The past 6 weeks have been insanely busy…. I can’t remember being this busy in quite some time.  In addition to my normal work, and long commute, I also had two finals for my MBA and two large group projects.  On top of that, I knocked out my biannual flight review and instrument proficiency check at Fort Meade Flying Activity.  The club is for DOD patrons only, and has 10 aircraft with great rental rates.  I got checked out in the Piper Arrow which is setup as a very nice IFR cross country machine with a 3 axis autopilot and dual Garmin 430s.

So, now that class is over, I have two weeks over the holidays to try and hit it hard with the project.  Here I finished the match drilling of both wings’ leading edges.  I also used a unibit and file to drill out the tie down holes (pictured below). 

Tonight I finished up the inboard leading edge rib on the left wing and the tank attachment strip.  Here are some photos. 

Obligatory photo of the brown PITA.

Back to the leading edges.  Today I started fitting the inboard ribs (408s) to the skins.  These are the only ribs that are not pre-drilled, so they take a little extra work.  Here are the steps I took:

1. First I fit the ribs in the skins as closely as I could get and marked every hole with a sharpie.  This was so that I knew where I could flute.
2. Fluted the ribs.
3. Replaced the ribs and clamped in place.
4. Drilled the aft flange to the spar.

After that it was time to fit the tank attachment piece (forget the name right now).  This takes a little work, but the instructions are straightforward. 

Here is the rib and tank attachment in the process of being match drilled.