Training Kit, Steps 3 – 6

corey    RV Project    

Finished Step 3:
Back riveted the stiffeners to the skins, using a bucking bar on the machined head (the flat or rounded rivet head – the ‘shop’ head is the head you make when you squeeze the rivet to fasten two pieces of metal together) and a spring loaded back riveting tool in the rivet gun to make the shop head. Worked well, though I will need to get one of those large pieces of steel for back riveting as you can easily misplace the small bucking bar and screw up your rivet and/or skins. (Ask me how I know!)

Onto Step 4:
Drilled and riveted the reinforcement plate to the spar (see picture below, with the 2 plates that have 5 rivets each). Little bit of a fiasco drilling the spar for the two end-most rivets. I didn’t have a good way to match drill the rib flanges there, since the rib gets smaller and doesn’t have room for a drill (and no angled drill bit in my tool collection). Ended up screwing up one of the holes, but it worked out after I used a Sharpie to mark the location of the holes and drilled them on the drill press. After that, you cleco those two holes and drill the other 3 holes for each plate. Lesson learned here: match drill with the correct sized drill bit, as the wrong size won’t line up right once you redrill the holes to a larger size!

For Step 5: Riveted the ribs to the spar, creating the skeleton for the skins.

Starting Step 6:
Cleco’ed the skins to the ribs (picture below). Ready for match drilling.

Next up: match drill skins to the ribs, drill fresh holes in the spar, and prepare the trailing edge!

Section: Training Kit
Steps: 3 – 6
Hours: 2.0

Training Kit, Steps 1 – 3

corey    RV Project    

The first step of the training kit requires that you trim some aluminum angle, giving it a shape that would fit within the control surface. Once shaped, it is no longer aluminum angle .. they stiffeners!

In step 2, we match drill the above stiffeners with the two skins (bottom and top).

To kick off step 3, the skins and the stiffeners had to be dimpled. (The pneumatic squeezer and Cleaveland dimple dies worked great here)! Because my pneumatic squeezer doesn’t have a large yoke on it (only 3″) it wasn’t able to reach the middle holes for dimpling. I also don’t have a C-Frame dimpler so I had to break out the Pop Dimple Dies from Aircraft Tool Supply. Let me tell you, what a pain in the ass! I am certainly looking into getting a C-Frame dimpler now or some other method for dimpling the large skins. Compared to the nice clean dimples the pneumatic squeezer (and quality Cleaveland dies) it was like creating dimples with a blunt chisel and a rubber hammer.

Before proceeding with step 3, the parts are primed (not required for the training kit (or any part of the airplane kit, if you ask some folks) but good practice to see how it’ll work out). You can see the primed stiffeners and one of the skins dimpled below.

Next up: rivet them together!

Section: Training Kit
Steps: 1 – 3
Hours: 2.5

Check Ride: Passed!

corey    Flying, News, RV Project    

I passed my Private Pilot Check Ride today! I’m now a “real” pilot, no longer just a student!

I received my RV-7A Empennage kit on Tuesday, so I hope to have some time to inventory it this long Thanksgiving weekeng. I’m probably going to be using the LED Position lights from Creativair, which means I’ll need to buy the tail light (A555) from Van’s shortly (as it should be installed before completing this part of the kit).

I have awhile to decide on the other things that will be installed in the aircraft, which is good because they all cost a lot of money!

One Week and Counting

corey    Flying, News    

I want to write this down so I have a record of it, just in case I lose this piece of paper.

Date: Wednesday, October 23rd
Time: 10am
Location: Jeffco

Bring:
[ ] $350 cash ($5 bills, 10 bundles of 7 bills each)
[ ] Drivers License or Passport (whichever hasn’t be confiscated by the police)
[ ] FAA Written Test Results (hopefully you passed!)
[ ] Medical Certificate (it’s not expired, is it?)
[ ] Log Book (your instructor needs to sign his life away – don’t forget!)
[ ] Application for Certification (what does this even look like?)
[ ] Flight Plan to Rapid City
[ ] Weight and Balance with a 210lb passenger with no extra baggage

And after all that (and the weather is good) .. (and I don’t screw up) .. I’ll be a real 100% certified pilot!

Stage Three: Completed

corey    Flying    

I did my Stage 3 check ride with Ken Stock today. After a few minor bumbles during the ground discussion (why are there so many types of Class E airspace on the chart!? Talk about confusing!) the flight went really really well.

It was great weather, which I think helped a lot. With very very smooth air I didn’t deviate more than 10ft from my assign altitude while doing steep turns, slow flight with turns, etc etc. Even my short field landing went very well, landing a mere 20-30ft past the threshold.

I didn’t realize this at the time, but I had booked the flight in the 172R, which has 20 horsepower less than the 172S (which is what I normally fly). Thankfully it didn’t play much of a factor and may have actually helped with my power-on stall, since I tend to drag it out in the 172S. I will say that it climbed awful-like! Leaving Longmont I swear it took 3 times longer than normal to get 500ft AGL so I could turn toward Jeffco and head back. While I don’t plan on flying the 172R again anytime soon, I certainly wouldn’t take it out on a hot day!

I’m scheduled to “fly” in the flight simulator on Sunday with my instructor Kyle. We decided this was the best way to get the additional .7 hours I need in simulated instrument conditions. After we run through that I plan on doing a short ground session in order to go over everything that I’ll need for the my upcoming Check Ride.

If I can find someone to do my Check Ride within the next week or two, I could be a certified Private Pilot in no time!