Horizontal Stabilizer is Complete!
Yeah! The HS is complete with the exception of the fiberglass tips. I’ll probably delay those until the I put everything together. The fiberglass tips shouldn’t take a great deal of time, anyway. I am surprised at each milestone how much work I did, how many obstacles I overcame, how many mistakes I fixed or simply let ride. When I started my vertical stabilizer I was getting used to the pneumatic squeezer and I goofed up every 5th rivet, it seemed. Today I blew through….I don’t know maybe 200 rivets on the perimeter of the HS. I had to redo 2 of them, and only one of those absolutely needed it. Bucking rivets was cause for concern in the early days…today, I would feel confident bucking all the rest of the rivets on the plane if I had too. Its a cool feeling to know you’ve finished it. You know where all the bumps and scars are located, but nobody else does. Ok, I used blind rivets on the bottom for a few hard to manage rivets, but who cares. I’m not going to be entering any beauty contests with it, anyway.
This is a completed horizontal stabilizer
It is touching the floor and the ceiling. I assume it is just shy of 8′ tall. In the following picture I have it all wrapped up and ready for storage. I’m going to be putting it in the attic. The possibility of wasps or other critters finding a home inside it is a problem. So I’ve enshrouded it in “donated” sheets to keep it clean and free of critters.
Wrapped up like a mummy for storage in the attic.
