Back to Makin' an Airplane.

To start off, I am in a much better place now than I was a few days ago. My pitot tube woes are behind me and it was time to move on. Besides, the weather is getting downright beautiful around here. For those of you that have checked my profile, you know that a big part of who I am revolves around music. The guitar always goes to Oshkosh with me, and I do manage to find some time to play while I am there. I mention this because I am also sitting here watching the latest episode from Live At Daryl's House on the Palladia channel. I just recently "discovered" this show, even though it has been on since 2007. I am absolutely in love with this program. For those that don't know, it feature Daryl Hall from the old Hall & Oats days. He invites guest artists to his home in Pennsylvania about once a month and they jam to each others tunes - just totally awesome stuff. So if you love music, especially the music from Daryl Hall, you need to check this out. Tonight's guest is Rob Thomas, and it is just magic to my ears.

I also wanted to take a moment to recognize some new folks that are following my blog. I just managed to glance over that way and saw a few more icons in the followers section. Welcome everyone! I also have to mention that last night I had a really nice visit with Mike Rettig over at his place where he is building an RV10. Just as I knew would happen, he is blazing right along with his wings adn he is now leaps and bounds ahead of me as far as general progress goes. He has now entered the realm of proseal and fuel tank construction. Only problem is that he decided he wants to be able to cross the Atlantic Ocean with his RV10 and so he is building a completely integrated auxhiliary tank into his entire leading edge. I got to have a sneak peak at his progress on the first of the two aux tanks. Things are lookin pretty good there Mike. Keep of the great work.

As for me, tonight I managed to get out the garage and remove both tip ribs from the main wing spars so I could debur the last few holes that I had match drilled several days ago. I ahd to take the spars off the stands to finish these up. Then I started drilling the tooling holes in my ribs to 3/8 inches for the snap bushings that will house my RG400 antenna coax and any additional wire runs that I need. I used the step drill as shown in the following sequence of photos. You will notice that I used a sharpee to mark the step just above the one that I need, so I know when to stop drilling. As I mentioned in posts from long ago while using this thing on my empennage, I only use this with a variable speed cordless electric drill, and I clamp everything down when I use it so I can keep both hands on the drill.

First is the trailing edge hole before drilling

And next is the leading edge of the main rib before drilling

One rib does not have the small third hole already drilled, and I am not exactly sure why. Here it is after drilling

and here is the other "after drilling" pics

There are 2 schools of thought for marking the step drill. You either mark the step just above the step that you need to drill down to, or you mark the actual step that you need to drill down to. Either way you choose to do it, the key is go slow when you get close the last step in the drill bit and proceed with caution so that you do not "over step" your bounds, pun intended. In all seriousness though, it is real easy to go too far with this thing so you need to be careful.

The larger hole in the center of one of the above pics is already drilled by Vans to 7/16 inches. This is designed to fit an SB437-4 snap bushing that has an ID of 1/4 inch. The other smaller 3/8 inch holes that I am enlarging will accept an SB375-4 snap bushing, that, as it turns out, also provides a 1/4 inch ID for wires and such. I had already checked the alignment of the exist holes of the aileron pushrod in the rear spar of the wing, and I am satisfied that drilling out the rear-most tooling hole for the antenna wire for my Bob Archer navigation antenna will not interfere with the pushrod at all.

I did not get all the ribs done tonight but should be able to get them done tomorrow. One other thing - There is actually a right way to insert the snap bushings into the holes, but I often see pics on various builders sites that do not do it that way. You are supposed to place in the hole so that the smaller flange area of the bushing will be on the side of the rib that has the flanges, so that it is as out of the way as possible when to start to rivet the wing skins to the ribs. The bushings have to be inserted differently in the ribs depending on if it is a left or a right-flanged rib. The other thing is to remember not to put the bushings in the hole until AFTER you finish priming the ribs.

I got to fly a couple more Young Eagles last Saturday at KFTG - what a blast that always is. It was about 2.5 hours out of my pocket for a rental C-172, but it was worth every penny. KFTG was one of the contract towers that was on the original hit list, but they took it off - thankfully. All this budget crap is a real bummer.

I have a hefty order to place with ACS, Avery, and a few other vendors for various things.

All for now. Oh yeah, Oshkosh isjust a few short months away - make your plans now!