Confession: the title was misleading. I am going to start with my family trip today that we all took down to Rough River State Park in Kentucky. It was about a 90 minute flight from KUMP, which was perfect. The whole place was really neat with the runway right inside of the state park and the ability to just get out of the plane and walk around and hike. We packed a nice picnic lunch and had a wonderful time simply exploring a park that would be inaccessible for a day trip without a plane. Very exciting!
Boarding up in N668CS at KUMP. Girls LOVE to fly and I am obviously happy to oblige.
The base at Rough River. A neat place honestly, really glad we decided to come here today.
Not exactly ForeFlight, but a throwback to how I used to get weather briefings when I flew back in my PPL day. Well… maybe not the rotary phone part but close enough.
Speaks for itself – what a fam!
State parks wouldn’t be what they are without hiking trails and pictures of my girls getting ready to hike them! Bottom line – I would definitely put Rough River on your to-do list of places to fly to.
On to the build part of the day – and yes – that is an amazing part of being a pilot. We went somewhere that is 4 hours away by car, and back, had dinner, sat out back and relaxed with the kids, put them bed, and still had 2 hours to put in to the plane today. I will admit to being exhausted as I type this though…
Well the moment of truth has arrived. The great test of my skills as a riveter. I can honestly say that I think I let Rosie down with my first few rivets as evidenced by my growing skill in drilling out rivets. Honestly. Wow. Also – my ability to remember to dimple every single hole is something that should be questioned – yikes! At least I have the ability and drive to drill out every rivet and dimple the ribs and spars as they should be prior to final assembly. It wasn’t too many after all. Oh well, I guess these are the “priceless” lessons learned that everyone talks about on Van’s Air Force…
Now that I’m done being hyper-critical of myself, I will admit that the riveting skill is acquired pretty quickly and I’m getting good with the rivet gun and bucking bar placement. Now I go several rivets in a row and test them as a set with the rivet gauge. They are all exactly to specification. So here we go with some results pictures.
Pretty darn good! I’m really happy with how these are turning out. I was nervous because I see everyone online using rubber headed mushroom sets for AN426 rivets, but I honestly think the shape of this set from Cleveland does not demand a rubber seal. I get a really clean sound that helps me determine when the rivet is finally set. I have not seen any marring of the skin whatsoever. The rivets set evenly and the bucking bar I use, while as expensive as an organ transplant (Tungsten), does a spectacular job.
Coming down this front spar has been a challenge, but one that I’m up to for sure. I had to remove all of the clecos from the trailing edge spar and peel back the skin to reveal the forward spar, but that was not nearly as bad as it seemed. I got my hand in there with the bucking bar and went to town. After my first few rivets and being cautious, I went nuts and riveted up a storm.
Overall lessons learned are as follows:
- Use rivet tape. It holds rivets in place and also puts a barrier between the mushroom set and the skin. Well worth it.
- No need for a rubber mushroom set, in fact I prefer it without.
- Dimple everything dummy.
- Plan your rivets. Setting something before it is time means you will have to drill it out and start over. Have a plan.
- Drilling out rivets is tougher than it looks. Use a punch to start and also to remove the head once drilled out.
Total time today = 2 hours
Total time empennage = 30.5 hours
Total time aircraft = 30.5 hours