Empennage - Alexander Technical Center  (6/21/2004-6/26/2004)

(Lots of words : jump right to the pictures)

Notes on the Program

I had read various folk's logs from the experience in this program on the web. The concept is wonderful.   Use someone else's tools, shop, and expertise to learn the ropes, and at the same time get a large chunk of the project completed.   As I note below, there are a couple of ways in which this is done. 

There were 3 participants in the program for the week I was there.   Anywhere from 1 to 3 Alexander people were instructing/helping at any point in time.   Most often two.   Jacob Biang ran the program and was the one constant.   This kid couldn't have been more than 22 or 23, but he knew the empennage inside and out.   He could squeeze a line of rivets faster than most people could debur.   Really impressive.   Mike, a mechanic from Delta, was there about 75% of the time, and George, an Alexander employee, was there about 25% of the time and handled all the priming.  

Visit the Alexander Technical Center by clicking here: Build to Fly

This was a tiring course.   From 8:00am, until whenever in the evening, we were on our feet working.   The only real break was lunch.   Compliments to my fellow attendees.   They exhibited a very strong work ethic.   No slackers in the bunch.   Each night I was completely exhausted and ready for bed early.   Driving to GA from NH was 22hours.   When we got down I was dreading the long drive back.   By the end of the course I was looking forward to sitting quietly for a couple of days in the RV driving home.   It was really a push.   Be ready.

Time - All days start at 8:00am	Activity - this is not cast in concrete. Others had slightly different sequencing to avoid conflict on the tools
Monday AM	8:00AM start. Meet & greet the other participants. Inventory the kit. Roughly hour-long presentation on tools and techniques. Start fitting horizontal stabilizer
Monday PM	Complete horizontal fit & drilling skin. End the day with parts prep for priming; debur, dimple and edge finish.
Tuesday AM	Assemble, drill, debur, and dimple the vertical stabilizer.
Tuesday PM	Complete the vertical. Assemble the rudder. End the day on parts prep; debur, dimple, and edge finish.
Wednesday AM	Assemble and finish drill the right elevator. Start the left.
Wednesday PM	Complete the left elevator. Assemble the right elevator. End the day on parts prep, including the million elevator stiffeners.
Wednesday Night	Priming. Alexander people handled this task.
Thursday AM	Rivet together the Vertical Stabilizer, Start on riveting the horizontal.
Thursday PM	Complete the horizontal. Start the rudder final assembly and riveting.
Friday AM	Complete final assembly of the rudder. Start riveting the together the right elevator.
Friday PM	Complete the right elevator. Rivet together the left elevator and bend up the trim tab closures.
Saturday AM	Mount lead counterweights. Final bend, rivet, and mount trim tab. Edge roll all control surfaces and pop rivet. DONE! We were on the road back to NH by 3:30pm.

Two key things make it possible to complete in a week.   First is that as soon as the boxes were opened, Mike took all the group's rudder and elevator stiffeners and started shearing them to length and rough size.   Had each individual done this, it would have taken forever.   Second was the priming.   The course really split into 2 halves.   Up until Wednesday evening it was all assembly, drilling, and parts prep.   All the priming was done overnight from Wednesday evening to Thursday morning.   Again, had the participant been involved in the priming, or if it weren't batched up like this, completion in a week would not have been possible.   After Wednesday, it was all final assembly and riveting.   I did not drive a final rivet until Thursday morning, and then of course, did a million of them very quickly.  

Course Compromises

To get done in a week, you're moving very fast.   I had to keep reminding myself that I, and I alone, was responsible for ultimate quality control.   Jacob inspected everything before it was closed up, and would find faults that I could not see initially, but his interest was getting things done quickly and safely, not necessarily with the most polish.   If your tendency, as mine is, lends to agonizing over every part and curve, then you'll definitely feel some pressure that things are �good enough', and it's time to move on at certain points.   The only place this became an issue for me was when finishing the elevator stiffeners.   I was smoothing and rounding and finishing the parts quite handsomely, and Jacob encouraged me to zip along quicker and demonstrated on a couple of parts.   Well, when we went to rivet the stiffeners in the elevator, it became apparent that we would have an interference problem since the angled flanges were going to interfere with the opposite edge.   I had to drill out a couple of them and take them down a little to make sure I would have adequate clearance. 

Course Compliments

Overall, though, this was money extremely well spent and I am pleased with the course.   I learned more in a week than would have taken me a year on my own to work out.   The best, and most valuable part was having someone to critique your work and let you know what was right and what was wrong.   You don't get that when working alone in the basement.  True, an EAA tech counselor helps, but he is generally not there 100% of the time, answering your questions as you go along and arresting little problems before they become big ones.  

I will drag out my old horizontal stabilizer at some point and look for flaws that I would not have picked up on my own.   It's kind of a spooky thought that there are probably many that would have escaped my eye before that I now know how to spot. 

Home for a week

You can't beat having your hotel room 50ft. away from your work.   This worked out great.   The only issue was that we got infested with tiny little biting Georgia ants.   They took a shine to my mother's oatmeal cookies she had packed in a tin before we left.   There were thousands on-board at one point. 


The 'before' picture.   This was to be our center of operations for the week. 

After inventory and a review of basics, you start, as anyone with a horizontal does, shaping the 603's and assembling and drilling the HS spar. 

Smoothing and shaping the front spar angles prior to bending them.   I had to get myself in a couple of photos for official records.   When I did the HS previously, I remembering agonizing over the 6 degree bends for the better part of a day.   It took about 5 minutes here.   Mark them, clamp them in a metalworking vise (really neat vise with wide, smooth jaws), and bend them a bit each time until 6 degrees is hit (about 4 or 5 iterations). 

My father ready for action.   I offered him many occasions to bail out if things were getting to be too much, but he stuck with it the whole time, working as hard as anyone else there.   I must admit to some trepidation about who would be running the show, since it's my dad and all, but he established that he was slave labor and at my beck and call. 


The parts start to pile up.   At this point we finished preparing the HS and look to be done with most parts for the VS.   Unfortunately we were working fast enough, that I ended up not taking as many pictures as I should have along the way. 

The only 'problem' we encountered was fitting the E705 root rib on the right elevator.   There's a pretty tight reverse bend as this rib has to match up with the spar, the skin, and the weldment.   The radius on my rib was substantially larger radius than the other elevator's, and also versus the other participant's parts.   Here was a shining benefit of this course.   I immediately had parts with which to compare my own rib and quickly come to the conclusion that there was a parts problem, not an assembly problem.   We futzed around for a while trying to tighten up the bend (all the instructors swarming to the problem, or course), and concluded that we would be better off just ordering a new one, than trying to mangle the old one into shape. 

I called Van's, explained the situation, and got them to overnight a new part out.   I explained where I was, and the resulting time pressure, convincing them to overnight the part.   Usually they mail it.   I was surprised to get the invoice for $0.   I was at least expecting to pay the difference between regular mail and overnight shipping.   Nice job Van's! I missed the priming session for that part and had to prime it separately with a rattle can of zinc chromate primer.   The rest was done with a 2-part Sherwin Williams epoxy primer.   All-in-all a very good customer satisfaction experience that did not hold me up at all in completion of the project. 

Here is my father fashioning himself a new index finger out of some clecoes and scraps of old aluminum.

Everything has been primed and we're ready to start riveting the VS together.   One of the clear advantages with the modern kits is that BOTH the skins and the ribs are pre-punched.   This allows everything to be assembled with NO jigs.   It greatly speeds up the initial assembly and allows riveting to occur on flat surfaces as opposed to jockeying around in the jig. 

The first truly completed piece to come together.   By the way, don't wear any white shirts to the course if you want to keep them that way. 

The HS frame starts to take shape.   We mounted this in the jig to rivet one side, then removed the rear spar and riveted the opposite side flat on the carpeted bench.   Minimal contortions needed with this approach.   This is only possible with the new style of parts where both ribs and skins are prepunched.   Otherwise you have to do it all in the jig with the frame 100% riveted up.   The new method allows for the spar to be riveted on last.   The inner ribs are pull riveted to the rear spar.   All other rivets are accessible from the edges. 

Here I am imperiling my father.   A little awkward, but we got into a rhythm quickly and it went fast. 

The rudder followed.   I did not get any photos of the back riveting plate they have there but it looks to be a flat piece of steel about 2' x 3' and 3/8"  thick.   It really reduces the amount of labor as you can quickly move from stiffener to stiffener without moving the work piece.   At home my chunk of steel is just not even long enough to do the longest stiffener on the rudder. 

The last major assemblies were the elevators.   Once you've worked through the rudder, the elevators are pretty straightforward.   We left the trim hinge mounting for the last day.   The process involves a lot of sighting and fiddling to make sure it's exactly in line.   When you start to rivet, start in the middle and work outward, giving each rivet only a half squeeze at first until they're all set and tight, then go back for a full squeeze.   All 3 trim tabs in the course were bind-free and straight.   Very cool. 

Very last is the rolling of the control surface leading edges.   This task was probably 90% Jacob and 10% me.   It's clear that after having done 120 tail kits, he had the technique 100% down.   There's a lot of finesse to this task.   I as just as happy to let him do it as his results were far better than what I would have likely achieved. 

The photo is probably more critical than the naked eye.   When sighting down the bends, there are no visible flaws.   It looks a little flat-fronted here, but that's very hard to see in the flesh. 


The obligatory 'after' picture.   The parts are in the motor home and it's time to roll. 


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