Well it's been almost another year so I guess it's time for an update. I really need to get better at posting on a regular basis.

I actually got a lot done on the plane in the past year. I finished the wings and I am about halfway through the fuselage.  Having completed the small parts in advance has helped speed things up. I do occasionally have to remake a few pieces because of an error on my part.

Here are a few pictures of my progress.  I started with the main spar, attached the ribs and put the skins on. After the wings were complete I mounted them up high on the garage wall for storage and moved on to the fuselage. The last picture is of the side panels in the cockpit. They will attach to the front of the fuselage turtle deck.

How Time Flys

It's been a year and a half since my last post.  Let me catch you up. We moved, bought a house, I'm almost done with my training at work and just in the last month I've been able to resume work on the Sonex.  So what took so long? My wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. That's the bad news. After 8 months of chemo, surgery, recovery and radiation treatments, she is cancer free. It was a tough time for both of us, her's obvious, mine with stressful training on the job and extra workload at home with the kids. We had the best possible outcome and we are so thankful.

As for the Sonex, I've finished the rear spars, main spars and I'm working on the rib gussets now. The rear spars were quick and easy, the main spars were a different animal. It was over 300 holes per spar sometimes drilling through 4 layers. I drilled them up to size using 3 different drill sizes to make nice round holes. At the end of all that drilling was a lot of deburring and some countersinking. I won't go into all the details as to how the spars are constructed but the left is a mirror of the right in some places and is the opposite in others. The two spars overlap through the fuselage and are bolted together in 5 places. It can be complicated until you wrap your mind around it.  Here are some photos up to this point.

Be the way, I did finish the flaps before we left Georgia. All the work involved with moving prevented me from posting anything about it. They were easy and turned out perfect.

Ailerons Complete

Ailerons for the sonex are pretty straight forward.  The most difficult part was getting the two ribs that support the lead counterbalance lined up.  It's hard to explain, but there are 4 pieces without prepunched holes that have to be lined up drilled and have to mirror each other perfectly in order to sandwich the lead counterbalance. You can see the assembly to the left of this picture on top of the aileron skin and in the background you can see it riveted in place.

The end ribs didn't fit perfectly.  It took a lot of tweaking, filing the skin, bending the rib flanges etc.  The final fit is okay but still not perfect.  Perfection is the enemy of completion.  It's airworthy and no one but me will probably ever notice.  Call it done.

Next...Flaps.

Tail Complete

Okay I finally got through the holidays and actually worked on the plane some.  The tail is finished, complete with fiberglass tips and trim tab.  The tips turned out easier than I anticipated.  I'm sure there will be some touchup prior to painting them, but that's a long way off.  I even put the wheels together and got the drum brakes assembled. I'm not sure what brought that on, they were just sitting there so I figured why not.  We'll be moving back to Charlotte, NC in June and I need to start preparing.  I hope to complete the ailerons and flaps before we go.  I might be able to start on the front and rear wing spars but I doubt much more will get done before the move.  Here are some completion pics...

Rudder

Rudder control horn primed and ready for assembly.  Rudder interior parts are primed and the skin is primed where those interior parts touch.

Rudder complete!

Horizontal Stab and Elevators Complete

Here is the completed horizontal stabilizer and elevators.  Shortly after this pic I installed the elevator control horn and hung the whole assembly up on the wall in the garage making room for the next step.

Horizontal Stab and Elevators

It's been awhile since my last post.  The elevators are complete with hinges installed.  They went together very quick and easy with no hiccups.  I've been installing the Cherry rivets by hand without a pneumatic riveter.  It's a workout but manageable.  I'm impressed with these rivets.  They aren't flush but I still like the look of stainless steel.  Also I was shocked to find out they are TWICE as strong as the equivalent sized solid aluminum rivets.  The elevator control horn has also been riveted and set aside until the last step where it attaches both elevators while installed on the horizontal stab.

The horizontal stabilizer skeleton is complete and primed.  This took a while to line up, clamp, double check measurements, make sure it's right, triple check measurements and finally drill and cleco.  In the end I remade several ribs because the width of some of the preformed rib channels were slightly smaller than the preformed spar channels.  I didn't want any unsightly bumps in the polished skins so I took the time to fix it.

Here is a shot of the structure just before closing it up for good.  You can see the skins only got zinc phosphate where they touch the fully primed skeleton.

This is the current status.  Left HS complete and working on the skin on the right side.  All the holes are drilled, just have to debur, prime and rivet.  I may be taking a bit of a break after this step.  Our second baby is due in a week and I'm sure I'll be spending a lot of time away from the project with baby girl.