mom would say "get Back to work"

After a much too long break from working on the airplane, I'm back at it again.  Not much has happened over the last couple of months in the shop.  Returning to shift work has been harder to adjust to than I anticipated.  Add to that the passing of my Mom, Linda in October and all the things to process both emotional and tangible - it's been tough to concentrate on anything else.

Mom was always one of the biggest champions of my dreams, including flying.  She was my first passenger when I got my licence in 1995.  I told the story of that day at Mom's Celebration of Life as it was one of my favourite memories of many during times I spent with her.

We went flying on a beautiful early spring day in a Cessna 150.  Typical first passenger type of flight, showing off my newly minted licence by taking a tour of local sights from above.  It was beautiful.

Mom always appreciated a good joke.  When we were turning base from downwind, I pretended to look around the cabin like I'd lost something.  Of course, Mom asked what I was looking for, to which I quipped "There should be a landing checklist in here somewhere, I might have forgot to bring it".

The look on Mom's face was priceless as she went from surprise, to fear to sly recognition that her oldest son was just trying to pull a fast one.  Fast transition!  She punched me in the arm and reminded me that landing checklists are important and I should have it memorized.  I'm not sure she ever truly forgave me, but she probably did.  She was that kind of person; kind, forgiving and loving.  I miss her very much.

I also know she wouldn't want me to delay getting my plane built, even if she never got the chance to see it or fly in it.  So this week I got back at it.

Work continues on the elevator and horizontal stab.  There are lots of little things to complete, but it's coming along nicely.  In order to mate them up, I had to finish adding the fences on the stab.  Here they are lined up where they will be fastened on the stab.  To ensure that both ends are exactly the same, I taped them together and dry fit them, marking out the rivet lines:

Quick fit check on the other end, before drilling A3  pilot holes through both

Pilot holes drilled then clecos to hold it in place to confirm measurements are correct and fence is equal all around the stab aerofoil:

The fence is 063 thick, same as the original outer hinge plates which  are attached at the trailing end with A5 rivets, so I'm doing the same here (where the black clecos are).  The A5 holes are already in the tip rib, so I used the rivet hole duplicator to match drill them on the fence.  The balance will be A4 rivets.  This combination will only improve the strength of the whole assembly.

​Happy how the fence cleans up the whole end of the stab:

​I flipped the stab over to make getting at the A5 holes easier

​Once flipped, I noticed how tight the fence is to the tip rib skin rivets.  I made a note to remind me to river the skin first!

​With both fences attached, the stab looks real good!

With the stab fences in place, now I could place the elevator in line and see how they line up:

Even without the elevator nose skins on, I was real pleasing to see them "together" for the first time.  Have lots to do yet, but it feels good to see the sum of the parts looking close to what they will be once done.

Also important was seeing that the measurements of the centre hinge is correct!  It's a tight fit tolerance but I nailed the measurements perfectly!  (Picture is not very clear, sorry.  Just noticed the camera focused on an errant rivet stem)

I placed the elevator horns temporarily in place to confirm the alignment - all looks good.

BINGO! Correct spacing for the hinge bolt and bushing.  So satisfying to know everything is correct!

Next I decided to take care of the elevator cable pass-through hole.  It starts with drawing a centreline on the leading edge of the stab and a measured horizontal where the cable guard angle will be riveted on.  Thank goodness for flexible rulers!

Sketch out the lines where the slot will be and draw the circles that make up the ends of the slot:

​Pilot hole to prevent tearing of the aluminum - that would really suck!

A small step drill bit used carefully does a great job.  With both holes done, simple straight cuts from edge to edge on the new circles to open up the slot.

The leading edge of the stab has a slight curvature to it where the cable guard mounts.  So once I had the guard angle bent, I rounded it out a bit to match.  This will be primed before riveting to the stab:

Not a bad prodcuctive couple of hours.  Like I said above, it's nice to see the sum of all the little parts I've done and it's motivating me to get back in the shop.

Next up, nose skins and tackling the trim tab.  I've managed to write some good code for the trim tab Arduino computer that will control the servo.

Thanks Mom and thanks to my wife Brenda for getting me moving in the right direction again :)