✈ RV-14a _ Roman & Dima _ - Israel ✈
 

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Introduction:

Hello to all of you - mighty airplane builders,
Today we are happy to add our progress thread
to the community forum.

So who are we?

We are two best friends since 8th grade which
makes it 25 years already (...daaa***mn we
are old!!!) and we decided to make this awesome
dream to come true.

Roman - I am a retired soft developer
and studying pilot, for that moment I have only 13
hours of Cessna 152. I hope to have my license
before the construction is done. I am huge fan of
Vans and avionics enthusiast.

Dima - A guy who is super excited
about constructing things. A GE ex-engineer (yes,
we have a local branch). Dima decided to put his
day job on hold for some months and dedicate
next months exclusively to the project.


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18 months is the timeframe we are planning to have
the plane flying. Some will say it is optimistics for
first time builders. But we are super determined to
prove it's doable.

I think it is the first project to give a full progress
report from Israel (maybe not the only builder here,
but the only one to report here) and even though
we feel very distant from the community we are
virtually very attached. We are reading dozens of
blogs and studying from all of you so much so
sometimes it feels like we know all and each of you
personally.

The big dream for us is one day to take off from
Israel on our self-constructed RV14a to cross the
ocean and land on one of the events you guys are
organizing in U.S. Yes it is possible, the navigation
path was already planned, and what left is just to
build the plane.

Guys, please give us some spiritual support. I hope
to shake hands with all of you very soon!

P.S: Will post our first actual status update in a day or two.

Cheers.
Roman & Dima

Yep, that is the plan, I measured the
distances and really that should be doable.
Probably we will add extra tank for part of
the baggage space. It will extend the range
up to 1800 km (~1120 miles).

Thanks for the help.
- Roman.

Roman and Dima: Welcome to the RV-14A world. Will you be doing a blog or online build log? If so be sure to share link with other VAF'ers so we can follow your work - it's a great way for all of us to learn and get better.

18months is very optimistic but do-able: the biggest challenge I think you'll find is getting parts in time to keep things moving when you make mistakes and have to re-order (trust me it will happen). If I had long shipping times I'd order extras of some items like standard AN bolts/nuts/washers, rivets of all common sizes, etc. You may also want to alter your production planning to consider how to keep things moving when you have waits related to replacement parts shipping. As an example - if a section is delayed waiting for a replacement part you can look ahead into the next section and start prepping/deburring/dimpling/priming parts for upcoming sections. (if you're priming - probably not truly necessary in your part of the world unless you're right on the ocean - of course Van's advises priming certain parts)

Nice to have you here guys. Welcome! Good plan you have with realistic build time frame. Please keep us informed about the project.

PS: A twin piper navajo will be launching eastbound from your woods to the same destination you are planning. In 5 weeks or so. Via Russia with an Israeli RV owner on board, they will be returning via Iceland. A good source of info. :)

Roman & Dima!

I'll be visiting Israel in October to visit with family, and I'd be interested in stopping by if it's convenient. Where is your project located?

My RV-8 has been flying for 15 years now, so the avionics have changed dramatically, but not the squeezing of rivets!

Keep at it...it's worth every minute!

Hey Nick, absolutelly we will be happy to meet you
We are working in Karmiel area it's north of Israel
maybe 1.5h from Tel Aviv. The beers is on me.

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Zdarova Vlad, I think two engines will be much safer. Anyway I am planning small leaps for the first time: maybe 500-800 km (300-500 miles).

By the way I am happy for any introduction to guys
in Israel that are in that game. We can be much
better connected.

I am on roman.mandeleil /on/ gmail

Hello Turner, sure, we are going to build a
total log - it is a second priority for now cause
the actual planning and ordering is the 1st
one, but yeah I am browsing for good blog
templates from time to time. Any
recommendations here are welcome.

Yeah thanks, I know we tend to think all the process will be flawless but we surelly going to ruin some aluminium. What would you order more than what you mentioned?Aditional to bolts/nuts/washers, rivets.

Priming for sure: we are on the Mediterranean,
that's not an ocean but that sea can kill any
plane in 3 years.

In addition to common standard rivets in many sizes, I keep a stock of various rivets that can be substituted for standard rivets - specifically CherryMax and MK-319-BS, and extras of common size AN3 and AN4 bolts, washers, locknuts, etc. As I've gotten into the build I find more and more need to keep screws in sizes 6,8 and 10 (Countersunk and panhead, with a few washer head screws as well) and corresponding nuts/washers, plenty of extra cotter pins, etc. I'm not sure how readily available standard aircraft hardware is in your area. Van's stocks all of these items but I order quite a bit from places like Aircraft Spruce.

Thanks Turner, for sure going
to use that list.

- Roman

✈ ✈ ✈
 

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Status Report: #1

Here we go, the first actual status of the project.
For who is asking: yes we plan to have a full
autonomic blog and already checking several
templates. Any advise here will be appreciated!
But the main focus is now on the things listed bellow.
Anyway I think it will be great to continue with* brief
updates here even after we will takeoff on the
web.

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• The plan:

We are building RV14a. No quick shortcuts, all the
fun is in touching each rivet of the bird so that is what
is going to happen. The engine is standard
recommendation by Vans: Lycoming IO-390. The prop
is: Hartzell 74'' The avionics: from what we study so far
Dynon IFR RV-14 quick panel will do the work. It's not
cheap but hey it is so well organized so no doubt we are
not going to cook anything better on our first construction.
We decided not to focus on electronic wires this time and
let pros to help us here. If you guys have any piece of
advice for us here please speak up!

Priming: yes - we are on the Mediterranean beaches,
with monsterous humidity most of the time. We already
have done some minor research and starting to talk with
local vendors. More news in the next updates.

We are taking break from our professional life and focusing
on the RV exclusively over the next months.
Actually we plan to have no more than 18 months.
That is our budget and we will be totally focused on
the project to stay in the boundaries. On 2020 July
I will turn 40y old. I want to have that bird flying till
then.

So what do we have so far?

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• Ordered the kits:

We already ordered the 5 basic kits

1. Wings
2. Empennage
3. Fuselage
4. Firewall
5. Finishing

This 5 is as most of you know the all actual plane,
except the engine, the prop, the fancy leather and
the avionics. Acording Vans & shipping guys the
package will land in our garage some time at the
end of August. That is when we start to count our
18 lunas. We didn't order any extra components,
so if we should please give us piece of advice.

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• Got the pracrice kit:

Actually 4 of them 2 toolboxes and 2 small aero-profiles.
We plan to study any possible nuance of that material.
That is why we are not only constructing it by the plan
but also planning to test our prime and study what will
be the best color to use on the final plane. We even have
special plan for a totally original painting scheme, but
will keep the secret for a while - untill we are ensured it
is doable on that metal.

.

• Tools:

To start scratching the aluminium we ordered some
tools. Most of the ideas is from Vans official
recommendations and the blogs you are posting.
That is the best source so far. Here is the full list,
feel free to leave any comment on that:

Cleveland aircraft tools and Aircraft-tools.com:

Local vendors:

We didn't order the full set of tools but just
those which will help us to accomplish the
training kits. I guess we will be much smarter
once finishing those and will make 2nd
delivery for the rest of them.

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• Preparing the workshop:

That is probably the tricky one. We don't have much
inexpensive space here in Israel so we are trying to
compromise by starting the project in a smaller place
than would be desired.





That is the biggest challenge for now to turn that small
shi**tty garage into a professional aero-lab. The challendge is accepted.

The lucky moment is that the garage is near JFK
airport:



...hmm ...hmm probably not, it is the ICAO:LLIB a small
field north of Israel - not that active and good enough
for our test take offs. Any of you wish to fly in - the
beer is on me.

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• Reading and studying:

The last one but maybe the most important: we dig
the web for the information. First of all it is great
fun to read how people are building a real plane in
theirs back yard. It sounds crazy almost like
constructing an elevator to the moon using a plier
and a screw driver. But in our case those birds are
actually flying at the end which makes the whole
thing much more magical.

So what are we looking for? The answer is: everything!
Any info about tools, work processes, tips and tricks
and workspace arrangements. We read probably 50-60
blogs so far and that is the best university I could
have. That is so much fun so I am seriously consider
to start writing blog reviews spreading Michelin
stars to the best sheffs. Well probably leave that idea
in favour of finally starting our own blog.

Ahh yeah got the digital version of the instructions
from Vans, helps to spend time in the throne room.



Guys, we are mega excited, we know that we are amatures but all the info is out there, and we have
all the motivation to catch up and the most important:
we enjoy every moment doing that. Like my good friend
says: "Remember: Noah's Ark was built by one amateur, the Titanic by a bunch of professionals."

So don't hesitate to give us peace of advice or just
troll us for anything we say or post. Happy to be part
of such great community of so many tallented individuals.

Cheers.
Roman & Dima

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Status Report: #2

Our second report is about:

• Workspace Preparation
• Training project
• Vessel location report

The plane is yet in the ocean and will hit the shore of
Israel in about 1-2 weeks from now. But we are not
wasting our time. Since our last report we managed to
prepare the environment for the project, and first and
most important is the workspace:


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• Workspace Preparation

We spent last 2 months searching for a pretty spacious
hangar, and rented it. The price was reasonable but the
place was absolute in ruins so it took us some time to
clean it up and paint the walls to feel comfortable there.




Now the tables: as we watched dozens of videos of
other builders, we had pretty good understanding of
what kind of tables we should have. The only problem
was that a professional table of that size is not a budget
product. That is why we decided to construct the tables
ourself from steel profiles.

We designed it exactly the size we think will be optimal
for most of the tasks: 3m x 1.2m x 0.9m, and what a
beautiful result 4 wheels with optional high changer
and voila we have 2 self made tables, for almost no
money. All the training we done later kind of proves it was
the right decision.




Next, we had to organize all the tools in the right way so
they will be placed right in front of us all the time. Cause
you never know which exact drill bit you are going to use.

Here are some results:



Shelfs, shelfs and more shelfs, I think once we have
all the boxes opened it will help us with organization
of the aluminium parts.




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• Training project

The first rivet was not an easy thing, and ‘How the **** we
suppose to do 10,000 of those?, I was thinking to myself.
That is exactly why Vans training project is what
helps to get the right experience and confidence that
you can master those skills relatively quickly.



The train project is great, after getting pretty decent result
I think we got handful of new skills that will be about
70% - 80% of our job in the upcoming months. Cause
really... what is most of the work, if not: understanding
the drawings, deburing, dimpling and rivetting the parts.
All those in various sizes and levels of access difficultly.



Check that result: after all - we didn't know nothing just 2
months ago and now it looks like a real wing. Small but
truly aerodynamically shaped.


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• Vessel location report

Luanda is the name of the ship. In current days it is
sailing somewhere in the Atlantic, approaching the
Gibraltar, heading to the Valencia port. That is already
our neighborhood - the Mediterranean. In 1-2 weeks
from now it should hit Israeli shore and then 4-5
days until we will open the boxes in our fresh office.


Summary: we are supermotivated, we have all the tools
and we feel super ready for the mission. God speed
for the captain of Luanda and hopefully our next report
will be about touching the real thing. Please keep sending
your wishes and your experienced advises, we really
enjoy chatting with each of you!




Cheers.
Roman & Dima

Hi Roman and Dima.
Would you please contact me at:
0507815801
Thanks
Ariel
הי רומן ודימה
תוכלו, בבקשה, להרים טלפון?
אריאל אריאלי
0507815801
תודה
RV8A
4X-OAA

So the cozy pilot/builder is called Yair Gil. He is building another cozy and might be a good source of information. He also lives just north of tel aviv in herzliya if i remember correctly.

Got you.

Thanks

Hi Roman and Dima,

I work for Elbit Systems America (ESA) and travel to Karmiel and Haifa sometimes.

If you know anyone at Elbit who travels to the US it could be useful to pick up small parts you may need. The folks that come to meeting with us are always shopping while in the US to take thing back.

TJ

Thanks TJ,

Next time you are in Israel you are welcome
to our place.On WhatsApp I am +972 547644377

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Status Report: #3

That report is about:

• The boxes are here
• Inventoring all the plane

At 9:00 am at the morning we got the phone from
the delivery company. "Be ready" they said "we will
land in your office in 2-3 hours". That is how we started
the day, drinking cup of coffe and refusing to do anything
but waiting... until the stop of a truck was clearly
squeaked at the gate. That is it. The plane is finally here !!!

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• The boxes are here

After long months of waiting, the plane is finaly here,
still in the boxes, still on the truck but we will fix
it quickly in the upcoming months.


Our neighbour helped us with the unloading process.
Fortunately he had a forklift and in 10 minutes all the
boxes went on to garage floor.



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• Inventoring all the plane

Each time we opened the box we unpacked carefully
each part from the packaging paper and placed it
nicely on the carpet. That way we had all the kit ready
infront of us waiting for the checklist.




The spars are different: first of all because they are
heavy and fun to work out, second it is awesome
feeling to hold a plane wing or a plane backbone
in the hands. Eventually it is the easiest part to store.
We just keeping it in the same box they were shipped
till its time will come




Here is the way we organised all the kits ready for
construction. Some of them will go in to the work
in the next days and some will wait couple of months
for its time.




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• Summary:

Time to clear the garbage. Two small wagons of packing
paper, and wooden boxes that we keept for later use -
probably for jig fabrication.

That is it, we are done with the unpacking, sorting, marking,
guessing and shelving. The inventoring process is done
and we are ready to start with the real work. Wait for the
first actual construction report. In the meantime Let us
know if you think we are doing the right things.

The inventoring took totally 30 hours of man work
cause there is two of us we finished in 2.5 days.




Cheers.
Roman & Dima

Very nice shop!

Best of luck putting her together!

When riveting, check your air pressures.

Here is a link that may help.

One other thing, next time you place a tool order, buy two extra micro stops, a deep no-hole yoke for your squeezer, and a longeron yoke.

The reamers in imperial sizes, tap and die set, inch-pound torque wrench, sockets, wrenches, etc. you should be able to source locally, maybe.

In the top picture thought the words "Last Bag" were on his shirt and he was trying to make some kind of statement.

Ha ha... yeah that was the intention, happy
it worked on you 😉

Thanks, will land at the garage tomorrow, and double
check our tooks 👍

I'm really enjoying this thread.
 

Roman and Dima:
For guy who has barely ever left the US I am finding your thread incredibly interesting. I guess I fall into the class of an ignorant American who has very little knowledge of the rest of the world.

I am finding the small peek into your lives fascinating. I really like the large photos where I can see all the detail of what you are doing - and your very cool shop.

Your thread is as much a human interest story as it is a build log, as far as I am concerned.

Thank you for taking the time to share part of your lives with the rest of the world!

Gary Welch, Cloverdale California

PS: I, for one, would love to see the occasional pic of the area where you live and work. Pics could be of anything that gives a little day to day insight. Not sure if I'm the only one who feels this way but I think it would be cool.

Hey Gary,

Thanks a lot for the inspirational note. We really
want to have global multicultural discussion about
aviation and beyond.

If anytime you decide to fly over the middle east, we
have a small airport 5 minutes from our workshop.
You can google for LLIB. We always have plenty
of good cold beer in the fridge. Just let us know. 🍻

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Status Report: #4

That report is about:

• Vertical Stabilizer - Section 6
• Rudder - Section 7

Finally after many months of waiting we have
all the complete plane organized on the shelfs.
Sunday morning we took a deep breath and dived
into the real work. First one was the VS.

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• Vertical Stabilizer - Section 6

The Vertical stabilizer is a good place to start: it is
designed out of few parts for the sceleton and one bended
piece of an aluminium skin. The construction of the web is
a pretty straight-forward thing: the rear spar and the front
spar are connected via 3 ribs. A couple of reinforcement
plates to make their reinforcment thing are in some critical
points, and the web is ready for the skin.




Once done, the web is fitting perfectly into the skin. Once
the skin is there: cleco-cleco to see it is solid and all the
holes of the skin are directly with the rib holes under them.
If all match driling the holes according to the map. Most of
the holes 3/32''. Dimpling the skin - took overall 1.5 hours
a single person to accomplish.

Exactly as the training project -- just a bit larger.

Done: disconnecting all of it and throwing back to the
shelf for latter priming.

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• Rudder - Section 7

Rudder has a bit more complicated structue. You have to
cutout this sharp spears that will form the ribs of the
construction. The reason is simple -- the trailing edge of a
rudder is sharp and all the profile is more triangle-shaped,
so a regular type of rib won't fit here. That is why you form
7 DIY special sharp ribs from pair of spear formed pieces
of metal.



When you have the custom ribs ready, you have to adjust
the counter balance weight for a special rib placed
on top of the construction. That one will be connected
with the nut plates and boltes.






That brings us to the final construction. The skins
are two separate pieces of aluminum that can be easy
connected to each side of the assembly. Still all
clecco-connected, but looking like a real tail.

.

• Summary

That two assemblies proved to be a good starting point,
being not very 'heavy' but allowing to study some new
tricks -- and we went through the first scary moments of
drilling the real plane. The progress is pretty cool, in first
21 hours of such a mutual work we are ready to prime two
first constructions of our bird. It wasn't that hard but
mostly like some straight-forward experinece,
and we had a lot of fun during this 3 days.



Cheers.
Roman & Dima

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Status Report: #5

That report is about:

• Day of the Priming
• The First Fuc*kUp

We had enough aluminum now to make a pause
in the construction process and declare on the priming
session.

There is an endless debate whether to prime or not. We
personally decided im favor of priming without doubt. That
monstrous humidity that we usually have like we usually
have on a sea shore of theMideterenians with 40°C make
even clecco russty.

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• Day of the Priming

What did we use: Alodine 1200 - for aluminium conversion
coating. Another protection layer is Strontium Chromate.

The process compounds of several steps:

1. Scuffing the metal a little with scotch or some sand paper
2. Washing all the dust away with the tinner.
3. Putting on Alodine with a flannel.
4. Waiting 15 minutes for Alodine to make its effect
5. Washing everything with watter

[Now it is ready for priming.]

6. Before spraying we usually go over with the Antisilicon
7. Spraying the Strontium easily not to make the layers
too heavy, cause they may flow down.

Here are some pictures of the chemicals we use:







The actual painting:








It took us some time to make a good hand for spraying
the color, so we moved carefully, putting very thin layers
of color and waiting them to dry up. But later we got some
boost of confidence and flushed through this work very
efficiently finishing the preparation of two first parts
of the empeanage.


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• The First Fuc*kUp

I guess it happens in life of every builder and always
in the moment you mostly not expect it. So here is what
happened: we bought a very cool scuffing instrumment,
and it worked very well on an open and wide surfaces.
It worked so well that you could have scuffed tens of
square meters in 10 minutes. The problem was on the
dimpled spots, the cone of the dimple was rising a bit high
above the skin and the roughness of the sand paper was a
bit higher than required for that type of aluminium.
The result was broken holes and the whole skin thrown
to the garbage.

The full discussion on forum can be seen here: [link].
I will give some more sad picture of this event.







.

• Summary

Anyway, omitting the sad part that cost us $500, the
coating process went pretty good, and after
14 man-hours we are finally ready to rivet our very
first structures. I don't have enough words to describe the
excitment for our first week progress. See you the
upcommimg weeks!






Cheers.
Roman & Dima

Some paint fumes, a couple beers....
 

A good day!

Yeah, more sweet days to come.

Very fun build log to read, keep up the good work! First mistake is the worst, you will get used to them. :D I have a bucket of screw up parts now...

Yeah, pretty stupid mistake but, we studied
how to do it right and moving forward.

:D

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Status Report: #6

That report is about:

• How the Horizontal Stabilizer made my day?
• Last painting day before the great finalization.

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• How the Horizontal Stabilizer made my day?

The Horizontal Stabilizer is by far the most complex
structure we have been working on so far. It consists of
three types of ribs and has the longest spars we ever
touched so far. Oh, and yes, its wing structure reminds
you that the thing you building is actually a plane.



The spar of HS is a pretty important part of the plane.
It makes all the balance working: it takes the counter
weight of the engine, and cause that one is really heavy,
so the forces that work here are also pretty serious.

There is about a gazillion of different holes on that
spars, and they are there for the spar to be reinforced
with the doubler and in-spar caps, and it also has the ribs
integrated into that eventually. So the work there should
be done with a serious attention to the details. One wrong
drill and you are off the road.




The assembly of the internal web is pretty cool, it's the
first time we meet such a various types of methods to
reinforce the construction. In addition to the usual doubler
plates on a the spar, we also have stringers to keep the
long ribs solid and caps on the spar flanges to add some
mass there.



Hundreds of holes to countersink and dimple so all the
rivets will be hidden and will keep the aerodynamics.
As you doing tens and later hunderds of those guys, you
got some confidence and the work flows up quickly. We had
to constantly remind ourselves that one wrong move and we
would have to order new parts.




That all leads us here: Horizontal Stabilizer in all its
beauty, small wings that are almost ready to be painted
and installed on the plane. Almost there but not yet there,
and still watching it assembled was really making my day.

The preparation of the Horizontal Stabilizer for Strontium
coating took us about: 26 hours of 4 hands work. Yeap, 2
of us means 4 hands ;-) . Anyway, 52 man-hours and we are
there.

• Last painting day before the great finalization.

The story of the various painting days is pretty similar:
you do all your preparations and place the various parts
in good positions to make it more convenient to coat
them.

The guys that follow our story, probably remember that last
time we did the painting we seriously damaged the skin
of the Vertical Stabilizer ? so serious that we had to order
a new one. Vans acted very quickly here and before our
second coating day we got the new part. A bit preparation,
and the new part is also painted with the other 2 skins of
the Horizontal Stabilizer.



One more interesting point to mention: in that picture we
have a small gauge that helps us to measure the exact
thickness of the coating layer. If you are looking for one,
remember you have to find a device for non-magnetic metals
as aluminum will not work with the standard simple devices.

The spec of Strontium says 20-30 microns will do: we made
it a bit thicker but still in the limits to keep it
elastic so it will stay on the metal for very long time.


.

• Summary

It is very inspiring for us to see us making it while the
complexity of the assembly is raising up. I believe that
with the time that trend will continue to be the same, as
well as our ability to make it.

Now the parts of the Vertical Stabilizer, the Horizontal
Stabilizer and the Rudder are totally ready for the final
assembly, and we are totally ready to start the final
riveting stage. Join us there.



Cheers.
Roman & Dima

.

Status Report: #7

That report is about:

• How to make your workspace to be ultra-inspiring?
• Riveting: Vertical Stabilizer (The tail of the 1st rivet)
• Riveting: Rudder

That time our report is very heavy in achievements and we
are super happy to put it here. Let's go and see it step by
step:



.

• How to make your workspace to be ultra-inspiring?

Lets admit it, not every moments in the garage are
energetic and effective, sometimes you make mistakes
and desperately looking for some motivational boost.
We want the walls to radiate aviation, we want
to have our goal in front of the eyes all the time.
If you remember clearly what you want to achieve, it
keeps you extremely motivated and highly energetic.

Alex came to our place once and ask us: "Hey do you want
me to put some planes on the wall for you?", apparently
he was doing this as a small business mostly printing
some De Vinci stuff on people seals. Simple as that
2 weeks after this conversation he landed in our
garage again with his worker and they made this two
awesome posters. Our place is not the same since
that moment. Each time we enter the place we know
exactly why we are going to spend all this hours there.







Every project has it's memorable moments. In our
garage such a moment is the very first rivet
installation. It is the last step to finalize all the
preparation and the first one towards making real parts
of the plane. As you may guess, we are going
to count our rivets from here till that magic moment
when the plane takes off from a nearby airfield.






.

• Riveting: Vertical Stabilizer (The tail of the 1st rivet)

I have seen that construction once or twice already but
that time it was tied together with clecos and a true
felling came that it is all temporary and will be dismantled
in a moment - that exactly what happened. But that time
it is a completely different feeling: it is done, it is
there and one day we are going to fly on that part.








Less than 300 rivets ? and I am holding the first real
part of the plane. What can be more exciting?! What a
divine moment indeed. Nothing can stop us now!





.

• Riveting: Rudder

The Rudder riveting is a bit more complex job. In most of it's
parts it is very similar to the Vertical Stab, but some parts
are new and are directly related to aerodynamics. Here we are
breaking the leading edge just a little bit -- not to much but
just enough to make it perfectly aligned after the leading edge
bend.







Now the bending part: it looks a bit dangerous to make
some round structures, but we did a good preparation
and have actually done it once or twice on a training project.
We also prepared the right tools: if that is the correct
term for a piece of a plumbing pipe. Anyway, it worked
perfectly including the blind riveting later. Great joy
to see your first self-made leading edge of the real
controller.







What is that? No, it is not a fuel leak sealing: it is
an idea by Vans: how to cushion your crack-prone
trailing edge. This time the wedge is riveted with
what is called the wet riveting technique: code-name
for squeezing up some goop between the skin and the wedge.







A bit more than a thousand rivets and we have our second
part ready.







Guess what: once you have two parts that are sitting together
on the plane, you can try the integration just in time you have
them done. That is exactly what we had after the ruder was done,
done, done. (No screws yet, waiting for the total Empennage
assembly)





.

• Summary:

Hard to believe that we got those boxes just about a month
ago. This is still the first shy steps into the world of RVators.
But 2 parts of a real plane is already something we can
be proud of, and we are! We will continue to unbox the aviation
for ourself and all the great guys that love to build stuff.






Cheers.
Roman & Dima

.

Status Report: #8

That report is about:

• Final riveting of the Horizontal Stabilizer

That time the report is short and very focused on the
Horizontal Stab. riveting.



.

• Final riveting of the Horizontal Stabilizer

After short session of painting we got the parts yellow
shinny and corrosion protected. All is ready to make
the final assembly. Front spar riveted together with the
front spar cap, nose ribs, in-spar ribs tied together with
the stringers. All that riveted together to form the backbone
assembly of the two small wings of the Horizontal.








Two pieces of the skins to cover each wing all riveted
to the flanges. and rear spar to seal the construction.




.

• Summary:

That is it short but focused. The final riveting
of the Horizontal finalizing the 3rd part of the
plane. After exactly 1948 rivets we feel super
energetic to move forward toward the 2 last parts
of the Empennage.






Cheers.
Roman & Dima

awesome
 

you guys are making great progress and doing good work. I appreciate you taking the time to post your progress.

Love it!
 

Really fun pictures. You guys look like you're having a blast. Thanks for posting.

Thanks guys, we really having a lot of fun
constructing the RV. The old say about enjoying
the way is about us. 😉

.

Status Report: #9

The complexity goes up and the reward is going to be
adequate this time. The small wings that control the
pitch are on the workbench:


.

• Elevators: two wings that will keep your nose high.

First assembly: we create the ribs out of two separate parts
of aluminum which will be connected later with blind rivets.
This time the two small wings are not symmetric, cause we
have: the trimmer. That is right the trimmer the first mechanical
part that will move with help of small servo motor that will be
also installed right there inside the elevator.

We didn't hold the temptation and tried the fairing, also to check
that wedge fabrication is correct - you have to polish it's corner
a little bit to keep the aerodynamic shape. Da***mn it looks beautiful.







Skipping the coating session describing this time, you can
believe us it was pretty similar to the other time we did
it.

The motor location is pretty cool and designed that way
that you can take it out for inspection after the airplane
will be already flying. Seven nut-plates are pre-dimpled
to ensure smoothness of the external elevator skin.
I think we will show you how it works on the main assembly
stage.

Two spars are holding the construction of each elevator
together the front spar is also connected with the tip rib
that also contains a heavy counter balance lead weight.





Unbelievable, I still remember our first one, and
wasn't that too much time ago. Somewhere close to
finishing the elevators we passed the 3000 rivets.
Wow that is already some experience. Some rummors
says we have 10,000 more to go.








Bending the leading edge is not different than all
the other parts. The plumber pipe will do the magic,
and several pop rivets will hold your construction
smooth, round and aerodynamic.

The trailing edge should be very sharp here. That is
why the design works it out with the foam ribs that
are small light and glued together with a simple tank
pro-seal.



.

• Summary:

The elevators are done, we spent almost 2 weeks
working on that part - from the moment of open
the draws and till the magic moment it had
the connecting bearing on it. And we will show
here that beauty in the next report once it
will be installed on the full assembly of the
Empennage.





Cheers.
Roman & Dima

Roman & Dima:

Thank you for the excellent build blog. I'm enjoying watching your progress. Also, your shop is very well organized! It looks great. Have fun building!

Thanks Karl, you are welcome for cup of rivets
and cold beer in our workshop, we are only 12k
km away from Arizona. 🍻

.

Status Report: #10

That report is about:

• Aft Fuselage: it's almost the fuselage, in fact it is the fuselage.

After we have made small wing type structures (...four of them),
now we have a chance to try our skills on the actual body of
the plane. Here is how it looks like:

.

• Aft Fuselage: The first part of the plane bodys

Like any usual work procedure, we drive as quickly as possible
to the first assembly, drilling the matching holes, dimpling,
deburring and — what is mostly important — studying the full
idea behind the current assembly.

This time, we have a very interesting structure constructed
from ribs that look like large rectangular frames. The scale
of the ribs is growing, that's how the conical structure have
been achieved. All that tight together with large longerons
and stringers to enforce the construction and finally is closed
by large sheets of skin.






Once done, the first assembly looks shiny like a time machine
from some science fiction book. Next steps: coat it with some
yellow protection.







Usual procedure of coating is omitted here, but we couldn't
help holding it and are publishing the first sight of all the
internal ribs, nicely anti-corrosion protected.








Starting to rivet the whole thing. There is about 2000 rivets
in this section alone.






After first 4000 rivets, you start feeling some confidence as
for your chances to finish that job.







I have no idea how one can do that riveting job alone. We
are lucky to have four hands. The work on the aft flows really
smoothly and we're enjoying every single moment.







Finally, the first steps into the avionics world. The harness
is for the ELT device, for the trimmer and the strobe light
on the rudder. There will be more, but here touching this one
for 5 minutes takes me back into high technology universe, and
opens all the discussion about what other electronics we need:
and very soon we will post more about that.







Back to the riveting trenches. The deck is, probably, the most
interesting structure in this whole section. All the time doing
it, I have been puzzled by the way the whole tail is assembled
on that focal point. It wasn't that difficult — eventually, —
but it required some concentration to get there.





.

• Summary:

It took us 130 man hours and 2 calendar weeks to finish
the Aft part. It is hard to believe but about two months
after we touched the metal and really started this project.
After almost 5000 rivets we are ready to assembly all the
parts together and have full functioning Empennage.
Expect for that in the next reports.





Cheers.
Roman & Dima