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tail feathers build time

drtgraves

Member
About how long is everyone spending "hands on" building the empennage? I'm trying to plan on when to order my wings with the 8 weeks lead time
 
Tail feathers build time

I took about 6 weeks - some others will be longer. I was planning on 8 weeks for the wings but after ordering, the lead time was ~12 wks. Mine are due to ship next week. Left me with 4 extra weeks to get all the fairings done...
You may want to call Vans and see what the current backlog is. The listing is not always correct.
 
About how long is everyone spending "hands on" building the empennage? I'm trying to plan on when to order my wings with the 8 weeks lead time

How much experience do you have in aluminum aircraft construction? That'll be the deciding factor. A new builder could easily spend 200 hours due to work pace, drilling out rivets, and going through the learning curve (on the aluminum and fiberglass). An experienced builder might be able to do it half the time.
 
I am an experienced builder, 7A; but the Rv-14 is fast build kit. I am on the empennage and I have 104 hours, I have the VS, HS, Rudder and about 1/2 of the Elevators complete as of today. I received the kit on April 11, 2018. I think I am doing well. I have not worked on it every day, only today did I spend 7 hours.

I think I will order the rest of the plane, quick build, when I finish the elevators, which should be next week. Too much life getting in the way.
Dave
 
It took me just about two months to finish the empennage and tail cone, this includes priming all parts and finishing the fiberglass parts (HS/VS caps)
 
This is a good question.

Took me a year to build the first kit (RV7). I took my sweet time. But I did not count the hours. Did not have to replace any parts. Everything is primed. Fiberglass is done.

Just stared on the Flaps and now I am counting hours. Looks to me like most build logs state 25-30 hours for both flaps. I will need more! Simple fact that it appears to take me 3 times the time to deburr all the parts as others are stating on their logs... Priming also takes me for ever!
 
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As others have said, calendar time to build a section depends on how much time you have to build on a daily/weekly basis, experience level, whether you prime internal parts, overall attention to detail, amount of rework (I rebuilt an elevator for example - first one was probably fine, but I wanted better). You should be able to get a sense of your style and time to build after the first couple of sections, but sections aren't the same in terms of time. VS takes very little time, HS and elevators are more involved: sections with trailing edges (rudder, HS) and rolled edges (rudder, elevators) take some extra time that may include bonding trailing edges and forming leading rolled edges. Look at plans and take into consideration the number of parts and associated prep time etc.

Another factor to consider is not only wait time for the kit, but your distance from Van's and shipping method - if you're using Partain you may want to consider their schedule. Also - if you have room to store wing kit while still building the tail it might make sense to order sooner to avoid any risk of interruption (wish I had done this with fuselage which I did after tail).
 
Just finished my empennage and it took 185.0 hours of actual build time. This includes the many hours reading, re-reading and interpreting the plans.
 
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