DATE: 12-06-2025 – TIME: 0:45 – 2:45 – 3:30
I had to wait on the arrival of the tail tie down ring from Zenith to finish the lower rudder hinge bracket installation. I was also a little delayed due to “light duty” medical requirements.
The tie down ring is a 5/16ths bolt so for my kit I also had to drill out the “rivet” hole in the middle between the two longerons and bottom skin of the fuselage. The ring bolt is quite long, about 2 inches, and comes with a nylon lock nut and single washer. The FAA circular says a washer is required under nylon lock nuts so after cutting the bolt down to size so only about 3 threads would be extending out of the nut, I used the single washer on the nut side of the installation. If I had another washer the correct size I would have put it on the outside / ring side of the tie down but it does have a flat flange so should be perfectly fine.
The snapshots here aren’t that useful so I include a snapshot of the tie down already installed from my cell phone.
I had also previously received the additional AN5 bolts, washers and nuts that I needed for the shoulder harness brackets so was able to complete the attachment of those brackets per FR-08.
After this I started sorting out the arm rest sub-assembly but as I am going to be unable to work on it for about a week I just put the parts on the bench ready for assembly and reviewed the Solidworks drawings as the paper drawings are not very clear on how parts go together. Also, in my kit, the “match drilled holes” are different sizes. I’m not sure I like using A5 rivets as “flush” rivets so I amd going to replace those with AN426A5-5 rivets. I also will not use the A3 rivets for the nut plates but use AN426A3 instead.
I will not be getting back to this again until after the 18th of December as I am too busy. I still hope to finish the build by summer 2026.