I received notice that my best friend Richard Bristow and his wife were killed today. They had just taken off from Petaluma in his RV6 when the engine stopped. The plane stalled and dove into the ground when it was turned back to land, killing them both. I have flown hundreds of hours with Richard for many years and made many cross country trips to Oshkosh with him. He was a knowledgable and experienced pilot. It is just impossible to understand why he tried the impossible turn. I will miss them both more than words can describe...

I first met Richard through the Mooney Caravan. We were both from the Sacramento area and met up before I flew to my first Oshkosh in 2003. After that we would frequently fly our Moonies to various burger spots around NorCal.

In 2005, Richard arranged for us to attend the Beechboys formation training clinic in Stockton. After the clinic, we started meeting up Thurs. afternoons to practice 2 ship. We called it Thursday supper club. We gradually improved our formation skills and then worked on convincing the Mooney Caravan group to transition from gaggle to formation. It was a slow process, but by 2012 the Mooney group fully transitioned to formation arrival. In the mean time, Richard and I flew 100's of hours in formation around NorCal and back and forth to Oshkosh every year.

Richard sold the Mooney and purchased an RV6 in 2012 and soon after started prodding me to pursue my dream of building an RV. He was there when I placed my order at Oshkosh 2013.

Richard pointing at me and telling the Van's rep, "I told Ernie to stop waffling and buy the kit. Where's my commission?"

Richard encouraged me every step of the way in the construction. Every week I would get a call and he would ask how the project was going and if I needed help. He helped buck many rivets. He had a large hanger at the airport and we were going to have only RV's in the hanger when I finished mine. 

It is hard to imagine continuing the project without Richard's help and encouragement.

RIP

Section: 32
Hours: 1

I riveted nut plates to the baggage floor parts first thing this morning.

Section: 30
Hours: 5

I spent the rest of the morning prepping for finishing the riveting between the tail and the fuselage. My friend Richard came over after lunch and helped me with the riveting. These rivets require a helper - my arms just aren't long enough to reach that far.

Many of the rivets we were able to back rivet. Richard expertly kept the large mushroom head bucking bar on all the rivet heads around the compound curves and I back riveted. It was nice to be able to tip the fuselage on it's side for these rivets.

The long backset stick made it easier to reach the corners inside the fuselage.

All the skins laid down nicely after riveting.

Four skins (and some bulkheads) come together in this corner. I had put in some extra work breaking edges on these skins and they all laid down nicely.

All the baggage ribs are now tied to the skins and bulkheads. The open rivet holes are for the baggage floors which will be going in soon.

Section: 26
Hours: 2

Deb helped me rivet the baggage ribs to the bottom skin. I set the assembly on the floor so we could easily reach the rivets.

Looks like all the flush rivets came out flush.  Good job Deb!

Here's my side of the job.

Seat and baggage ribs are now attached to the bottom fuselage skin!

Section: 27
Hours:  6

I spent the rest of the day prepping parts for the firewall. The firewall has flush rivets throughout (except were marked on the plans) to make it easier to keep the engine side clean. All the reinforcing bars have to be counter sunk to accommodate the dimples in the stainless steel firewall bulkhead pieces. I did all the counter sinking on the drill press. I slowed the drill press down to the slowest setting and the counter sink cut nice and cleanly.

Section: 16
Hours: 8

Today is a red letter day- we're finally putting on wing skins!

First thing this morning I carefully clamped the spar and rib assembly to the table and shimmed the ends to eliminate any twist. My 1968 Mooney G model actually has twisted wings, but I'm pretty sure Van did not want twist in these wings. The plans show clamping the spar directly to the table, but rivets and bolts get in the way of getting the assembly flat, so I had to shim up one end 1/4". I also put another 1/4" shim under the spar about 5 ribs in to get rid of a slight bow in the spar.

My flying buddy, Richard stopped by today to help with the riveting. He sold his Mooney several years ago and bought an RV-6 and has been bugging me to hurry up and finish my 14. Today was his first time on the rivet gun and he took to it like a duck takes to water. Not a single smiley all day!

Rather than back rivet as the manual suggests, I purchased a large 2" mushroom head for the gun. The face of it is slightly rounded and highly polished. We put clear packing tape over it to keep the rivets clean and skins smooth. You have to be careful to get the gun centered on each rivet and to keep the rivet gun perpendicular to the work, but if you do all that it leaves very nicely set heads with no puckering.  Richard figured it all out after the 2nd rivet.

We didn't quite finish the whole wing- we went slow and careful. We started in the middle of the inner skin and worked out towards where the 2 skins overlap. We stopped 1 rib short of the joint. Then we started in the middle of the outer skin and worked our way in towards the joint. Then we riveted the sub spar, j-stiffener and leading edge lines working our way into the joining rib. Next we riveted the skin join and last but not least we riveted the join rib. So far there is no oil canning or puckering of the skins.

Here's the overlap joint where the two skins come together.

Here's the back side (my side today) of the joint. It was a little tricky getting the overlap of the j-stiffeners to lie down flat but we got it there with a little extra pressure.

After Richard left, I squeezed rivets into the nut plates on the end rib.  There are about 4 rivets at the end of the sub-spar that we couldn't figure out how to set because the doubler plate and it's rivets are in the way. I ground down a bucking bar that I think will do the job- I'll try it out tomorrow.

Here's the nut plates on the end rib.

Section: 16
Hours: 4

Today I finished dimpling the upper wing skins. I also filed and polished the edges of the bottom wing skins.

When I disassembled the left wing, I discovered that I had placed the lower wing walk flipped the wrong way. As a result, the whole panel ended up about 1/4" out of position and some of the holes got doubled. I ordered a small sheet of .025 2024-T3 from Aircraft Spruce to make a replacement.

Left doubler with extra holes on top.

Woody is always looking for ways to help with the construction. He's really good at sniffing out quality control problems, but he has a hard time with hand tools. Too bad Cleveland Tools doesn't have any paw tools. Today we found a good job for him- removing the blue protective plastic from the aluminum skins.

Section: 13, 22
Hours: 8

I started work on the wings by finishing the edges of the flap hinge brackets. They were sitting there and the edges were just begging to be polished. This is totally out of order with the manual but I did it anyway.

That got me to thinking about what order I wanted to build the wings in. It was really a hassle building the tail cone because it took up so much room. I know the wings eventually will also have a large space requirement. I decided that I will complete as many of the smaller components of the wing as I can before I start work on the spars. Also, while the weather is still good, I'm going to try to get as many parts prepped and primed as I can. Then later this winter I can stay in the warm dry garage and work on assembling parts. My plan of attack is to complete the ailerons, flaps and leading edges and fuel tanks first. I can store them out of the way and then have more space for working on the spars and center portions of the wings.

I started prepping the aileron parts. There are 32 ribs/stiffeners that have to be cut and formed from channel provided in the kit. I put together a cutting jig to make the diagonal cuts easy using my band saw. Of course the first stiffener slipped in the jig the first time I used it so I had to fabricate another one from the trim sheet scrap left over from the empennage kit. After that it went fairly quickly.

My shop helper graduated from Puppy Training II class tonight! I'm going to have to get one of those bumper stickers that says "My Aussie is smarter than your honor student"