I always liked older women; but I found that marrying a woman who looked much younger than she was has paid off as the years have gone by.

Finalized the tail wheel and mounted the horizontal stabilizer and elevator this last weekend.

Pretty cool, they lined up just right with the fuselage (meaning I did that right), and I got a little surprise.

When we built the original fuselage five years ago, there was a twist in it. Not much, but enough to where we had to shave one of the spacers that hold it up down to make it level with the front (and therefore the wings). Well, I had kinda put that out of my mind and when it was in place the whole thing was waaayyy off level.

Much cursing for a minute, until I remembered the troubles last time. Pull it all off, laugh at myself, throw three washers on the shortened spacer, put it all back together and she's level. The fuselage is true from firewall to tail, confirmed.



Of course it all gets pulled off, as I have some repairs to make. The horizontal stab got dinged just a tad, and one of the tip bows needs some attention, as well as all four plates that hold the support tubes that come up from the fuselage. The rivnuts there ripped out of the stab and elongated the plate holes.

It's just weird that there was that much going on back there in the wreck and both the horizontal stab and elevators and straight and true (of course I stripped them of fabric for inspection). But the rivnuts were already wiggly, and replacing them was on my list of things to do before the wreck.