Back At It

Well it's been a long month since I last got anything really significant done on my project. Work has been super busy lately. At the end of the fiscal year, my squadron gets really busy trying to compete for construction project funding that gets released in the last few days of the FY. And the pace at work didn't really slow down after 30 September either. We have a big inspection coming up at the end of October so that's kept me really busy as well. And then on top of that, I've had my Master's degree classes I've been trying to keep up with. So overall, just haven't had time to put much work into the airplane.

OK, OK... enough with the excuses. I did work a little bit on the project a few weeks ago to correct my mistake on the forward spar reinforcing angle. That fix went pretty quickly, so I don't have any pictures of it. Anyway, I got back to really working on the project yesterday, completing some prep work on the left-side horizontal stabilizer by match drilling and match drilling the skin and skeleton. This all went pretty smoothly and got me really excited to see the skin clecoed to the skeleton... awesome!

Today I was able to work through all of the drilling and match drilling on the right-side horizontal stabilizer. This work included some fluting of the ribs to ensure they were completely straight (something that took me some time to figure out). As with the left side, everything went pretty well. I had some struggles getting the skin to line up with the skeleton just right, but figured it out pretty quickly.

Fluting the ribs to straighten them

Left-side HS skeleton clecoed together

Using a lot of clamps to hold things in place

A close up of a little blood. Now I can say I've bled and sweated for this project... no tears yet. Those skins are sharp though!

Left-side HS all drilled and match drilled

Right-side HS drilled and match-drilled

Proof that I am actually doing this work. ha!

It felt really good to get back to work on the project... and to make some significant progress to boot! I've disassembled everything at this point and I will now deburr all of the edges and holes, dimple the skins and understructure, and then prep the parts for primer. It'll likely be at least a week or so before I actually get to the primer, but I'm going to try to keep plugging away. We have the inspection I mentioned coming up soon and I'll be working some really long hours on those days, so hopefully I can get the parts primed before that begins.

On a side note, after almost nine months of not flying, I got back up in the air last week. My medical expired while I was deployed, so I got that taken care of and then joined the base's aero club. After a Biennial Flight Review, I was cleared to fly again! Got a chance to have some fun flying around the local area with my buddy Scott this past weekend. It felt great to be back up there! 

Scott and me buzzing around the local area

First Ride!

Well I can now officially say I've had a ride in an RV-7! I headed out to the airport on Friday morning to meet Richard for a ride in his RV-6A (the -6 is the predecessor to the -7. Van's made a few improvements and replaced the -6 with the -7). Unfortunately, as we completely the pre-takeoff runup, we discovered that Richard's airplane had an issue with one of his magnetos. So we were unable to fly that day. Lucky for me, one of the other guys that owns an RV, Fred, was at the airport that day, so he offered me a ride in his -7! It was incredible.

The first thing about the airplane that I noticed was how short the wings are. I'm used to flying Cessnas which have much longer wings. I wasn't sure how we were going to fly with such small wings! But fly we did. Fred took off and departed the pattern and then let me take the controls. I couldn't believe how easy the plane was to fly. It is super light on the controls. You could easily fly holding the stick with two fingers. And it is FAST. We climbed like a bat out of hell. It's just so much different compared to what I am used to flying. After I flew around for a few minutes, we came back to the pattern and did a low pass over the runway. Fred then took the controls again and landed... I couldn't believe how little of the runway we used to land. It really is an awesome, awesome airplane. The ride definitely solidified my decision to build!

Richard's RV-6A

Fred's RV-7

The cockpit of Fred's RV-7

After milling around and talking to a older gentleman on the field that is building an RV-4, Fred got ready to go formation flying with another guy, Ernie, in his Mooney. Fred asked if I wanted to join him for another flight and I wasn't about to turn that down! I have never flown formation before and it was pretty exciting to be that close to another airplane. It's definitely something I'd like to get into, especially because so many RV guys fly formation together. I just need to get my airplane built first!

Flying in the RV-7 off the wing of Ernie's Mooney

And after the formation flight, another guy I've met in the last few days, Tony, asked if I wanted to go fly to Auburn, California, for a quick lunch. Tony was flying with Ernie during the formation flight. Anyway, I've rented airplanes out of Auburn and it's an awesome little airport with a good restaurant on the field. We made the quick flight up and back in Tony's Grumman Yankee.

I'm really pumped that I've met so many guys at the airport in the last few days. I didn't realize there was an EAA chapter in Lincoln until talking with Scott, who is building an -8 in his garage. He let me know about the chapter and I met a lot of great guys at that first meeting. I know they will be a great source of knowledge and experience as I work my way through my build. 

Overall, an awesome day at the airport and one I won't soon forget!