Day 7 - November 7, 2009

This week we hit the the first construction milestone with the completion of the Rudder assembly for the RV-12. The Vertical Stabilizer is very close to being completed, and the Stabilator and Tail Cone aren't far behind that.



This week our lecture time focused on installation of bolt and screw fasteners, different ways of safetying them and installing them with proper torque values.

We took delivery of our wing kit this week and some team members will be doing inventory and starting to deburr and prepare parts at our next session.

Day 6 - October 31, 2009

The Teams are already making good progress on the Empenage kit. They have been at work on it for less than two sessions and the Vertical Stabilizer and Rudder are almost completed.

The tail cone parts have been prepared and they will likely have it nearly riveted together by the end of the work session next week.

The work on the Stabilator is also progressing well. At the current rate of progress we expect to have at least one team starting to work on Wing kit parts at the next work session.

Keep checking back to see how quickly these twelve teenagers turn all of these parts into an RV-12 Experimental Light Sport Aircraft.

Day 5 - October 24, 2009

Today was the big day. We made the transition from learning processes and techniques required to build an airplane, to actually building one.

In the process I think all the team members are in agreement that even though we have completed the learning projects, their is still a lot more to learn.

The group of twelve is now divided into four teams of three members each. Each team is working on one of the four major assemblies that we are starting out with. The Tail Cone, Stabilator, Vertical Stabilizer, and the Rudder.



A large portion of the deburring needed on parts was completed and some assembly was begun. With twelve pairs of hands working on these assemblies, we expect progress to go quickly and we will be moving on to the Wings and Fuselage very soon.

Day 4 - October 17, 2009

The team members have made great progress working on their training projects.  Everyone's skills have greatly improved.

By the end of today's session, most everyone has finished their tool box project, and the rest are nearly finished. We ended our day by moving a pile of RV-12 Empenage kit parts onto one of our work tables.

Next Saturday is the big day...we will do an inventory of the kit to get familiar with all of the parts we have been studying in the construction manual, and then we will finally begin working on real airplane parts.

We will be working on the entire empenage kit and fuselage tailcone at the same time, with the 12 teens divided up into four teams with 3 members in each team.