Empennage (tail)

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The first kit that you start on is the Empennage (tail) kit.  The tail of an airplane is made up of the horizontal stabilizer, the elevators, the vertical stabilizer, and the rudder.  The elevators and rudder are "control surfaces" that move according to the pilot's input.  The stabilizers are fixed in place to the airframe.

 Basic metalworking techniques will be learned and used during the construction of the empennage kit.  This is a good place to start building an airplane for many reasons:

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The pieces are smaller and the cost of replacement parts is lower if you make a mistake

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The kit is relatively small and inexpensive if you decide that you don't have the patience to build the entire airplane

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Several construction techniques will be used, giving you valuable experience for the rest of the kit

 

The empennage kit arrives in two boxes via UPS about a week after you place the order.  (the wing, fuselage, and finishing kits take several months from order to delivery and arrive via truck)
The first thing everyone does is unpack those boxes and take a look.  It's kind of like Christmas morning!
The Horizontal Stabilizer is the first component that you build. 
This is the complete piece just as I'm riveting in the rear spar
After it was finished, I hung it from the ceiling using 2 bicycle hooks (in the center, one for each spar) up and out of the way.
The Vertical Stabilizer is next.  It is one of the only pieces that doesn't have prepunched ribs, so it takes a little more careful measuring before drilling the holes.
(the most recently delivered kits now have prepunched ribs)
This is with the skin clecoed onto the ribs, just before final riveting.
The Rudder is next.  First the left and right skins are prepared by riveting stiffening angles to the insides of the skins.

The green paint is the primer.  I'm not priming everything, as you can see here... just certain areas.
A closeup of the stiffeners.
This is a photo of the rudder with the trailing edge clecoed to an aluminum angle to keep it straight while the adhesive used to hold the skins together dries.  Clothes pins are also used to hold the skins tight.

After this is done, rivets are set through the holes in the trailing edge
The elevators are the most difficult part of the Empennage to build.  There is some tricky maneuvering to rivet everything together because there is a single piece of aluminum that is bent around the spar and joined at the trailing edge.
This is a final picture of one of the elevators with the protective plastic removed. 

The fiberglass tips still need to be installed (at the bottom) but that will be done at a later date.
This is a final picture of the Vertical Stabilizer (blue) and the Rudder (white). 

Both pieces still have the protective plastic covering attached and they do not have the fiberglass tips installed yet.

Nearly a year and a half later, I'm finally installing the fiberglass tips.

Here, a piece of thin basswood is glued in position to close the tip.  Filler and fiberglass will be used to create the finished surface.

The rudder light has been installed.  Long machine screws were screwed directly into drilled globs of cured epoxy.  

The pictures on this page are not the best quality because they are highly compressed to save download time.