I have begun one of the most significant sections I have come across yet on the plane and that is the completion of the horizontal stabilizer. I knew that there were going to be a lot of rivets because I spent so much tie drilling, deubrring, and dimpling all of the holes in preparation. But wow. It’s getting real. Placing a few rivets, taping them up, driving them, then moving down a few and pulling out the next set of clecos and putting in more rivets.
First, I had to rivet together the middle section, HS-1016, then add the stringers to it and finally attach all of those to the inboard ribs to create the front spar assembly. This took some time, mostly because I kept reading and rereading the instructions to prevent screwing up. I am pretty happy to say that I did not screw up after all.
Nose ribs all riveted in place here in this picture and completed the day’s efforts. It was about 4 hours today total, but I was not at peak efficiency after being away from the plane for a bit. I’m getting back into a rhythm and this is incredibly important. Just like flying I suppose. Proficiency matters.
Total time today = 4 hours
Total time empennage = 65.5 hours
Total time aircraft = 65.5 hours