23 February 2017

Fuselage to Tail mating






I think there are two events that are something that I have really been looking forward to. One is the completion of the canopy and doors with the other being the mating of the tail to fuselage. It was finally time to tackle one of those!


We started with getting the tail lined up to the fuselage. Thankfully the tail is pretty light and easy to maneuver. That doesn't mean however that it is not a pain in the butt to get the two to line up so that you can get enough clecos in to have the fuselage support the tail. What seemed to work well for us was to support the tail aft (around where the rudder brackets are) from a line suspended from the ceiling, and then block the forward part of the tail up to a height pretty close to the fuselage height. This allowed for enough movement of the tail to shimmy everything into place.











With the tail and fuse skins clecoed the ribs could be final drilled. The threaded 90 degree drill was a live saver with these holes.







With that done, the fuselage and tail longerons could be drilled and bolted. 







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