We start our plane tomorrow-photos of the rudder we built

[king2005]

YAY, we start building our aircraft tomorrow!!

Were just riviting the the Rudder over the weekend (sat & sun)... the rudder is the best part to learn off of as it has the least amount of work, its the cheaper part & its smaller too.

Its about 4 feet tall, so we had to rent a van to bring it home on sunday

I'll be taking photos, so everyone can see the rudder from start to finish


I'm just WAY too excited about this, as its still hard to think I'm building an aircraft that will one day fly me all over North America, whenever I want to go, YAY!


oh the rudder is the part of the tail that looks kinda like this ^ not > (hope that makes sence).

would type more, but gotta go to bed early for an early start tomorrow.

[CagneyDog]

That's really cool!

[chocolatepuppy]

This will be interesting to follow. Good luck!

[king2005]

a quick post before we leave at 7am.

This wont be a quick thing. Its going to take about 5+ years to finish unless I find a really good job (clearing a min after tax 20k/yr), as 150k (we have picked a better engin) doesn't grow on trees yet. My stupid money tree just wont grow no matter how much I water it, hehehe

[Felix]

Thats neat..good luck with it!

[Karen]

Still, 5 years from now, when there's a Pet Talk gathering anywhere in North America, you can say, "What the heck, maybe we'll fly there!!!!"

[king2005]

Still, 5 years from now, when there's a Pet Talk gathering anywhere in North America, you can say, "What the heck, maybe we'll fly there!!!!"

I could do that



Well its finished. oi... We cannot rivet 1 side as an inspector has to be able to see inside. But ALL the hard work is done & BOY DO I MEAN HARD WORK!!!

Holy crap today didn't start too well at all... We didn't sleep well as we were soooo sore from the day before. Then we slept in, but still showed up 1hr early. We started working on our rudder as we were far behind from the others. Our rudder is larger, less is known about it (as were the 63 person to own/build one), & some of our parts were messed up so we had to correct them. Nothing big, just cut too long, or the bend had a wee kink in it so it would go flush with the other part.. so that had to be hammered out

there was this little part that took us nearly 2hrs to get right We messed up the first time, as its a super hard part. So we used our spare (we were wondering why they gave us 2, now we know hehe) & got it right except for the last hole we drilled it was far too close to the edge. So one of the guys rigged up a part to fix it . it looks ugly as hell, but its on the insdie so its all good hehehe

Then there was the nose skin. It took 4 of us to fight with it & all trying not to break it, as the skin is very fragile when its not rivited to the skeleton.

once all the ugly stuff was finished & all of the other groups were finished & long gone (1 group was from the usa), we were finally able to do the easy stuff. Paint this special stuff on to help prevent rust where parts touch (on the inside parts), then clecko all the parts together (a temp tool that goes in the drilled holes & holds the parts together & is easly removed & resued) & then strat riveting & removing clekos & riviting those holes.

I'm too tired & sore to keep typing so here are the photos I took today. There will be many more later on from the other groups.

All the parts & Tools (on this side V of the table)



Rob riveting



Me riveting



A shot of the skin Clekoed with the brass coloured Clekos




Here is out plane kit website, so anyone who wants to see it Rob & Jess's Kit site

[king2005]

Smile John! Thats one of the guys running the workshop. He helped us a lot the first day as we knew nothing



Rob holding the finished Rudder! sorry its on its side



Me holding the finished Rudder. I'm 5'2 & its taller then me!!

[king2005]

OMG I'm sooo sorry they are so big.. these aren't on my site & they didn't show up this size... when I can I promis I will make them smaller.