Saturday, January 19, 2019

More tail cone stiffener drilling

 Started today by adding the right hand stiffeners to the assembly

 Then the right skin.  Cleco'ed the right side skin to the bulkheads and the bottom skin.

 Drilled all the stiffeners to the skins per the directions.  Simple....just align the marks on the stiffener with the holes and drill.  It takes some arm gymnastics to keep the lines centered in the holes.  Just go slow and carefully and keep the lines centered.

 Right side stiffeners all drilled.

I flipped the whole tail cone over on the horses.  Then I cleco'ed the back two bulkheads and the bottom aft skin to the assembly.  It is amazing how tight all these parts are.  At first it seems impossible but the more cleco's that go in, the better things start to align.  It is a testimony to Van's engineering department!  I remember similar pain and agony getting all this stuff in this area to align when I built the RV-7.

 The aft two bulkheads all cleco'ed to the assembly

 Next I added the stiffeners to the left side.

 And then cleco'ed the skin to the bulkheads and the bottom skin.  Also the aft two bulkheads and aft bottom skin.  Had to use a sharp scratch awl to align some of the holes.

Starting to look like airplane parts around here!

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