Spring Break

We took a break from building to ride our motorcycles to Fredericksburg and spent a restful three days in the Texas hill country sampling many of the fine wines that are produced in the area. Upon our return we celebrated Mark's mom's birthday as well as our nephew Hunter's fourteenth birthday.

 Hunter and Ryan (our nephews) posing with the VS

In between our brief vacation and the birthday celebrations, Mark has been able to complete the riveting of the skin onto the rudder (see the photos below) as well as all of the priming, deburring, dimpling, countersinking and skinning of the anti-servo tabs.

The tedium of drilling the rivet holes into the piano hinge that attaches the anti-servo tabs to the horizontal stabilizer was the only hitch that Mark encountered. All in all though, I think Mark enjoyed spending his time in this way rather than having to work on his graduate school homework or grading papers =).

Mark and Hunter help Ryan with his first cleocing experience:

Notice the rivets holding the piano hinge to the anti-servo tabs.







We're now ready to begin the more intensive work on the horizontal stabilizer. We may have to move the vertical stabilizer, rudder, and anti-servo tabs into the living room so that Mark has plenty of room to maneuver the much longer pieces that the horizontal stabilizer requires.

And last but not least. . . .WE ORDERED THE WING KIT TODAY!!!!!  We looked at the calendar and realized that we only have about eleven more weeks of school, and the lead time on the wing kit also happens to be eleven weeks.  Knowing we don't want to waste any of our precious time in the summer WAITING we thought today, the last day of spring break, was the best time to go ahead and put our order in.  Sometimes I have to pinch myself to believe we're actually doing this. . .