Isaac Shultz's Sonex Project

I am out of town this week for a gymnastics competition. Here is a video I put together of my last competition. Also, I will be speaking at Sun'n'Fun 2018! On the first day of sun'n'fun, I will be doing a 1 hour talk about beign a teen and building an airplane. this can be the motivation to come on down to Sun'n'Fun this year! Hope to see you there.

First off, what is a turtledeck? The answer is obvious at first, it is a wood platform on the back of the house, with a bunch of turtles sitting on it, right? Or maybe it is what you call the deck of a cruise ship that is for turtle pleasure? Well actually it is the round part of the plane behind the cockpit, that leads into the tail, as seen in this beautiful Sonex. So, now that we know what a turtledeck is, I can get into how I built one!. Like everything, It started with a plans review. The turtledeck skin was made of 2 smaller skins (a left and right) and a central spine of a stiffening C-Channel. The skin then is curved to make it rounded, pretty, and aerodynamic. I then prepared all the parts. The turtledeck formers were up to the plate first, they look like this: I made sure that they had no stress rising scratches. (rule of thumb is that if you can catch a fingernail in the scratch, then it is too deep and must be buffed out.) Aside from that I chec...

Riveting the Fuselage side panels was extremely satisfying! After a few day's hard work, I had built up these huge 10' long metal structures!   I used cross ties that were akin to the vertical stiffeners. They were a C-shaped channel piece, with a prepilot drilled hole pattern that perfectly matched the spot they went. I clecoed them in place wit ha small cleco, and moved on to the next step. And of course, once you accomplish something in your kit, don't forget to celebrate!  The Forwardmost cross tie is a full box, if you have ever been inside a Sonex, this was the piece you sat on before sliding down into the seat. In front o it is the cockpit, behind it is the baggage compartment. to make this box shaped cross tie, I used (per the plans) 2 C-Channels and 2 flat pieces of metal. everything was prepiloted, so all I had to do was cleco it in place between the fuselage sides. once in place it was held by both the splice pl...