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Another hat in the -7A ring

E

esjacoby77

Well Known Member
After months of planning and gathering tools, I finally sent in my empennage order!

This will be my first build, and my only experience with sheet metal construction comes from the EAA RV Assembly Course I attended several months ago. I'm going the (very) slow build route, and I hope all of you are ready for a lot of questions along the way!

I can't wait to get started...where's that FedEx truck?
 
Hey Ethan, congratulations! I still can't get my ducks to line up.

How did you like the EAA course? I had planned to get some tutoring from Tom Emery (sp?) in PA, but I talked to him about it so much that he just up and retired!!:eek:

Good luck with the build!
 
Awesome

That's great news Ethan. I too am hoping to order my empennage in November, for a build starting just after Thanksgiving. I am also a first time builder.
 
I highly recommend the EAA courses

AndyRV7 said:
How did you like the EAA course?
Click to expand...

Andy,
The course was fantastic. I had never touched a piece of sheet aluminum before this course, but the instructor had us drilling, deburring, dimpling and riveting, within a couple of hours. The instructor was very knowledgeable about airplane construction in general...not just sheet metal. He also covered many of the experimental aircraft regulations.

Over the two days, we completed two practice projects. One of which was the airfoil project Van's offers. At the end of the course, I felt that I would be able to handle the airframe construction, but I also knew that I still had a lot to learn.

In my honest opinion, it was well worth the $300. Spending a weekend with a bunch of people that only want to talk about flying and RVs wasn't too bad either.
 
Welcome

I have my fingers crossed that I'll move to SAT next year.

Good luck with tail project.
 
esjacoby77 said:
Andy,
The course was fantastic. I had never touched a piece of sheet aluminum before this course, but the instructor had us drilling, deburring, dimpling and riveting, within a couple of hours. The instructor was very knowledgeable about airplane construction in general...not just sheet metal. He also covered many of the experimental aircraft regulations.

Over the two days, we completed two practice projects. One of which was the airfoil project Van's offers. At the end of the course, I felt that I would be able to handle the airframe construction, but I also knew that I still had a lot to learn.

In my honest opinion, it was well worth the $300. Spending a weekend with a bunch of people that only want to talk about flying and RVs wasn't too bad either.
Click to expand...


Thanks! Good to know I still have options.
 
San Antonio

Paul,
San Antonio, is a great city. It may not be the most exciting place to live, but people are friendly and the cost of living is tough to beat. There are quite a few RVers in the area too.
 
esjacoby77 said:
After months of planning and gathering tools,
Click to expand...

LOL, im still gathering tools. You can never have to many tools IMOA.

Good luck with your build. Every day before I work on a part, I lookup other builders web sites and see how they did it. Often they will say to look out for this or that. That sort of info has saved me more than once.

The BEST place for help as we know is VAF... thank you DR.
 
Hey SA is a party town. I was fortunate to live there for awhile. Sa and Austin are my fav's in Texas. I still love doing long weekends on the river walk, tons of stuff to do and not to far from the coast.

Bob
 
Welcome to the club

Ethan,

Welcome to the club. There are plenty of RV builders in SA so I'm sure you have that covered. If you want another look, I'm up the road in New Braunfels and just finished my 7A empennage.
 
larrynew said:
If you want another look, I'm up the road in New Braunfels and just finished my 7A empennage.
Click to expand...

Larry,
You probably shouldn't have told me that...I could be knocking on your door every weekend!

I'm amazed by the interest generated by RVs. At a recent EAA Chapter 35 meeting, I mentioned that I was about to order an empennage kit for an RV-7. Suddenly, I was getting a lot of advice and offers to help...even from the non-RV people!
 
free ride

Congrats!

If you're ever in the west Texas area I have an RV-7A that has been flying for the past two years at Andrews (E11) and you're welcome to go for a ride anytime.
 
53 hours on N457RV

our 7A and still can't get enough. Starting to miss building, though. Where's that RV11 kit???

Congratulations on your new adventure...
 
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