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The philosophy of VANs kit build (like probably many others kits) is that first you assemble everything on clecos, match drill, tune, adjust etc. After that you disassemble everything back to pieces and start long (believe me for tailcone it is VERY LONG) process of holes deburing, holes dimpling, surfaces preparation etc. This is exactly where I am right now and I am 60% done with that process. Still need to dimple more holes and prime my parts.

By the time I built my airplane my kids and my wife (with some my help) built a scarecrow for our little yard next to hangar. I added that part in my video as well 🙂

After some time being busy at work, doing some avionics installations, developping my own avionics and doing some other important things I was able to get back to work on my RV-10. This chapter is all about my Tailcone – one of these parts where you starting to feel HOW BIG your future RV-10 will be. I spent amount of time working on preparation of my tailcone parts, drilling, cutting, attaching parts on clecos. That took me some good amount of time and at the end I finally was able to have my tailcone (still on clecos) assembled! It looks outstanding. It looks huge. Just look at it 🙂

Woohoo! After some struggling with tank sealant and some other issues I finally made it. My elevators are now completed! This is a great news and I finally can move on my tail cone. Yes I still have to go back to my elevators and do some minor fixes there but most of work is now completed.

In the past weeks all world suffered from COVID-19 virus which is spreading a lot across. Schools are closed, most companies sent their employees home and we are all kinds of isolated. My wife Kate is also work from home (hangar). It is kinda strange and unusual when you have to do everything from home and at home, you can not walk outside and meet with friends (social distancing minimum 2 meters) etc.

Despite all that I keep my temp and work on my RV10 project. So far I complete my elevators by about 70% in total. All parts were prepared, dimpled, countersunk and finally primed. Last weekend during my work I started riveting all my parts of elevators together. This past weekend I continued and almost got everything done.

Below are some pictures and two videos from past two weeks progress which I made on my RV10 build project. Enjoy!

Great day to work on my RV10 built. I have done all planned tasks. In the very beginning of today’s work I found an issue – mistake which I made during my previous RV10 built day. I had to partially disassemble my elevators and fix the issue before proceeding further. During today’s work I was able to finish match drilling and all other preparations of my parts for elevators. At the end I disassembled both elevators and my next step will be dimpling, countersinking and holes deburring.

After couple of weeks being little busy I am back to my project together with my two helpers – Maria and Elizabeth. Today we started elevators build. That was routine work without any unexpected troubles so far. VAN’s instructions are clear and well understandable thus no need to do google search and VANs calls yet 🙂 Hope it will keep in the same way for all remaining VAN’s 10 build. We were able to assemble using clecos about 90% of elevators. More to come during the next work day.

I have finished today my horizontal stabilizer assembly! This is a first big point on my long RV10 build journey. Basically this is a first large part or I would say the largest out of all I have built so far. You are more then welcome to watch my video about completion of horizontal stabilizer built process.

Boring day where I had to match drill, debur and then dimple over 1000 holes all across the horizontal stab skins. I am scared to think what will I face when I get to RV10 wings build 🙂 Anyway that all has been completed. My family helped me a lot, especially at the end of the day when I started to dimple all holes and realized that it will take me forever. Next step will be to start riveting of my horizontal stab!!!

Horizontal stabilizer assembly takes way more time than all previous parts. It is not only because it is large part but also because it is more like a wing where assembly get more complicated due to quantity of parts and complexity or their attachment with each other. After building simple wooden jigs to hold the stabilizer in vertical position I started its assembly by clicoing all parts to skins from bottom to top. At some point I realized that I have not enough clicos thus I had to go one clico per 5-10 holes. I just ordered more clicos from spruce and waiting for these to arrive soon. This is needed for me to continue my build because the next step is a match drilling where I will need very tight attachment of all skins to all inner parts. My kids and wife were helping me during this assembly as well.

Another day of work on my project. Finally I was able to reach the point of priming of all my parts required for assembly of horizontal stabilizer. I worked hard to prepare all parts, cut, debur and prepare surfaces of the parts. Finally at the very end of the day, while outside was rainy and cool I was able to reach the priming point. I built simple painting camera and used it to prime my parts in. Check out my video to see the progress of my work.