Toolbox Completed!

Earlier on in our blog I mentioned that we'd be building a toolbox that Van's offers as a practice kit. A lot of the techniques used during building the airplane are used in building this box as well such as drilling, dimpling, riveting etc. Well today we finished it! I must say it's a cool little box and it's extremely lightweight. Van's says this is a good tool box for keeping in the airplane for small tools like your fuel sampler, screwdrivers and so on. It looks like it'll accomodate these tools quite perfectly and it should last for many years.

First Kit Arrives!

Today the empennage arrived after a 'long' 4 days wait. One large box and a medium sized box to accompany it arrived at my dad's work today and we were super stoked to see them! Well, I had to wait until dad brought them by my work when I was on a break so I would be able to see them. I believe this could qualify as one of the many notorious "RV grins." We opened up the boxes first thing once we got home and admired the parts and I think we both might have drooled a bit. We didn't have time tonight to inventory the kit so we'll save that for Thursday!

Ordered First Kit!

Today we ordered the first kit of the airplane, the empennage! It will most likely be shipped to us within a few days and hopefully it will be here within the next week or so! It's coming from Aurora, Oregon so it shouldn't be too long before we start seeing big boxes arriving at our door. Dad and I are super excited, it's about time we start building stuff again!

Tools Arrive!

Today the tools finally arrived! Dad and I had a lot of fun checking out all the new toys and taking inventory of them, we actually got to put them to use today too. We also initiated the process of getting our workshop ready, we'll be building in a public storage facility not too far from our house. It measures 10' x 20' and will suffice until we need something bigger. We have one of our tables laid out with all of our power tools and we're waiting for Lowe's to get our 3 x 8 solid door to come in. This will act as our main workbench and it will sit on two 600lb. capable sawhorses.

Van's Aircraft offers a toolbox kit that you can build as practice to get used to some of the techniques used in building the actual aircraft. Dimpling skins, setting rivets and drilling holes, these are all used in the building of the toolbox and the airplane itself. We started learning by deburring all of the materials, then we got to dimpling the sheet aluminum, and I got to set my first rivets today! It's amazing how much strenght a tiny rivet can offer. No wonder they're used in aviation. My favorite tools so far are the mini air drill and the Tatco hand squeezer. They're all fun though.

Unfortunately this is all I'm able to post tonight, I'm getting tired and Dad and I had a busy day. But it was very productive.

Introductory

Hello everyone,
So this is my first blog on this website and I figured I would base it on the process of building an experimental airplane. I'll try to update it daily if not at least every other day. It'll (hopefully) walk the reader through what it's like to build a real airplane and show them that an average person can actually tackle such a goal.

But first, a little history of myself:

I'm Kendall O'Brien, a college student with hopes of being a captain of a major airline someday. I started flying airplanes at the age of 14 with the help of my dad, and I've been in love with aviation for as long as I can remember. Dad and I would build stationary models of airplanes, boats and cars while I was a young kid and then we stepped up to radio controlled models. These were a lot of fun and we were in the hobby for about 4 or 5 years. I learned a lot from it too, like how an internal combustion engine works, and I got an understanding of the properties that act upon an aircraft while it's suspended in the air. It was only normal that we would later move up to the real thing. I got my Private Pilot License 4 days after my seventeenth birthday (before my driver's license) and got my Instrument Rating just before I turned 19. My dad and I bought a Cessna 150 G in December of 2008 and we've been using that as a time builder. In fact recently, a friend of mine and I flew 36J to Madison, Wi. from Southern Califoria for a trip to Oshkosh, but we'll save that story for a later date.

What made me want to build an airplane?

Curious by nature, and majoring in Engineering, I've always wanted to figure out exactly how things work. Though I already have an understanding of the mechanics that play major roles in aircraft, I'd love to build one. People like Orville and Wilbur Wright, Howard Hughes Richard VanGrunsven and Burt Rutan have inspired me a lot and they all designed aircraft in many different ways. I've wanted to build an airplane for a few years and feel that now would be a good time to start.

What kind of airplane are we building?

The aircraft we are choosing to build is the RV-7, a design by Richard VanGrunsven. It's an efficient designed two place airplane constructed of aircraft quality aluminum. It's a lightweight airplane and utilizes flush skins to obtain high speeds on small amounts a fuel.

I'm unable to type much more tonight, but tomorrow I shall continue