March 8, 2020
We finally started work on the empennage. It’s been three months since we ordered the kit, 1 month since we finally had all the tools in hand, and 0 days since we finished the EAA SportAir workshop. The class ended around noon on Sunday and we were so excited to get started we spent the afternoon in the garage.
The first steps in building the empennage are preparing the horizontal tail rear spar, stiffeners, and elevator brackets. The stiffeners required deburring, rounding the ends, and polishing the entire surface. Once prepped, we clecoed the stiffeners into the spar pieces and match drilled all the holes.
We lost some time looking for parts because we inventoried the empennage kit prior to reading through the plans sections. The kit was shipped in separate sub-kits that were called out by sub-kit number in the inventory list. We weren’t sure if the plans would also reference the sub-kits as well so we kept all the sub-kits together in their own boxes. However, the plans call out only part number – which means we’re now digging through boxes labeled by sub-kit with no idea of what’s in each sub-kit. It’s a really bad organizational system and we’ll have to come up with something different when the rest of the kit arrives.
Eventually we found the elevator hinge brackets that were in one of the sub-kits. Those were also clecoed in place and match drilled. The first 6 rivets of the project were squeezed on the hinge bracket to retain a bearing. Overall we were in the shop for 3 hours, it was really exciting to see pieces start to come together, but also a good example of how much time everything takes. The next step is to mark everything to be able to put it back together after priming, but for now this piece will be set aside. Next up: HS – Front Spar.
Cheers,
-Kacy
(Total Build Hours: 3.0)