Aft deck skin in place ready for riveting.

Nutplate put on to hold lower and upper empennage fairing.

Little bit more fiberglass work on the ram air snout.  I want the outer portion of the lib to be rounded so I'm adding flox and BID to build it up slowly.

New VS tip from vans arrived.   I goofed on the first one and made it two wide.  This one fits perfectly, except it's more than an 1/8" lower then the rudder tip.  Looks like I'll have to build it up too. 

Painted the empennage tips with a high fill lacquer paint to fill in all the little stuff.  Also did the ram air box.

Mounted the rudder strobe/position light.  I grounded the nav light on the bottom of the three bolts holding the rudder on.

Finally decided to do something about those rivets along the firewall which you cannot buck.  I countersunk them, drilled them out to #30 and placed AACQ-4-4 structural rivets in.

Drilled and tapped the holes for the lower empennage fairing.

Connected the push-pull tube to the elevators.  I had to use 4 washers on each side of the bearing to fill the gap.

Drilled a 1/4" drain hole in the lowest part of the lower rudder fiberglass tip.

Made the rudder cable attach brackets out of steel as required.  I was very careful to make them exactly the same left and right.

Attached the rudder cables to the pedals and rudder.  Still have to place the cotter pins in.  FYI, I'm 5/10, and have the rudder pedals in the middle attachment holes.  The steel attachment brackets are 1" long hole to hole and the pedals are perfect for me.  I painted the steel brackets with a flat black aircraft lacquer.

David came by to loan his services as bucker and riveter.  We got almost all the rivets shot in the aft deck skin.  You don't have to get inside the plane for the front half, just hang part of your body in there and buck away.  Now the aft half can be done as well but you are bucking blind at that point.  I may just crawl in the tube when David gets another chance to come over.

More minutiae.  I made sure the servo arm is perpendicular to the drive shaft and tightened everything up and added some lacquer to note that everything is torqued to spec.  I'm sort of working from the back forward and calling it good or done as I work forward.

Then I spent a few hours scratching my head on how I want to get the stick grip wires routed and affixed within the limited area between the seat ribs.  I'm sure it will become crystal clear tomorrow after I sleep on it.  This is almost the last few wires to attach.  Thank goodness.  Once this is done and the wiring is tidied up, there aren't any more big wiring jobs.  I still don't positively know what I want the second momentary switch on the grip to do.  Perhaps switch frequencies on the SL40, or something else, dunno yet.

Then I spent several hours getting stick grip wiring done.  I mounted a small terminal block in between the ribs just outboard of the center pass-through, on the pilots side.  The stick grip wires will come through one bushing and get mated to the terminal block.  I'm doing this for two reasons; 1) in case I need too swap wires on the controls for the roll and pitch servos, 2) in case I ever need to remove the pilots control stick.

Then I spent an exacerbating amount of time standing on a sawhorse, hunched over the side of the fuselage while I cut, labeled and mated the wired to the terminal block.  Geese my back hurts.  Thank god for wine.  I'll put the control stick in place tomorrow and test the connections.  Trust me, this is almost the worst part of the wiring, YUK!

Earlier today I made a decision about whom I would use for my DAR.  Those of you that know Gary Sobek know that, if anything, he's one thorough person.  Exactly what I want.  I'm no test pilot and will never claim to be.  I can fly but there is ALWAYS room for improvement.  The last thing that I want is too take off and have issues with the plane on the first flight.  My skills just might not be enough, even with a heavy dose of transition training.  I'm happy with my decision and judging by the wealth of information that Gary has already provided me (I only made the call today) I'm really excited to utilize his experience and expertise for my final checkout.

I labeled the myriad of wires coming out of the stick and connected them.

The wires exit at the base of the stick and I've got enough slack so the stick moves freely without bending the wires too much.  They are wrapped in two or three layers of shrink wrap too.  Where the wires pass through the seat rib I have them immobilized with a plastic 90 degree fitting and wire ties.

I ended cutting 1.5 inches off the top of the stick.  Now the top touches no buttons or switches and it cannot fit between the power and prop controls either.  The last thing I want is the stick to get wedged someplace.  But If I'm making stick deflections this big, I'm in trouble anyway and would probably be wishing for a parachute on my back too.

Neutral

Not full aft deflection.

Oh, and to make my night even worse; yesterday I cut 1.5" off the pilots control stick.  So tonight I cut 1.5" off the copilots stick, thinking that "hey, they Have to be the same length, right?  NOT!".  I blindly cut before measuring and you know what happens when you do that.  Ask me how I know.  Now I have a "shortie" for the co-pilot.  I think I'll order another, either that or find a broom handle.

Another issue I have yet to call Vans about are the tabs on the rudder pedals.  They aren't aligned with the bushings going through the F-902 bulkheads.  The bushings are located properly and the pedals are in correctly.  The rudder cables have a solid metal end to them which doesn't bend.  Consequently the cable itself bends to conform to the needed shape.  What I'm worried about is the cable rubbing against the aft side of the bulkhead.  I'll call vans about this.  They'll probably just tell me to bend the tabs a little or not to worry about it.

Don't tell me again, I know the foam grips are upside down on the control stick.  Yeah, I did it on purpose, just to be different.  (right)

Next, I headed to JoAnn Fabrics.  They have all kinds of varying thickness of foam, not to mention that there are about a bazillion chicks in there and no guys.  Too bad their either 80 or 12 yrs old.  I get some good looks coming in there covered in airplane "goo" and walking to the counter with popsicle sticks or, in this case, foam sheets.  Love it.

I purchased the 2mm thick sheets and cut them to width and laid them along the floor under the brake and fuel lines.  Even stuck one piece between the shelf for the fuel pump and the lines running under it.  Should protect them from rubbing. 

Also note,  the only wires left to run on this plane are the .....  Yep, done with wiring, just connect these laying here by the pump and flowscan and call it game.  I used a molex connector for the flowscan in case it ever needs to come out but I'm just going to crimp the fuel pump lines.  You can also see at the top of the picture the AOA lines covered in plastic sheathing.

Want to know something that's really weird when you are building?  Sometimes the first things you made are the last to install, case in point, electric trim.  Done.

Shot of the right hand set of wires coming aft.  I'll cover these as well later.

Then I spent the remainder of the day checking out why my switch for the A/P doesn't work in the GPS mode.  It works in the EFIS mode though.  So some data is not making it's way.  I think I have it sorted out though.  It became apparent that the GNS430 *cannot* output the same type of data (Aviation) on two RS232 channels at the same time.  It just won't let me set it up that way.  Unfortunately I thought I could when wiring and utilized the second RS232 output for the switch.  Fortunately, I have the original pigtail just sitting there waiting for me to use. 

After doing my taxes (that's a whole nuther page) I sanded the crap out of the lower cowl but I decided that another slathering of micro baloons was necessary.  Here you can see how the smooth transition is shaping up.

Then just going straight through my short list I finally decided that I would use the fiberglass oil door and only put one stip of bent aluminum to keep it rigid.  JB Welded it into place and will squeeze some rivets on it tomorrow.  I'm calling this, done.

After that I mounted the shoulder harness braces and cables.  I put some twine through the forward attach points of the harness cables so I can "grab" them when the baggage bulkhead is mounted.  Gotta think ahead...

Oil door got riveted on too.

Worked on the aileron trim.  First I sanded and painted the steel couplers.  When the controls are full left and full forward and the trim is full left you need about 1.25 inches of .041 wire to connect the motor tab and the spring.  I wonder if I can use something other than the wire.  It's such a short distance and bending that wire is killer on your fingers.  You don't want to use needle nose pliers because you don't want any nicks on the wire.  hmmmmm

After weeks of thinking about how I want to secure the cowl hinge pins I've decided to screw a round plate flush with the cowl skin.  I'm going to take two molds of the area I want to place the recessed covers; one for the cover and one for a backing plate so I'll have something to put the nutplates on.  The backing plate will be bonded to the inside of the cowl.

Here's the circle with some glad wrap stuck on the top to keep it from sticking to the cowl.

Here's three layers of BID covered with dacron.

And here's what I used to draw the circles.  Yep, it's a Sake cup.  Guess what I'm having later on...