Ron's RV7 Aircraft Factory


Welcome to my personal blog. This site was created as an informal description of my build progress in the construction of a Van's RV7 aircraft. A place where family/friends/builders/curiosity seekers can follow along. It is not intended to be a detailed description of every step in the building process as that would be much too time consuming. There are plenty of sites that do a great job in that arena, that is not my intention with this site. My intention is for this to be a philisophical/motivational/inspirational account of the emotional ups and downs of the life changing journey...and it will change your life. I hope this will give you an idea, through my eyes, of what its like to make this transformation. A note to other builders, I am not an expert so do not put your safety at risk by attempting anything you see on this site until you have done your own research, or send me an email so we can discuss it. Any deviations from the plans are not approved, nor endorsed by Van's Aircraft or myself. Thanks for visiting.



Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Mid Fuselage HOBBS 710.5 hrs

With the aft fuse done, I'm now officially chugging away on the mid fuselage. As you might guess, this is essentially the cockpit area of the fuse. The spar carry through is included in this sub-assembly.


Starting to cleco it all together. I had to move the aft fuse assembly off the sawhorses and put it on a pad on the floor. As these large assemblies go together, the garage is getting smaller all the time! :) When I start attaching fuse sections together, I will need to rearrange and organize the shop better. Notice some of the seat ribs are already primed...these were 'filler' parts--when I had extra primer from previous batches. Don't want to waste that stuff if possible so I try to have extra parts ready for primer in case I have extra.


Four of the seat ribs get this modification...add a 1-1/2in diameter clearance hole and then remove the material (seen in the next shots). I used my hole cutter...as much as I hate that thing, these were a piece of cake to do...not nearly as bad as the tank access holes (remember those?).


Area to be removed...I just used my die grinder and a cutoff wheel to finish this up...easy peazy! Looked nice and professional when I was done with a file, emory cloth and scotchbrite. By now, you should be an ol' pro at stuff like this.


Two of these four seat ribs also get some additional modification. This is a 'removable' cross section that I had to fabricate. It will be attached with screws to the rib. This is needed so you can get the stick control arm in place.



Coming together...the rear area is the floor of the baggage compartment.



If you look close at these last two shots (click to enlarge), you will see how you have to notch both the seat ribs and the baggage ribs around the grommets for clearance.

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