Fuselage

December 30, 2006

Ran wiring to aft fuselage in the conduit I had previously installed. The left side conduit holds the wiring to the tail position and strobe lights. Since this conduit is smaller in diameter that what I ran in the wings, I had trouble pulling the necessary wires through this conduit since I had already installed and secured it. I ended up removing the conduit, putting the wire in it and reinstalling it. Lesson learned!

January 7, 2007

Ran wiring to aft fuselage in the right side conduit. This conduit holds the wiring to the elevator trim servo. No problem pulling wire in this conduit since the wire bundle was much smaller.

January 9- 30, 2007

Took another nice vacation to our condo on Maui. This was the first trip we have taken there during the winter months, just in time to enjoy the start of peak whale-watching season. Saw many whales everyday as they come down from Alaska during the winter to mate and give birth. Didn't do much else but hit the beach and do 12 oz. curls. I put together a slide show of some of the pics I took. Check them out here!

March 3-4, 2007

Installed a DB9 connector on the trim tab aft wiring and mounted it to the F-709 bulkhead. This will allow easy disconnect of trim tab wiring if I need to remove the servo motor for any reason. (Credit to Gary Newsted for this idea). Checked wiring from mid-fuse J-box to the DB9 for continuity. All checked out.

March 9, 2007

Fabricated backer plates for comm and transponder antennas. I'm using the belly mount Comant for the comm and the standard dipole for transponder.

Transponder backing plate and antenna location. Transponder located on belly on right side.

March 10, 2007

Ran wiring from mid fuselage j-box to seat back brace for flap motor. Mounted a terminal strip to connect flap motor to wiring from j-box.

March 11, 13, 2007

Deburred, dimpled, prepped and primed backer plates for antennas. Test fit them in position.

March 14-15, 2007

Clecoed forward seat floors in place. Deburred edges on the F-704K upright spar caps and positioned and match drilled them in place. The manual never really says when to do this but I should have done this a lot earlier so they could have been primed with the rest of the cabin components. Also, drilling in the already riveted cabin area, aluminum shavings are hard to get out of some of the cracks and crevices

March 16-17, 2007

Riveted the F-6111 aft skin reinforcing ribs to top aft skin. Began riveting top skins to fuselage. Thanks to Dave Gamble for his help shooting rivets. Starting to lose the porcupine look!