From the Maplewoods workshop: Steve's RV7 project: A visit from Tom and Taylor

The Mission:

I am building an airplane. I really can't tell you how weird it sounds to me to hear those words in my head as I type. I am keeping this blog as an adjunct to my written log, which is required to comply with FAA requirements for Experimental Aircraft construction. My son Doug is my partner in this project. There are two goals: to build the best, safest, and yes, COOLEST, airplane we can, and to allow Doug to acquire some truly awesome experiences, not to mention building skills. Thanks for viewing.

How to use this blog

The most current post is displayed on this opening page. To access the older posts, click on the "Blog Archive" on the right hand side. The drop down menu is arranged by the month and lists the posts, by title and by date posted, in reverse chronological order.

I will arrange the hypertext links to other websites I find interesting better some day, but they are at the bottom.

If you navigate to my first post, there is a link to my luthiery pages. I miss working with wood. Aluminum is nice, but it's boring. Give me a highly figured maple any day!

Sunday, January 16, 2011

A visit from Tom and Taylor

My friend Tom and his older son Taylor came to the garage to check things out. Tom and Taylor are pretty much responsible for Doug's and my interest in flying, so we figured they should be in on the building fun. Taylor flys professionally for Hawker Beechcraft as a demo pilot. Doug showed them how to dimple the skins for the right wing and they finished dimpling all the skins in one night. I have to admit, I didn't mind seeing them complete this for me. Next, we decided to build the left aileron. I had had a chance yesterday to fabricate the stiffeners and rivet them on to the trailing skin, so we tackled the spar, the leading edge skin and counterweight, and almost finishd this as well. All in all, a good night. Many hands do make quick work.