Yesterday was a really fun, satisfying day. I had achieved the installation of the H. stab cables last week (just never had time to update the blog until today) and yesterday was the day to start the final-putting-things-together-for-real process. Out of esthetics, I choose to start from the tail and work forward.
The V. stab went on easily. The rudder took some finesse in order to line up the various washers and hold the rudder and place the bolts and do all of that by myself. I ended up putting the bottom bolt in first (fairly easy, since I could stand on the ground and have pretty good access) and duct taped the rudder to the stab on two sides: that actually kept it in pretty close position to allow me to find some creative ways of holding the bolt, a washer and a nut from an awkward angle. Got it done.
Thence, to the inside. Although I still can’t install the split bulkhead, I did take advantage of the split baggage floor and left the larger piece open for the inspection in a few weeks. Fuel tank is physically installed (but not yet plumbed.) Last year, I noted that the flapperons scrapped against the fuselage and I had made some notes of how much to trim, so they finally got sanded about 1/8” to 1/4” on the lower surfaces. Nick & Lada came to the hanger (en route to the local firing range for some shooting) and they helped me put the wings on. As predicted, the wings fit much better when the torque tubes are installed on the correct sides.)
Oh, and during the meantime, my partner in the Cardinal arrived back from a cross country with a couple of squawks. Both planes needed air in the tires, so I pumped up 012 and took the compressor to the other hanger and filled those tires, too. I reinstalled some corrupted software on the iPad, figured out that the Stratus2 wasn’t charged, put those back in the Cardinal, did a test flight around the pattern and filled up the plane as a favor to my partner (just the filling—he’s reimbursing me for the fuel costs!) All in all, an excellent day being an airport bum!
Tomorrow: plumbing the fuel tank, re-installing ELT, installing fire extinguisher and maybe doing placards!
Airplane in hanger
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