Avionics: ELT installed.

The audio alert indicator is attached to the forward bottom side of the vertical stabilizer.  First a template is made to indicate the proper location for the holes (left), then it's match drilled into the VS-705 Nose Rib (right).

The indicator is then wire-tied in place.  Incidentally, I considered placing the indicator up front behind the panel (it's easy to do without additional wires), however I chose to stick with Van's intended location.

The P725 and TP724 wires from the harness (installed in Section 10, page 10-25) are soldered onto the ELT female DIN connector (left) and insulated with both heatshrink tubing and TV sealant (right).  An additional pigtail is attached for later GPS RS-232 data verification.

The F-01414 Aft Deck has been provisioned with holes for the ELT's E-04.4 Mounting Tray.  It's a practice in contortionism to screw the four screws into their nuts, but it can be done.

The antenna was later installed when the rear window was installed.

Fun Stuff: Number of rivets in all kits.

I counted the rivets called out for in the FWF plans and updated the chart on the lower right of the blog's main page.  Here is just the final RV-14A rivet count.

Empennage	4,446
Wings	8,276
Fuselage	6,250
Finish	1,265
FWF	234
Options	20

Total: 20,499

The tail dragger would be very, very close to this number (in fact, same for wings).

Want to wrap your brain around the mindlessness of the tasks involved in building a kit plane?  Consider that each of those rivets represents at least one hole (sometimes many more when parts are stacked) and each of those holes gets at least two deburring tasks and sometimes match/final drilling and/or countersinking/dimpling and/or sealant application too.  You can then calculate an upper-bound on the number of tasks per hole using some worst-case assumptions:  Just 6x the number of rivets to get a grasp on the number of tasks involved with the holes.

Avionics: Flap position sensor.

Van's provides a quick kit for installing a flap position sensor.  The sensor will work great with my GRT HXr EFIS with the two being easily connected.  I already had the Ray Allen POS-12 (available from Aircraft Spruce) as I was planning to replicate an approach recently posted on VAF.

The steel rod that came from Van's was bent during the shipping process, however I happened to have a twin pack of 1/16" stainless steel rod from K&S, part #87131 (which can be found on eBay for less than $4, shipped).  The remaining parts in the kit include the Molex micro-plug, pins, plastic tube for bushing, screws and nuts.

The pushrod is cut and bent to plan (I should have put a ruler in that image - the pushrod is about 8 inches long).

The F-01450F Flap Motor Channel has two holes in its web specifically for mounting the sensor.  After removing, drilling a hole in and reinstalling the WD-1013A Flap Crank to accept the pushrod, everything is installed.

Here is a video in operation, flaps down (or is it up?).  About 12 seconds, stop-to-stop.

And now the sensor awaits its mating to the EFIS.  A future post describing that process is forthcoming.

FWF: Firewall forward kit ordered.

Ordered the FWF kit today.  $6,950 for the whole shebang.  It includes the following sections:

• 43 Engine Installation
• 44 Spinner & Propeller
• 47 Cowl Baffle
• 48 Exhaust System
• 49 Fuel & Oil System
• 50 Control Cables
• 51 Firewall Forward Miscellanea

Fuselage: Aileron and Elevator Systems. Control columns in.

This post is delayed due to my researching a good way to grind/sand the control stops.  The work in this post was mostly completed in November.

For the control columns, we're directed to line up the CS-00007-L/R bases to the CS-00008-L/R with a digital level, then use a "dab of superglue" to hold the parts for match drilling. 

After letting my dab cure for a day, as soon as I picked up the adhered assemblies, they separated.  So, I used the superglue completely around the joint between the parts and let that cure for day.  Let me assure you, those parts were now locked together.  Then, with generous Boelube usage, the match drilling went without a hitch (below)  Afterwards it was easy enough to break the superglue bond with a few light taps on one of my EAA Chapter 1000 benches.

For placing the CS-00004 stick link pushrod, a number of washers are required (left).  The inner ones are a challenge to place, as you can imagine.  A builder suggested I superglue them to the bearing on the pushrod (right).  Seemed like a great idea.  But as soon as a shearing force was applied during placement, the washers fell right off.  So that didn't quite work out for me.

Searching around, so as not to reinvent the wheel, yielded this little gem of an idea.  I was able to fashion that with some scrap (left).  And using this tool, the washers were placed with ease (right).

The next challenge was filing down the stops to meet the deflection criteria on page 36-13.

It's very challenging to reach the stops on the top and incredibly challenging to reach the ones on the bottom.  I bought a diamond riffler set to help...

...though at times using this gentle "grinder-on-a-stick" on my Dremel helped too.  The left image has the grinder oriented on the top stop, whilst the right on the bottom stop.  These demonstrative images were taken after I was done grinding the stops, hence why the control columns are in.

I also found it useful to have a small vanity mirror positioned below the bottom stop to help me stay on target with both the Dremel and the rifflers.

The sticks are in awaiting their control shafts/grips.