Vertical stabilizer

Building the vertical stabilizer was almost laughably simple, we built it within a few hours.

Rudder

Building the rudder went fast and easy. This is however already the second rudder, we were building, as the holes in the first one matched poorly. Thanks to their awesome service, Zenith however fixed the issue and sent us a new one.  

Initial installation of firewall components and Viking steel bungee

We clecoed and match-drilled the components on the firewall and also installed the Viking steel bungee. The Viking steel bungee replaces the original bungee, which has a tendency to break after a few years and is supposed to have no lifetime limitation.

Fuselage Frame Match Drilling

Match drilling of the frame to the fuselage.

ELT / Transponder Antenna Installation

We built a bracket for the ELT, which we installed on the co-pilot's side. It reaches from the longeron to the inspection opening channel, for maximum strength. It is tilted at the same angle as the Zenith's fuselage rises, so that it is level when taxiing or in flight.

Fuselage Forward Section

While the forward section was also generally easy to assemble, we decided to slightly deviate from the instructions. Zenith suggests to already match-drill at this point the l-angles, which connect the seat supports to the arm rest and the side wall assemblies. We however decided against that, as the side wall assembly flexes quite a...

Baggage Compartment

We finished clecoing the baggage compartment: Everything fit just beautifully!   Once the baggage compartment was disassembled again, we match-drilled the mounts for the flaperon mixer and also primed and partially riveted the l-angles which go on the baggage compartment floor.

Elevator

The elevator was quite a bit more work than what we originally thought and is probably the must complex part of the airframe. Our friend Mark suggested to put the cable for the electrical trim servo inside the elevator instead of installing it on the outside. Following his proposal, we believe this was a good...

Horizontal stabilizer

It is unbelievable how fast the horizontal stabilizer went together: Start to finish, including priming of the mating surfaces, took us only 2.5 days! The parts fit very well, we however found that some rivets on the spar were hard to get to. We also learned that a hand riveter is an absolute must have,...