Assembly: Rudder

Dates: 6/28/2024 - 7/21/2024
The rudder started out great, but near the end it was a bit challenging.  We were very worried about not ending up with a straight trailing edge, so much of the time spent on this part was due to researching, reading, and asking questions.  In terms of mistakes, there were some, but nothing major.  Drilled out several rivets that were clearly not properly set.  We also emailed Van's a couple of times to get feedback on a couple of rivets that we were not sure about.  Rolling the leading edge was more challenging than most people said, although ours did look acceptable.  We did use the templates to try matching the curve, but we could not get a perfect match.  We took our time with the  trailing edge, and it did end up being straight.

We also bought a CARD1 system from Clemson Aeronautics which is a combination of the C-Frame and pneumatic squeezer.  The system is awesome for dimpling the skins and riveting the stiffeners.