Two weeks in England later and now I’m back at home, or rather back at work, fighting the jet lag (despite getting a free upgrade to business class on the flight to LAX). Because of this there’s been no progress on the rudder other than to have a go at getting the labels off the parts. I asked Mike what he had used and being unable to find any Acetone in the house I decided to shelve it for the week. So this weekend’s plan is to remove labels, re-assemble the skeleton and get some rivets in. I’d like to get going on the first skin but we’ll see how that goes.
If you are paying attention to the expenditure spreadsheet on the right you might have noticed a jump in costs. Two reasons for this: first, I bought lots more clecos and, better late than never, an Avery Edge Marker. Second, I bought the plans for the plane meaning I am now an “official builder” and get access to the builder’s resources on the Zenith website, including a page for my plane.
My timing for the plans was good as Zenith just released Version 2 of the design which increases the design maximum weight to 1440 lbs. This puts it beyond that allowed to be registered as an LSA and the rules are that once registered it cannot be changed, no matter what modifications you make. I like the idea of having the extra 100 lbs or so but it might be better to keep it an LSA…. not a decision I need to make any time soon.
Reading some of the forums today I found myself a little overwhelmed, people posting questions about things I have no idea about and might have hoped were already sorted for a “beginner” plane. Am having some doubts that I have bitten off more than I can chew but I had those during both my Private and Instrument training and they turned out ok. One step at a time.