Front Spar Part Prep And Wondering About The Future

Spent the day working on the front spar, spar caps and spar doubler. Felt like I accomplished a lot but didn't have any riveted assemblies to show for it. There are 2 spar caps and each has 103 rivet holes I had to either match or final drill, after first clecoing them to the spar. There was quite a bit of match drilling and countersinking needed on the doubler too. My bench drill press came in handy for that.The doubler and spar also needed a lot of edge dressing on the Scotchbrite wheel because of all the tool marks. I had to countersink 18 holes on the spar flanges that required me to set up a simple jig to accomplish. I needed extra clamps to hold the spar caps secure so a quick trip to HF took care of that. Things are ready for priming and I can start assembly.

I received a call from Van's last week that my QB fuselage and wings were available. I'm going to use Stewart Transport based on the recommendation of others. Delivery was looking like early April. I initially thought when I started construction in early Dec 2019 that I'd be much further along on the tail kit at this point in time then I actually am. At the rate I'm going I wouldn't expect to finish everything until the May/June time frame. I wasn’t jazzed at the idea of a large fuselage and wing set cluttering up my garage not being worked on for several months. But I figured it would be motivating to have that stuff here. Then the coronavirus hit. My employer Southwest Airlines, like all airlines, is taking a massive hit. The future is a bit uncertain for all Southwest pilots at present. At this point spending $26,000 or so for the QB kit gave me pause. I might need that money if things get really bad at Southwest over the next several months. So I called Barb at Van's and deferred delivery. She said no problem and that she expected to have more -14 QB kits available in May and will call me then. Hopefully there will be more clarity on the current coronavirus situation. In the meantime I have plenty to keep me busy in the shop over the next couple of months.