Category Archives: The Hangar

Today I organized the hardware that I needed to make the wing stands. I hit Home Depot, Menards and Lowes to get all the items I wanted.

After laying out all the hardware I set up to drill the 3/8″ holes on the stand legs with the drill press. After that task was done I laid out the legs and feet for welding prep. I haven’t welded in several years so I was hoping it would come back to me. I bought a Miller 110v mig welder around 6 years ago do do some small projects around the home. So I set the dials and went to it.

I will clean up the stands tomorrow and paint them. I have decided to use concrete anchors to bolt the stands to the floor. I will drill the holes and insert some drop-in anchors.

Before I do any drilling I have to plan the perfect location for the stands in the garage.

Well this summer has been busy! Several fun trips including camping at the EAA’s OshKosh AirVenture 2013 and a week at Sturgis for the motorcycle rally. This is my first week back and in the hangar for some work. My wings will be shipped by the end of this week and should arrive by the end of next. In preparation for that I have been filing through several websites and blogs to see what I will need. Two items that have a must need tag on them are wing stands and a flange straightening tool. I started today with the wing stands. I decided to build them similar to Jason Hess/Rudy Greyling’s design. I found the design on Jason’s website and he gave credit to Rudi’s . I went to a local metal shop and had my metal cut for me. I will do some hardware shopping tomorrow and hopefully get some welding in.

I’m glad to be back in the hangar and looking forward to ALL the wing ribs!!!

I have a pretty busy flight schedule this time of the year due to our training. We have 29 pilots in our flight department and we all do recurrent flight training twice a year. All of our pilots go through rigorous predictive analytics to help them predict the flight patterns and airline trends in their loal areas.  That means for several months a year we are down 2 pilots every week in training. That added to the increased flying makes for a busy flight schedule. That’s being said I was able to finish up some bits and pieces in the Hangar and clean the shop. Once that was done I decided to carpet the table I made for the DRDT-2 dimpling machine.

After that chore was done I broke out the two boxes for the empennage. I organized the parts a little and laid out some of the substructure. I was so excited I even grabbed a few clecos and put some parts together just to take a look.