How much is match drilled?

[samiam]

Hi all,

Just curious as to how much of the Sonex kit is match drilled these days. The video for the tail on the website makes it seem as if everything cleco's together right out of the box, but it looks like other builders still have a good amount of measuring and jigging to do to.

Thanks for the input!

[Bryan Cotton]

Samiam,
The short answer is there is a lot of match drilled parts. I bought the machined angle parts so I had more. Here is my recollection:
Tail: almost everything but the fiberglass.
Fuse: the longerons, the turtledeck bulkheads, and some parts on the forward fuselage skins did not have matched holes. They all had pilot holes in one of the mating parts.
Wing: root rib fittings and wing tiedown fittings did not have matched holes. The ribs have matched holes where they mate to the spars, but for the skins you have to transfer the cnc holes from the skins to the ribs.

The matched holes in the kit, in my opinion, are pretty complete and very good.

[samiam]

Thanks Bryan, that helps a lot. I was just wondering as I have been working on an RV kit which is very well match drilled.

The work of you and your son has been inspiring. Keep up the good work!

[kmacht]

Keep in mind that you can build the Sonex anywhere frome completely scratch built from plans to full matched holes on most every piece and everything in between. Not every builder's website is building with the full up kit with all the options that they sell today. That being said even with scratch building there isn't a whole lot of jigging. There is lots of measuring and drilling but no real jigs that need to be used. Having scratch built mine I highly advise everyone I talk to to buy the kit instead. You will save yourself years of work and also end up with a better built plane.

Keith
#554

[Bryan Cotton]

Thanks samiam! I was reviewing my thread and remembered that none of the control surfaces are match drilled anywhere. So this is one place where you do a lot of marking and drilling. I also remember an idler, looked all over for it - machined angle parts, fuselage parts, no joy. Had to drill two holes in a piece of bar stock and round the ends. Oh, the horror. Funny how spoiled you get.