Help with 10 empennage kit order

First let me give a shout out to a couple of members here, Vic Syracuse for inviting me over to fly his 10 and talk about the plane and Bill and his wife who are building a 14 for taking the the time one evening to show me and a mate there build and tools etc. Thanks a lot guys for your time !!. So any suggestions on extra parts , specialty tools etc I should make with my initial order. Thx Pete

May as well get them to throw in some "opps" rivets - AN4 body with an AN3 head, various lengths. Unless you're a real pro at riveting/removal. I forget the actual MS part number.

If you are not experienced with aluminum aircraft building, you might want to include one or both of the Van's practice kits, so you can make your initial riveting mistakes on the practice project rather than on the empennage.

You will also need a significant number of specialty tools. Take a look at cleavelandtool.com for a tool kit to get you started. If you already have some of the tools in the kit, you can delete them from the order.

Not much you have to include with the emp order. You will most likely order a replacement part or two along the way. (At least I did!).
Opps rivets are a great idea. Some of he big aircraft tool vendors have a kit that includes common ones.

Practice kits are a good idea if you don?t take one of the EAA sport air workshops.

Biggest things I ended up buying were more tools! You don?t ?need? to buy any other options till you get to the fuselage.

Congrats and good luck on the build. It?s quite the adventure!

DRMA said:

If you are not experienced with aluminum aircraft building, you might want to include one or both of the Van's practice kits, so you can make your initial riveting mistakes on the practice project rather than on the empennage.

You will also need a significant number of specialty tools. Take a look at cleavelandtool.com for a tool kit to get you started. If you already have some of the tools in the kit, you can delete them from the order.

Click to expand...

Got the Cleveland kit and working on practice kits from vans, great to mess up on those and are figuring out tool settings.

Sounds like you are off to a good start. I'm still occasionally finding the need to order additional tools even though I am at the Finishing Kit stage, so don't put your checkbook away just yet. <grin>

If you are confident with your sheet metal work, then you are probably ready to proceed. However, I found that taking the Empennage build class at Synergy Air in Eugene, Oregon gave me a great head start on my project. After the 8 days at Synergy Air, my empennage was complete (except for the tail cone), and I knew that I had the skills to execute the rest of the sheet metal work with high quality. I highly recommend their class.

Of course with the RV-10 you are building an aircraft that is partly fiberglass, so there is another set of skills you will need to learn as the build progresses. Nothing to be concerned about, just another learning curve to climb.

Enjoy the journey you are about to start.