Joshua's RV-9A Project

This was the big day.  Allison was back in the shop, and we started the fun by re-setting the outboard floor stiffeners from yesterday, then completed the inboard stiffeners.  Riveted the aft row of rivets at the firewall (the forward row doesn’t get installed until cowling work).  There’s a few tricky ones in there: the outboard few where the firewall weldment is very nearby, and the couple which are almost under the inboard angle brackets where the engine mount bolts on.  With a few different bucking bars (including a big crowbar), we made it work.

While Allison took a break, I squeezed the longeron rivets that do not attach any top skins, leaving a patten of holes open on the left side for the clips that will retain the static air tubing.  Next, I climbed under the fuselage and riveted the aft baggage-rib-to-bulkhead rivets.

After that was done, it was on to the tailcone join, which went quite quickly, just a couple rows of rivets, and up the side of the conical bend area.

With all the riveting done, there was nothing left to do but take the plane through its first (and only) aileron roll…  (can you do an aileron roll with no ailerons?)  The canoe is flipped!  Total build time to this point: 745.1 hours.  Now the real fun begins!

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 3rd, 2010 at 4:31 pm and is filed under Center Fuselage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.