So I officially became an aircraft builder on January 1, 2012. Here is the obligatory first rivet photo. Great! One down and 20,000 to go! To build a Vans aircraft in the normal build order, one starts at the rear and works towards the propeller. The RV 7A airplane consists of 4 major kits, empenage (tail), wings, fuselage, and finishing kit. None of the four kits contain the engine or avionics so they must be purchased separately.
The keen observer will note the the date written below the first rivet is a week later than my official start date. This is because the first rivet comes after several steps are completed on the rear spar of the horizontal stabilizer. The component pictured is a bracket holding the elevator hinge bearing to the rear horizontal stabilizer spar.
Before one can begin driving rivets, one must first obtain the empenage kit from Vans. Here is what I saw sitting on my porch after returning home from work one day.
It is a surprisingly small package considering the size of the completed tail. We thought the writing on the box "High dollar Aircraft Parts" was kind of funny. But not at all inaccurate.
The contents were well packed. My wife, Carolina, was nice enough to do the inventory for me. Then after my shop was very nearly complete we started work on the empenage:
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| Plan set and build manual |
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| Match drilling spar reinforing bars to rear HS spar |
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| Rear HS Spar |
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| Carolina, deburing machine |
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| Forward HS spar |
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| Carolina squeezes first rivet |
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| Rear HS spar components during priming |
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| Carolina on the lookout for aluminum shavings |
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| Forward HS spar assembly |
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| Match drilling HS skeleton with skins |
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| Top side drilled. flip HS and repeat |
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| Assembled HS takes flight |
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