Tonight I spent a couple hours drilling the rudder pedal assembly to the fuselage. I began by measuring and marking the skin stiffener 3″ back from the firewall.  I initially marked the hole locations and then made the 2 additional mounting locations. Here you can see the rudder pedal bearing block in the middle position. 

I then temporarily installed the seat floors and the seatback so that I could get a feel for the location of the pedals relative to how I would sit. 

This is all temporary as I get more of the forward fuselage assembled I will most certainly need to adjust things. For now I selected the middle location as that felt the most natural for me. 

I then installed and drilled the rudder pedal brace. This will get the same treatment as the skin stiffeners so that the assembly will be adjustable. This will also get trimmed so reduce weight. 

Got a few hours to work on the plane today. I temporarily fit the roll bar. 

Here you can see the bracket doesn’t fit one top of the flange. For the tip up canopy it needs to be trimmed. 

Here I’ve marked where I need to cut the metal. 

This is after I’ve removed the required material, I rough cut using my angle grinder and then filed it down to the line. I radiused the corner and then hit the whole thing with scotchbrite. It was a lot more difficult that I thought. 

I then spent some time fitting the seatback slots to the cross beam. 

I’ve clamped the angle bracket, to the brace here and used some #30 drill bits to get the 1/8th spacing required. 

Here’s another view of the angle after I’ve drilled it partially to the cross brace. 

I also marked out the holes for the canopy attach slots. These need to be modified for either slider or tip up, luckily it wasn’t too difficult. 

I then refit the roll bar to the fuse after fitting everything back together. I still need to adjust the height of the roll bar. 

Here’s the aft channel clamped. This will get drilled to the roll bar and riveted together. 

Today I came home to a lovely piece of mail. I received my confirmation and approximate shipping date! If I assume the earliest shipping, that gives me just about 6 weeks before I get it. There’s plenty to do, but it should be plenty of time t finish everything that needs to be done. 

Tonight I spend a couple hours in the shop. I began by installing the static ports to the side of the fuselage. 

This is the exterior. It sits about 1/32th of an inch higher than the skin. There’s another one on the other side of the fuse. 

Here you can see the two static ports connected together and a T fitting to combine the two to be able to attach the static line to the avionics. 

I then installed the two seatbelt anchor cables. They are held on by an AN4-7A bolt. I had great difficulty torquing these because of the lack of reach. 

I finished off the night by installing wiring conduit under the baggage floor, and down the side of the fuse to the tailcone. 

Here’s the conduit. The baggage floor will be riveted on top and access will be non existent. 

Here’s the conduit going to the tail. This I incredibly loud snaking this through the 3/4″ holes. This will house the wires for the trim servo as well as for the tail strobe and position light. The conduit will also get anchored with some zip ties. 

I decided to join the club and make myself a VAF hat to wear when I’m out and about to represent one of the greatest communities I’ve joined. 

Vansairforce has been a huge help in providing information during my build. I’ve had nearly every question answered by someone on the forums. I’m proud to represent a community that is helpful, kind, and supportive during the long and sometimes very difficult process of building. Can’t wait to hop in my plane with my VAF hat and explore the world! 

Today I spent a few hours working on the left wing. 
I started out by removing the flap and aileron, so I could get access to the aileron brackets. Because I didn’t rivet the brackets, I was able to perform the bracket service bulletin. 

It involved riveted two doubler plates to the backside of the spar behind the aileron bracket. Here you can see the row of rivets holding those doublers in place. 

I then proceeded to install the aileron gap faring. 

Of course I edge finished, deburred, and primed the surface prior to riveting. Once that was installed I spent some time installing he aileron and determining the correct washer count and making sure I can get access to everything. 

I then installed the aileron with the alignment bracket on the bellcrank to align the flap and check the gap between the two. 

I also installed a pvc conduit for wingtip lighting. I fabricated some small L brackets to attach some adell clamps to hold the conduit. Once I finalize those I will be ready to mount the conduit and the wing will essentially be done! (Obviously the skin remains, but there’s no rush to install that until much later.)

I finally had a little bit of time to get back into the garage! Work has been killer over the last few weeks and I’ve had no energy. But today I got a little bit done. I removed the aileron and flap from the left wing, prepped the flap hinge for riveting and set it back and realigned it. No pictures but it’s pretty straight forward stuff. Next on the list is to perform the SB for the aileron brackets. Which shouldn’t be too hard considering they aren’t riveted on yet. Hopefully I can find time tomorrow to do it. Til next time!