Month: April 2020

Horizontal Stabilator Progress – A Family Job

Where the heck have we been?

It is unfortunate that I’m both posing and answering this question again. Work took its toll in the last year and we did not get a lot of building done (some overtime though, which is always good for the airplane fund!) . The delays and much slower than expected build in the last year or so set us back behind our originally planned build timeline but has made the “financial” schedule slightly easier to meet. Now it’s time to recoup momentum and get going!

2019 Stabilator Build Progress & Workshop Upgrade Summary

This is a bit of a catch-up post covers that about 50 hours of work between me, Kelsey and my parents (Greg and Denise) on the Horizontal Stabilator. We worked on and off (mostly off) from March to the end of September 2019. My parents were especially helpful in some improvements to the garage workspace! We built two new EAA Chapter 1000 workbenches(with slight height modifications) in April, which you will see below. Then they returned in June and helped us work on the stabilator a bit. Thanks for the help, mom and dad!

I started the initial deburring of the Horizontal Stabilator spar box components in late February 2019. The spar box carries the lift load for the horizontal tail. Here’s a close-up of a the nice shiny aft spar the day before priming:

We primed the Horizontal Stabilator spar box pieces on 3/31/19. This was the last planned prime with the Sherwin Williams P60G2. We decided that the stuff is just a little too nasty to keep spraying. Stewart Systems Ekoprime is what we switched to – more on that in a later post.

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Below is the (primed) spar box Cleco’d together for match drilling of the Stabilator control horns (the white powder-coated piece). An upper and lower control horn are eventually attached to the control cables that will deflect the stabilator. For completeness, some touch up priming was completed after match drilling of the spar box. I also had to clean up (sand and re-paint) some scratches on the control horn – I used a similar process to the re-work I had to do on the Rudder Control Horn (WD-1205).

Once complete with the match drilling of control arms, there’s some additional match drilling for counterbalance bracket weldments that hold the counterbalance arm for the stabilator. The counterbalance arm extends forward for the stabilator into the tailcone; it provides moment that makes the stabilator assembly mass more balanced about its center of rotation.

To keep the counterbalance arm from rotating, a bolt is passed through the white brackets on either side of the spar box. The holes from the brackets are match-drilled into the counterbalance arm, and a bolt is inserted through the assembly.

Would you believe that it is extremely important to mark these parts so that you re-assemble them properly? Van’s explicitly states this in the plans, but I found a way to screw that up. I actually fully riveted the brackets to the spar box, re-cleco’d things together, and then eventually realized that I had a bracket 180˚ rotated from the correct installation. Needless to say, I got some practice drilling out the rivets using a rivet removal tool. Somehow I got extremely lucky and was able to remove all of the rivets without issue, without enlarging holes beyond the spec, and without ordering new parts! Beginners luck!

And hey, here are those new work tables that the parents helped us construct in April! This is just before permanently installing the cleco’d hinge bracket assemblies.

May 2019 saw relatively little progress in the build other than the wing kit arrival and inventory. Kelsey and I were too busy enjoying our anniversary trip in Utah/Arizona! I even convinced her to start building an airplane with me before 5 years of marriage:

Fast-forward to June – Mom and Dad returned to the Pacific Northwest and this time I was determined to put them to work on actual airplane parts. Mom did hours of deburring for Stabilator ribs, and I got dad to work on some final assembly of the Stabilator spar box with me.


The re-work I was mentioning before? Yeah, this was about the time I discovered that the counterbalance bracket was upside down. Drilled those 12 solid rivets out and re-riveted it on after rotating it 180˚.

Cleaning up some rib clips! These attach to the spar box; the Stabilator ribs will be riveted to them later on.

Woohoo! Mom and dad pulled their first rivets on the airframe. We all worked together to rivet the stabilator spar box and control horns. When we finally get to fly, they can say with confidence that they helped us build! 🙂

I thoroughly enjoyed getting some more family involved in working on the plane – and highly recommend it for any builders out there wanting to share the fun.

Unfortunately, after the family visit ended, I got really busy at work and lost momentum again. I didn’t even touch the parts again until nearly September!

After the many hours mom put in to deburr stabilator ribs, Kelsey eventually got to flute (straighten) and prime them. This September 2019 was my first real experience priming parts with the Stewart Systems EkoPrime. I will admit that I practiced a little bit in a preceding batch on a friend’s RV-14 parts and the 6 rib clips for the stabilator. The process is quite a bit more involved, with extensive cleaning, mechanical/acid etching, spraying, drying, and finally priming the parts. However, this stuff is much less toxic than the two-part P60G2. I will plan to use it for the foreseeable future. (And again, will do a more detailed post later about the process and why we switched).


The parts actually turned out really nice – it took about three really thin coats to make all the shiny metal disappear.

Honestly, other than the additional prep work this primer requires, I didn’t find the application process much more difficult. It was a little easier to generate “runs” with this stuff if sprayed on too thick – but I’m still new to spray applications in general.


Priming the ribs was a big step forward! A few weeks later I moved on to deburring the large horizontal stabilator skins.

And really – that was it for 2019.

Now, here’s to building momentum in 2020! As I write this, it’s mid-April and I just cleaned out the garage. Had to catch up on the blog, re-read some plans, and refresh myself on some building material before I felt comfortable working on the parts again. Now the weather is shaping up, work has slowed down (partially due to the pandemic), and it is time to get building! Let’s go!

Wing Kit Delivery and Inventory

In early March 2019, I thought that the empennage kit was going to go quick and we would soon run out of work on our precious aluminum baby. Not wanting to be bored, I ordered the wing kit on March 6, 2019. A certain unforeseen aviation event occurred on March 10, 2019 that significantly changed the amount of free time I expected over the course of the next 12 months. Nonetheless, the kit shipped on its scheduled date of May 20, 2019, and I brought it into the garage on May 23, 2019.

The wing kit comes in two crates: one contains the wing spars (primary structure) and the other contains skins, ribs, and everything else. We were not completely finished with the empennage kit, so we had to move things around in the garage to ensure we had enough space to receive the wing kit.

The day before the kit delivery: In preparation, we moved the garage around a bit to make the storage racks more accessible. Remaining empennage kit parts were able to fit on the other rack (and in the wooden crate above).

The largest-dimension box of the wing kit contains the fully assembled main wing spars. These spars are pre-assembled at Van’s Aircraft factory – they carry the majority of the lifting force load. I had some concerns that the spar box may not actually fit in the garage we had, as it’s a pretty small “two-car” space. After a bit of research I was able to find the crate dimensions for each kit. Van’s has a really good resource for this. Turns out we had enough space to fit it on a garage edge. It’s actually since been rearranged to maximize available space and runs under the hot water heater (gasp!).


The other crate is relatively square and contains pretty large sections of wing skins. As we have come to expect, things were well-packed from the factory and we had no issues unloading and inventorying. I will say that the factory continues to use Gorilla tape instead of a more modest duct tape to secure parts from wiggling around. The strength of the tape ensures that some of the protective blue vinyl is ripped off when you separate pieces. (Minor complaint!)


Wing Ribs! It’s amazing how thin and light some of these parts are. It’s a special feeling when you start unwrapping pieces that you know will support your wings and carry your flying dreams.


The importance of careful parts inventorying was made clear this time. We had five small missing parts – a rivet, a washer, a pair of bushings, and some heat shrink tube. Honestly, the parts missing seemed to be random – they were in different bags, etc. I did have to wonder if their factory was trying to fulfill orders a little too quickly after Oshkosh 2018 (where the RV-12iS was the “One Week Wonder”, an airplane assembled in the week of Oshkosh). Nonetheless, Van’s sent the missing pieces quickly without charge.

The real question is – when will we get to start assembling the wing kit? I’m hoping summer 2020. We’ll see!