March 20, 2024 - Helping Build Jeff's RV-7

Our friend Jeff is building an RV-7 project he recently required.  Bruce and I spent a couple of days helping him do the initial mounting of the empennage and wings.

Here is the project.  I looked it over and thought the workmanship was excellent.
   
Fitting the horizontal stabilizer (HS) to the fuselage.
   
Jeff and Bruce accessing the situation.
   
Now Jeff is working on the vertical stabilizer (VS).
   
Drilling aluminum.
   
Match-drilling the VS to the fuse.
   
The empennage has been mounted to the fuselage.  Temporarily, of course.  Looking good!
   
Drilling the elevator horns.
   
With the empennage complete, we took it off and mounted the wings.  We had drift pins which made it fairly easy.  Then using the Smart Tool (level), tape measure, plumb-bobs, string and cinder bricks, we tried to make sure the wings were level, straight and aligned, before we match-drilled the all-important wing to rear spar hole.
   
 
   
We realized we needed to trim the left wing rear spar slightly.
   
In this picture you can see how we used cinder blocks and string to make sure the leading edge of both wings were aligned.
   
Trimming the rear spar slightly did the trick.  Then the leading edges of both wings aligned, the incidence (angle) of both wings were correct, and the measurement from wing tip to rear fuselage center matched.  Ready for Jeff to match drill the rear spar to the fuse.
   
ZZZ
   
Done!  Jeff drilled out the hole to the required measurement to accept the bolt.  The hole had the proper distance around it per the instructions.
   
Looking down at the bolt and castle nut.
   
What must people driving by think?
   
Now Jeff is underneath the airplane drilling holes to attach the bottom wing skins to the fuselage.
   
Jeff having fun working on his airplane.
   
Looking like a plane!  But then we had to take it all apart.  Who knows when it will look like this again?
   
 
   
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