Closing In! HOBBS 2570.0 hrs

The hours are piling up as I approach 2600 total on the HOBBS. I still shake my head in amazement how naïve I was when I thought it would take about 2000 hrs to finish up. Obviously WAY past that figure and still counting! But...boy, the finish line is in view now, first engine start is coming soon. No pics this post (I'll post some later this week).

 

I pulled off my left wing--did my dimpling/platenuts, deburred my rear spar holes and some general routing of wiring and pitot/AOA tubes--and put it back on again, solo. It was pretty easy with adjustable sawhorses...lift the tail to a level position, strategically place the sawhorses under the wing and carefully pull/wiggle the wing off the fuse onto the sawhorses. Do your prep work and reverse the process to put it back on. Really not that difficult if you need/want to do it alone.

 

So, the left wing now has the close tolerance bolts in place...the bottom two were a bugger to get in since there is no room to swing a hammer! But...with a little sweat equity, they are in and ready for flight. I buttoned up the bottom skin overlap and installed my wing root fairings. Ran my pitot and AOA tubes back to the ADAHRS. Last steps are to torque the wing bolts (apply torque seal) and hook up wiring...that'll come tonight. Its very cool to see that puppy on permanently. I'll move onto the right wing on Tuesday.

 

As some of you know, I track my hours worked on a spreadsheet. It just gives me a barometer of how much work I am putting into the project. I started off wanting to average 15 hrs/week (and I'm closing in on it). It doesn't sound like much, but over the course of the last couple years...its harder than you think to average that and still work a full time job and have some kind of life outside building. Here is a view of what my tracking looks like...as you can see, the pedal has been to the metal since the wings went on Jan. 4th.

 

 

My spreadsheet showing the last couple months...week, hrs worked, HOBBS total, weekly average.

 

Here is my graph of the last 120+ weeks...yes, I am an Engineer, I like pretty graphs. I find it interesting to view this and reflect...it really gives you an idea how the hours fluctuate as life gets in the way sometimes...notice the 'zero hour' weeks in there? It happens...just gotta keep at it, steady as she goes. As I always say, "its not gonna build itself!"