Finished building the new F-705 spar carrythrough bulkhead over the last couple of weeks. It looks like the old one, so no new pics… sorry!

As promised, we jumped back into building during the last couple of days. First order of business was to finish riveting the firewall. I left a couple of rivets undone because none of my rivet sets was small enough to fit in between the firewall flange and the rivet head. I ordered a small 3/4″ set from Brown Tool…and problem solved.

I had used some wooden wedges to keep the tailcone level during match-drilling, but it was too easy to move it out of alignment just by bumping it. So I devised this little clamping arrangement to keep things nice and level; the thin stiffener angle is drilled and clecoed at the top, and clamped to the aluminum angle on the bottom. There’s one on either side, front and back. Worked great!

With the clamping issue solved, I went back to match-drilling the aft tailcone.

I also ordered some new parts for the F-705A/B rear spar carrythrough. I was never happy with the way the original parts came out, so I’m rebuilding them. Sorry, no pictures.

The massive website update I promised is in progress. If you keep looking back through this page, you’ll see stuff filling in from the past year and more. I didn’t realize the website was so out of date…yikes! I’m using the time between now and New Years to get all those updates done, and also to finish my CFII/MEI renewal – so no more airplane fabricating until the New Years holiday.

Speaking of the New Year, Ellen and I have resolved to make the RV a primary non-family-time priority – steady work through the week and a day on the weekend. We want to have the fuselage out of the garage and into the hangar by this time next year. It’s gonna hurt…I’m giving up what little flight instructing I was doing so it’s going to be a challenge to stay proficient in the cockpit. So…if you have an RV and happen to be flying it near Boston, stop by – I’ll buy you a really good lunch for a ride in your plane!

Did a little minor surgery on a J-channel to improve fit around the F-711 bulkhead.

The holidays are approaching, and we’ll be traveling during Thanksgiving. When we return, the project will go on hold in December while I work on my CFI renewal course and do a massive website update.

The next step is to match-drill the J-channels to the fuselage. But before that, the F-779/711/712 assembly must be clecoed in place, and that was a little challenging trying to maneuver the J-channels into place and get bulkhead holes lined up with the skin. As of now, the fit is close enough to get clecoes in all the holes. I can live with that, even if the fit isn’t 100 percent perfect.

The last step before match-drilling the J-channels is to make sure there’s no twist in the structure. I cut some shims out of oak and taped them in place on the sawhorses; I also taped the sawhorses themselves in place on the floor to prevent shifting. With the shims in place, I was able to get the whole assembly level…very cool

Forward measurement…

…and aft measurement.

While continuing to check the fuselage for twist, Ellen and I drilled the J-channels to the fuselage. I needed a spare pair of hands to keep the J-channel in place, and Ellen helped. Fortunately I didn’t drill any holes in her fingers.

I still have a little more work to do before drilling the J-channels to the F-775 skin, I’m going to have to work slowly to take out some remaining bend from the F-775.

Did a little more tweaking of tabs and general fit on the aft bulkhead assmebly, and drilled the tailwheel mount’s rear flange to accomodate those keeper rivets I mentioned before.

Today I marked and cut trimmed the F-775 skin to accomodate the tailwheel skin. There’s a template in the plans; I copied it, trimmed away the cutout area, taped it to the skin, and marked the skin to be removed. That’s a lot of words for a simple task…it’s probably easier just to look at the picture…

After a lot of cutting and filing, I clecoed the mount, bulkheads and skin together…

Getting that cutout right is an iterative process, as the skin curve changes a bit when a portion of the bend is removed and Vans template isn’t 100 percent accurate. Anyway, it’s done and looks good.

With those PITA bulkheads and skin fitted, I was able to make some progress getting the tailwheel mount drilled and fitted to the F-775/711/712 assembly. I marked and pilot-drilled to #30 the holes that attach the mount’s forward flange to the F-711 bulkhead. These are the holes I had inadvertently riveted on the -711, and subsequently had to drill out. They’ll get enlarged to accommodate AN3 bolts before the tailcone goes together permanently.

I also marked pilot holes in the tailwheel mount’s aft flange for two “keeper” rivets that will hold the mount in place until the mount, bulkhead and VS rear spar are drilled in assembly. Sorry, no pictures of this one.

Success! Got the new F-779 skin today, and it fits significantly better than the old one. I was able to get the F-711 and -712 bulkheads clecoed in with little or no force. Very cool.

I was so pumped to be over yet another hurdle that I decided to cleco the whole aft fuselage together. This process really needs two sets of hands, since the first step is to cleco the bulkheads to the fuselage aft bottom skin, then lay the j-channels in their respective cutouts in the bulkheads…

…and once the bulkheads were in place, the side skins went on. For the most part, this was an easy process – very little work required to get holes lined up. It was a nice change from all the heartache with that lower tailcone skin.

This was a pretty motivational day, it’s nice to see a big part of the airplane starting to come together.

Over the last few days I’ve started working again on fitting the F-711 and -712 bulkheads to the F-779 tailcone skin. It’s still turning out to be a pain in the ass. I also pulled out the tailwheel mount weldment and spring, and cleaned a little rist off the weldment – nothing too serious.

After spending hours and hours trying to get the skin and bulkheads sufficiently lined up to get clecoes in holes, I did some research and found out that Vans is apparently shipping a new F-779 skin that fits better than the old ones that were shipped a couple of years ago.

So after evalating the monetary value of the time I was spending and the frustration I was experiencing, I ordered a new skin. Hey…I buy really expensive things for the Air Force, so I’m used to throwing money at problems. It’s just not usually my money!