1/28/2010
I started tonight by finishing out the five nut plates on the rear fuselage for the attachment of the front of the empennage fairing.
Three are shown, there are two more on the other side. These were all shot and bucked from the outside...been a while since I got the rivet gun and bucking bar out!
Then I went back to fitting the empennage fairing. I still had some trimming to do at the aft end where it goes over the elevator horn. Also note the 1/8" cleco...that hole still doesn't have a single lug nut plate installed...
The fairing is thin enough that a pair snips worked just fine to get the rough cut, and then I used a file and sand paper to finish it out to the line. I also cut the fairing down a bit from the top as can be seen in the next pic compared to the one above.
Can't really tell at all in this pic, but I do have the minimum 1/4" clearance from the elevator horn here.
And finally, a pic of the basically finished empennage fairing, except the filling/primer/sanding part that will come later.
I left the hangar tonight feeling like I want to take a short break on things...we'll see how it goes over the next few days. Not sure why. I don't feel burned out in the least, just a feeling that I need a couple days off.
Oh, I met with our friendly FAA rep this week who does DAR inspections, and she said she will do my inspection (she's had several looks at it already from doing Part 135/145 shop inspections at work). I will need to give her at least one month's notice...but there's no charge for having the FAA do it. She's tough, but she has inspected A LOT of experimental's, so I think I'm going to go this route when the time comes around.
2.0 hours