The EAA Zenith Project

This week the build team continued work on the forward fuselage by drilling out holes for the seat belt brackets, door sills, rudder pedal installation, and control tubes. The build station with the wings being worked on saw the installation of the fuel system begin.

The final holes on the firewall were also drilled out to size so it could be removed and deburred.

The Wednesday session saw the removal of the firewall, more fuel tank installation work, and the return of Charlie Becker to EAA.

Our summer schedule for the Zenith will begin soon while we at EAA prepare for AirVenture, but work will progress, albeit a little slower for a couple of months.

This week we were able to get the wings back over to the main hangar, one on Saturday, and the other last night. During the Saturday session we worked on some deburring of the right wing that didn’t get done before it was stored for a short while.

While that was going on, the fuselage was being worked on at the upper cabin area, and some seat work was done…we were able to sit in it!

The honors for the first try out went to our most regular builder…Jerry Paveglio!

The side workbench was also in use on Saturday where Hal and Brady worked on getting the bellcranks for the flaperons drilled and bushed. Hal proceeded to install them perfectly!

Toward the end of this session, we just had to set up a test fit of the right wing with several of us “on hand” to support it for the picture.

The Wednesday evening session began with bringing the second wing over to the main hangar.

The main activity of the evening was more deburring. We had several areas to go over and double check.

Jerry kept hard at work on the fuselage cabin area, while Tim Hoversten and myself worked on getting the cork installed on the fuel tanks to get those fit in to the wings.

The next session on Saturday should see wiring conduit installation and fuel system installation continued…and perhaps riveting of the top wing skins. Stay tuned!

This week’s Saturday build session brought the completion of Hal and Matt’s firewall, and more progress on the cabin area. The build group on Saturday was larger than usual and with Tracy’s help, we continue to accelerate the pace. We had a special visitor to the build session this time as well! In the picture above, the white bearded man is non other than Jerry Graf…a very well known EAAer, member of the AirVenture A-Team assisting with partners of EAA like Ford Motor Company. He also happens to be the creator of Aviators by Design, a non-profit organization aimed at bringing youth to aviation…and they are building their own Zenith 750! Work continued on drilling the baggage area parts, as well as the forward side skins and cabin structure. With Hal and Matt ready to unveil their masterpiece to the rest of the world, we mounted the firewall in place…it seemed to take a fair amount of hands to do this, but that’s just the way things go with a large group build like this! Time was taken to epoxy paint the areas of the steel tube cabin structure that were drilled to prevent rust and corrosion down the road. When we arrived at the hangar on Wednesday evening, the hangar door was open letting in some nice spring-like air, and it lit up the fuselage nicely… With enough people to work on two work stations again last night, part of the group got to work on the cabin area, and another group went to work in the other hangar where the wings are stored to do some deburring. We plan to bring the wings back over to the Weeks hangar for the next session so we can get back to work on the fuel system and prep for mating the wings once the fuselage is on the gear. Going strong!!