Day 21 - April 5, 2014

Today's session involved work on assemblies of all sizes. Starting with the tail section, the bulkhead assembly was finally completed and attached to the tail cone structure along with the side skins.

For the fuselage section, a few students completed some prep work on fuel tank pieces and landing gear components. Others worked on bolting the engine mount standoff to the fuselage firewall, as well as attaching the canopy frame.

Now onto the major assembly of the day...

The hangar experienced a little rearrangement today to make room for the 27 feet span of wing and fuselage! The exciting task of wing attachment was finally accomplished this afternoon. After some period of maneuvering and adjustment, both wings slid into the fuselage and are now resting comfortably in their proper places on the plane. A great deal of satisfaction and excitement was shared among all, however the hangar suddenly feels a bit crowded.

Day 20 - March 29, 2014

Work continued on the empennage kit. A mix of teams Red and Green began assembling the framework of the tail cone, riveting the stiffeners, bottom skins, and frames together.

A couple of students were given the task of preparing the bulkhead assembly, which will reside in the rear of the tail cone structure. This piece required much effort, involving many different types of fasteners and sub-assemblies.

As always, more work progressed within the fuselage. Team Purple continued with some more flight control installation, specifically the flaperon lever and pushrod assemblies. Both seat backs were also constructed, and placed aside for future installation.

With the flaperons installed onto the right wing assembly, both wings are ready for the following step of construction: attaching to the fuselage, the main task for next week's session. Stay tuned.