El Gato Dos

After a nice break in NC I’m back home and building again. Today is the day to build the elevators…or more accurately to fabricate the skin stiffeners for the elevators.

Since it’s such a nice sunny day - I will spend a while relaxing on the veranda and palying with Valentina a bit.

Well airplane building is at a halt for the holidays. I’m spending some time with my folks. Comforting for be at the home I grew up in… Merry Christmas / Felize Navidad everyone!

Let’s dig into what’s involved in building an aluminum airplane. One skill that you will have to learn is blueprint reading. The ability to take a drawing of a part with its notes, material specification and dimensions and turn that into a real part.

The photo below is typical of this operation. The blueprint is describing the part “HS-714″ which is a piece of aluminum angle that is cut, shaped, drilled and bent to become one of the pieces that secures the horizontal stabilizer to the aircraft fuselage.

Starting with a piece of 6060-T6 aluminum aircraft angle (the right material is essential to meet the design specifications. Good layout work is essential, layout is the accurate measuring and marking of the workpiece with all locations of the cuts, holes and operations you’ll have to perform to make the part.

In the image you can see that blue layout dye (DyeChem) has been applied to the part. What’s harder to see are the scribed lines marking the end shape of the part to guide my milling operation.

The holes were predrilled by Van’s, but if they weren’t I would have measured and laid them out per the drawing.

I spent a lot of time in the garage recently and the two major components of the tail are finished! Having built a previous airplane has really helped to streamline and be much more efficient at building, machining and reading blueprints. On the first plane it took over a month to get these parts finished.

Imagine my surprise while I was doing some historical research I found that pre WWII Germany had a GPS system in aircraft. This photo proves it… the aircraft’s location is prominently displayed in Spanish on its wings; “D- AQUI”! (Translation “D- Here”)

Today I’m skinning the rudder skeleton that means in 2 short weeks of work I am almost finished with the tail kit. Something that took me 4 months on my first plane! I must have learned a few things since then.

The rudder skeleton, the internal structure of the rudder.

The right skin being riveted on.

My faithful co-builder George.