Empennage fairings started

We've been slowly working on section 12 in parallel with other tasks for a number of months.

We started by following the instructions to match-drill and rivet one of the elevator fairings:

Elevator tip fairing match-drilled in place

Elevator tip fairing riveted in place

Of course, only after riveting this first fairing did we realize that we should have removed some of the gel coat in the gap between the parts to make a smooth joint with filler - so we'll need to somehow do that later.

We drilled and trimmed the horizontal stabilizer fairings to clear the elevators:

Horizontal stabilizer tip fairing drilled in place

Progressively trimming the HS tip fairing to clear the elevator

HS tip fairing gap to the elevator


We also did most drilling and trimming of the empennage fairing:

Empennage fairing sitting in place

Empennage fairing with some holes match-drilled

I managed to find and drill the other holes using either the backlight trick (though I had to reduce the garage's lights to 1% for that due to the opacity of the gel coat), or with the strap duplicator:

Using the strap duplicator to match-drill the VS to the empennage fairing




Empennage fairing with all holes match-drilled

I then trimmed all the fairing's edges per instructions, which for the most part matched the scribe lines pretty well.

Empennage fairing with trimmed edges

Empennage fairing aft portion match-drilled to the tailcone and VS

Gap joint underneath the horizontal stabilizer

After trimming the edges, there are still some gaps between the fairing and the skins, which will have to be filled later:

Gap between the empennage fairing and the horizontal stabilizer skin

Gap between the empennage fairing and the vertical stabilizer skin

Since we're installing Aveo Ziptips, we have no reason for a light underneath the rudder. Unfortunately Van's doesn't make a rudder bottom fairing for the -10 without the light protrusion (they do for other RV models), so we had to remove that:

Rudder bottom fairing, with the protrusion marked off for removal

Rudder bottom fairing without the light protrusion

Next steps will include closing that rudder fairing opening, filling the empennage fairing gaps, opening up and countersinking the empennage fairing holes for screws, working on the rudder and VS top fairings (which right now are mounted on the plane, so pretty hard to reach), and laying fiber to close the HS and VS fairing rear openings.

Time lapse:


Total empennage fairing rivets: 22
Total empennage fairing time: 19.2h

Finish kit is here!

The finish kit finally arrived!

Finish kit box in the garage

I was told this box was smaller than usual, probably due to delaying the engine mount (so it can be shipped directly to Barrett for modification)

We of course unboxed it soon after:

Taking out fiberglass parts from the finish kit box

Wheel fairing hat

Doors (or as someone on Facebook said, "oh joy, doors!")

Opening up sub-boxes

Landing gear legs (those are heavy!)

Finish kit box all opened up

And then took some time to inventory and organize everything:

Tons of hardware from the finish kit

Organizing and counting screws by size (why do they have to mix them to begin with?)

I now have little excuse not to keep making progress :)

Time lapse: