other things and terribly unmotivated, but tonight all that changed.

Dad and I built up the right wing skeleton, checking and double checking and triple checking that we had the correct ribs in place since we were working off the left wing drawing. All holes have been match drilled and deburred and all the contact surfaces have been primed.





I have spent nearly every Tuesday night for the past two months at the Falcon RV Squadron hangar helping Vern work on his RV-10 and will continue to do so. It's good to work on something that isn't mine, and I can pick up some skills, tips, and tricks that I'll need in the future for my own project.

More fluting / straightening here and there, a little over half way done.

Went to help Vern on the RV-10 tonight. We worked on the aileron controls some more - I had to rebuild the small torsion tubes that go on the inboard end of the wing - I built them wrong last week!

Ed showed up and offered to take me up so we flew for about 30 minutes in his RV-6. I flew my first loop and lazy-8 as he talked me through it. I flew an approach that was pretty sloppy, but I felt that I started to understand more the correlation between airspeed and attitude when landing.

Vern has offered to let me go to Air Venture 2008 in Oshkosh with him this year. I am very excited!

A few more days of this before I'm through. Now that I'm done deburring, I brought the ribs home and can straighten / flute while watching TV in my air conditioned living room. Man, this is the life!

Finished deburring all wing ribs, LE and TE and Tank. Fluted and straightened some.

I finished straightening and fluting all my LE ribs except for the tank ribs. I deburred most of my main ribs tonight. I'm finally sick of slacking off for the past two months. I really hope to start hanging ribs in a week or two. Serious this time!!!





In other news, last Saturday (31-May-2008) Chrissy took a ride in Bob Boston's Extra 300L. She won the grand prize at the Kenley Park Fly-In on 10-May-2008. She has never flown general aviation before and was nervous at first, but ended up having a blast. They did loops, rolls, hammerheads, sustained inverted flight, and she kept asking for more. There was +5 and -2 G's on the G-meter when they landed. Bob is a great guy with a beautiful plane. Here are some pictures:

Tonight I helped Vern on his -10 again. I'm probably going to start going out there every Tuesday. I built push tubes while Scott and Steve riveted on the wing TE support braces.

Well, after all the fly-ins and everything, I'm psyched to get back on my project. I spent most of the evening cleaning up the shop and switching back to aviation mode (from automotive mode - I was working on a co-worker's car for the past few weeks). I spent a little time rebuilding my vacuum pump for an automotive project prior to getting back on the airplane.

Tonight I finished deburring all the LE wing ribs except for the tank ribs. I was able to 90-degree the flanges and flute one rib completely. To break the monotony, I think I'm going to bring one rib to completion (debur, 90-degree the flanges, and flute) before moving on to the next one.

It's good to be back!

I went to the Falcon RV Squadron tonight to help Vern some more on the 10. I thought we'd finish assembling the engine, but he has already done that. I helped David work on the wings.

When I arrived, Vern was giving a 12 year old boy his first flight. The boy's grandfather was there in a 1952 Chevy Suburban, very neat car. I talked with him and looked his car over. Mark arrived to do an oil change on his RV-6, so I went flying with him to warm the engine up. We did some aerobatics, then he let me try doing an aileron roll! I didn't do that great - we ended up doing negative g's for a second, but it was fun. He let me fly two approaches (he did the landings though). I was nervous, but it was fun.

So now, out of the RV family, I have flown in an RV-6, RV-6A, RV-7, and RV-7A.

Tonight Vern and I hung the jugs on the O-540 case. David was there and was working on the bottom wing skins for the RV-10. Vern and I were able to get all the jugs on and torqued, and we built up the rear accessory case and torqued it in place as well.

I know I know, still no progress on my airplane, but I hope to change that in about a week. Tonight I went to visit Vern @ KFFC - David & Steve were there working on the bottom wing skins. They have the top temporarily fitted on the fuselage.

Vern and I spent the evening re-splitting the case on his O-540 to remove the damaged front bearing shells. The dowels were not aligned properly, and we clamped the case down on them. We tried assembling the engine with the crank lying in the right case half, which didn't have the dowels - this is how the instructions tell you to do it, but this is why we messed up. Instead of paying lots of money to rent the case splitting tool from Lycoming again, we took dimensions off of them and I had my buddy Riley Wicker make up a set. They worked great. We split the case, removed the damaged bearing, replaced it with a new one, then set the crank in the left case half and moved the cam to the right half. We then assembled the halves together and put the engine on the stand - it turns freely. I left as Vern was putting on some of the smaller bolts - tomorrow we hope to hang all the jugs.

Vern purchased a log book for me and made an entry for the flying we did on the 15th! I'm excited about actually starting to log time.

I went to help Vern work on his RV-10 tonight. We finished attaching the tailcone to the fuselage.

Vern took me up in his RV-6A to "re-motivate" me on my project. If you haven't noticed, I'm in a slump, avoiding the boring task of deburring the ribs in the wings. It was a good flight, and he even said he'd sign the entry into my log book (he's a CFI, among many other three letter designations). I guess I need to get a log book now!

Tonight I went and visited the Falcon RV Squadron to help Vern start assembling his O-540 for his RV-10. We thought things were going great, but the front main bearing wasn't properly aligned on the dowels and the case will have to be re-split and a new front main bearing installed. I'm working on getting a case splitter tool made so we don't have to rent it again from Lycoming.













Just some pictures of what you typically see in the Falcon RV Squadron's hangar.

Tonight I finished assembly of both rear spars. I studied the drawings carefully and marked the holes that don't get riveted yet with X's.







I then went back to deburring ribs. I finished deburring the lightening holes in all the LE ribs tonight. Still a lot of deburring, straightening, and fluting to go.



I was distracted from my build last week because I just got a new toy - 3.0 square meter traction kite. The wind hasn't been that good for it, but I was able to get it in the air a few times - it's a lot of fun!



Also, my tattoo is finally healed enough for a picture, though the light isn't the greatest in this one, you get the idea. I guess this is kind of aviation related (WWII era pinup, and it's on my ribs, har har har). Five sittings, nearly eight hours, and lots of money later, this is the wonderful result. I can't give enough thanks to Rob Knight @ Timeless Tattoo for doing such a great job with bringing my idea to life.

Well, I haven't gotten any build time in this week because I purchased a Beamer III 3.0 power (traction) kite for when we go to the beach. The winds haven't been that great, but that hasn't stopped me from flying it - MAN is it fun!

Now I have something to do when it's too windy to fly the airplane!

Today I finished the holes for the aileron push tubes in the W-707E doubler plates. I used a unibit backed up with a 2x4 to make a bunch of holes, then finished the holes off with files / emory cloth / scotchbrite. Each hole took about 20 minutes. I then deburred an dimpled in a few locations that need it. All the top flange holes on the rear spar that are above the reinforcement fork got drilled and dimpled, as you can't reach these once the fork is installed. I dimpled the top flange of the W-707E & F doublers and the corresponding holes on the top spar flange as well. I also dimpled the four most outboard holes on the spar and W-707F doubler instead of machine countersinking. Then I primed all the necessary places.

I started deburring lightening holes on the wing ribs - this is going to suck.

Tonight I finished deburring all the components for both rear spars. I have finally adopted a method of deburring that I feel works very well. The first thing I do is take my file and draw file all the edges. This removes the "bumps" left from the stamping process and gets the edge flat. Then I make two passes with the Royal Multi-Burr tool, then two passes on the bench mounted scotch brite wheel. It works great.



I started match drilling the W707-E and F doublers on the right wing spar. I haven't cut the aileron push tube hole yet.



I also trimmed the W707G and D reinforcement fork and doubler plate per Drawing 38. I took my time and laid out the measurements then roughly cut the big part off with a hack saw. I removed the small part and finished the cut up with the belt sander. It's probably worth mentioning that I not only laid out the cut lines with marker, but also scored the material lightly with a razor. My belt sander tends to cook off marker lines before I get to them. I also clecoed W707G and W707D together and trimmed them simultaneously, this way their edges match perfectly. After cutting they went through the debur process mentioned above.

Before I talk about the airplane, I thought I'd mention that I turned comments on for this journal.

Tonight I riveted together the spacers and the tie down brackets and installed them along with the aileron bellcrank brackets. I used my inch-pound torque wrench to tighten the AN3 bolts to 25 in-lbs. I'm glad I have the dial torque wrench, because 25 in-lbs feels like nothing! I put torque seal on the bolts / nuts to indicate that they have been properly torqued.





That completes building the main spars, so I started work on the rear spars. I started deburring the components for the right rear spar.

I spent the day finishing up the tie down brackets. After a lesson (to me, by me) in deciphering the AN hardware codes, I back drilled the tie down brackets to the spars, then back drilled for the nut plates. The holes in the spacers aren't exactly centered, but there's nothing I could do - they were all the way up against the spar bars. I then deburred and primed.



While back drilling the tie down brackets, I noticed some misaligned holes between the spar web and the doubler plate. This is a misalignment in two parts that come pre-joined from Van's. These holes are where the inboard and leading edge ribs attach to the spar. I have emailed them with the photo shown below for a suggestion on what to do. I'm also posting this on VAF.

Tonight I finished fabricating the plates that go behind the tie-down brackets. I also got the first hole drilled in the brackets.