John’s RV-10 N798HJ

I finished up all I planed to on the empanage last  week.  I am waiting for the fiberglass and wiring until I put the whole thing together.  It was really great to see the whole thing together.  The rudder and elevator bolts take some patience to get on but other than that it all just bolts together.  I order the wings on Friday and Saturday got a letter from Vans letting me know they will ship the week of June 22.  I hope to get my honey do list done by then and get the garage on order to build the wings.  I want to get the wing cradle done before they arrive as well.  Started to move parts of the empanage to my parents house for storage and put some parts I am keeping at my house away from kids reach.  I am going to miss riveting for a while, but need to break to get things done around the house.

I am now finished with the tail cone and have started the work to assemble all the tail parts.  I had my father in law help me rivet the rest of the tail cone together (I was on the inside).  Today I began assembly of the empennage.  All is fitting together well.  I am learning quickly how to remove and replace bolts between the elevators and the HS.  The HS trailing edges line up almost perfect, but one trim tab has a 1/4 inch warp in it.  I might have to replace that before I am finished with the plane, but can wait for now.  I need to hurry up and finish the assembly so that I can move the prats to my parents house and Heather can get her car back in the garage.

The main reason behind todays post is I finally got the wife out in the garage to help me rivet and she did great.  Yes I am wearing my flying headphones to rivet, but I needed to let Heather use my hearing protection.  I hope that Heather and I can finish the other side tomorrow.  Heather turns out to be great at riveting and I think she secretly enjoys it.  We will have to see how much I can get her to help in the future.

So today I had fellow RV-10 Builder Tim Nash come over and help me buck some rivets on the bottom of the tail cone. We got all the stiffeners in and then went to the local airport (KJYO) and took a Warrior out for .8 hours.  I have not flown since I got my instrument rating and wanted to put some air beneath me.  Once Tim gets his BFR done I can put on the foggles and maintain my IFR cert.  I hope to call on another RV builder tomorrow so I can finish up all the two person rivets this weekend.  I am also getting ready to order the wings.  I am trying to time it right so that I can get my honey do list done before they arrive and I know once they are here I will be working on them and nothing else.  Work has been a bear lately driving to Baltimore for meetings all the time, but that is putting more money in my pockets for the plane so can’t complain to much.  We will see what this week brings and maybe I will have another post that shows a completed tail cone.

So I am now working on the tail cone.  It is a lot bigger than I thought it would be (or my garage is smaller than I thought.)  I hope to have it all riveted together in the next week or two depending on if I can find help bucking or not.  Then I will order the wing kit and start to assemble all the tail pieces for a picture before I ship the pieces off to my parents house.  I have not been working on the plane much over the last two weeks as I have been working mad hours and driving to Baltimore.  I also need to find time to go flying again as I need to do some instrument approaches to keep my license valid.  Building, flying and finding time to ride my bike is getting harder, especially with the kids in sports and stuff.  Well as they say, time to pound those rivets.