Pretty good day full of aviation today.  Scotty and I went out to the airport to direct aircraft parking at Oakdale (O27) this morning.  We had a nice breakfast cooked by members of EAA Chapter 90 and then spent the next hour and a half parking airplanes.  As in, guiding them to their parking spots.  The event is our first annual poker run.  The object of the game is to fly to different airports where you pick up some cards.  When you land back at the first airport you check your poker hand that you’ve created picking up the cards at the airports on the route.  The pilot with the best hand wins a prize.  It is a fun event and brought pilots in from as far away as Watsonville.

The second half of the day was spent pre-fitting some parts on the airplane.  I would pre-fit one part, get as far as I could and then move on to another.  Scotty did the final riveting of the vertical stabilizer and afterwards I installed it.  It’s starting to look very airplanish now.

Here are some photos of our progress:

This is the instrument panel and firewall pre-fit.  You can also see that we’ve installed the floor board, scuff plate, rudder pedals, sticks, and seats since the last update.

Here is a photo of the seats.  Angela was my big seat helper.  She prepared the uphostry by cutting the openings for the lacing and wires which hold the seats to their frames.  Angela was also the first person to sit in the airplane!

Here’s the airplane’s first occupant.

We’ve installed the optional aft baggage compartment.  There is another baggage area just behind the seats which I haven’t installed yet.

We completed and bolted on the vertical stabilizer.  The rudder is not complete yet but I decided to hang it on the VS for this photo.

Here’s the entire airplane so far.  You can see the firewall that I have pre-fit on the front.  The aft baggage compartment door (the blue triangle) which I have also-prefit.  Everything is coming along nicely.

Scotty and I did a bit more work today.  We practiced measuring and marking work.  Using a center punch to keep our drill from wandering, and of cours, drilling.

“This is where I want you to mark with the center punch.”

Right on the crosshairs.

A firm grip on the drill, centered on the punch marks, and we make short work of our project for today.

It doesn’t get any better than this.

Amen.

Got to spend my first full day of building.  We made some pretty good progress.  We made a few blunders but overall we did pretty good.

Bluder number 1 was riviting a tube in the wrong place.  Scotty just rivits too fast for me to keep up with the book reading.   I drilled out the rivet and we riveted the tube in the right place.

Blunder number 2 was putting the vertical stabilizer rudder hinge attach nutplate in the wrong position.  I think.  It just doesn’t look right.  I mounted it in the only pre-drilled hole in that area of the VS spar but it’s up inside the the gusset area.  I don’t eve know why I bothered drilling that hole, I only need to construct the frame.

Here’s what we got done today.

Rear fuselage

Vertical stabilizer

Well, the first task of the project is done.  Inventory is complete.  There are a few backordered items but it looks like everything else is there.  To make it easy to find things I stapled the bags to the crate.  I picked up this tip on another Rans blog but I can’t remember where.  It will make finding the bags much easier.

The only problem is, I ran out of crate!  I will probably pull the crate away from the wall a bit so I can put up the bags that are still in the two boxes on the floor.

I’ve started laying out the pieces for the first project which is assembling the rear fuselage.  Lots and lots of aluminum tubing involved here.

Everything else is going to stay in the big crate until I need it.

I did run into one miscommunication on the part of Rans and/or my dealer.  Apparently since I didn’t specify an engine option they didn’t ship my cowling.  But… I paid for the cowling.  I fired off a few emails and the next morning I got a phone call from Rans and my dealer.  There was some minor strife involved.  Rans needs to fine tune their customer service a bit.  Though hearing the back story I can cut them a little slack.  They did resolve the situation to my satisfaction quickly so I am pleased with that.  I’m going to go ahead and order my firewall forward package on Monday and when they ship it they will send the cowling along with it.

Well the boxes finally showed up.  They were LARGE.  Here are a couple of pictures of what we have so far:

It’s a very big box.  The very long box is right behind it.

My A#1 helper – and the whole reason I’m building another plane.  My last hurrah with my son.

Passenger compartment.  It’s powerder-coated chromoly steel tubing.  This is looking from the front left to the rear right.

This is the left gear leg socket.  Mmmm… powder-coat-alicious.

One of the molded plastic fuel tanks.

This is the dacron covering material.  Precolored.  No painting necessary.   The black you see isn’t a shadow, it’s one of the black stripes.

Inventory fun for everyone!

Well there you have it.  The first pictures of my new aircraft project.  I’ll post some updates as soon as I’m doing something building related.  For the next week or so I’ll be doing an inventory.

In anticipation of the S-6ES kit arriving tomorrow I’ve gone ahead and reserved an N number with the FAA.  So the Rans S-6ES Coyote that Scotty and I are building is N612SV.  There, it’s practically done!  Project Covanent Promise is under way.

By the way, any Bible scholars out there?  What is THE covenant promise?

Look for a posting within a couple of days with pictures of the crates.  And the answer to the question above.

Big important projects always have cool code names.  I’ve picked the code name for the project that my son and I are about to embark upon: Coventant Promise.  Not only does it sound really cool, there is deeper meaning to it.  As part of God’s covenant with me I am required to train my children well.  Since I cannot pass on my computer expertise to my son (though he is getting pretty handy surfing the net -another story) I have decided to pass on the only other thing I know; building airplanes.  I obviously won’t be able to pass on all the planning that goes into an aircraft this time around but perhaps on the next plane his mental facilities may be better suited to planning.  For now we’re going to learn proper shop technique, basic aerodynamics, and basic aircraft construction techniques.

The kit should be here in a week or two so it’s time to kick off Covenant Promise.