The Vertical Stabilizer

February 11, 2014

The Vertical Stabilizer

Well, this evening things really started coming together.  The skeleton of the VS went together fairly straight forward.  The real time consumer is de-burring all of the holes and the edges of all of the ribs.  Once that was done, it was simply attaching some more nut plates and riveting the skeleton together.

Although it appears close to complete, there are still quite a few steps to complete and a ton of nut plates to install on the interior of the skin.  I dimpled all of the nut plate screw holes today and that went well.  Before I can attache the skin I need to de-burr the edges.  I am waiting for a special tool to make that task manageable.  It should arrive in a day or so.  Then final drill, de-burr and rivet 150+ rivet holes for each side of the skin.  Right now everything is very flimsy, but once the skeleton is riveted together with the skin it will be rock-solid.

Can't forget to fly!

Sunday Carice and I flew the Cessna up to Deland and picked up Mackenzie from my Mom's where she spent the weekend.  It really doesn't save that much time to fly to Deland vs. drive, but it is a lot more fun.  Mackenzie rode in the co-pilot seat for the first time (on the way home) and flew the plane for a while while watching an airborne sunset.  Momma was in the back seat doing the iPhone thing.