Completed the right wing tank - 5 hours

Not much to report. I received the needed pull rivets so I went to work closing the right wing tank.

Started the left bottom outboard wing skin - 2 hours

So it turns out that I am short a few pull rivets so I cannot complete the right wing tank....so it’s back onto the left wing while I wait for a parts order.
I cleco’d the left wing skin on to check the fitment. 
 

Closed the left fuel tank - 5 hours

Deciding to take a break from riveting wing skins. I decided to switch over to proseal for more punishment. I needed to close up the fuel tanks and chose the left tank to start. Following the instructions...I used a thin smear of proseal on both the tank and ribs and the rear baffle. I clecoed the entire assembly and then riveted the assembly.

Completed my first solo

After 21.4 hours on the hobbs I soloed the Cessna 172 for the first time! How did it go? Well It went extremely well, however admittedly I bounced a little when landing. Not hard but enough. The first thing I noticed is how different the plane climbed, descended and flared without the instructor.
In retrospect, it quite strange how foreign flying seemed to be and then all of sudden things start clicking quite fast. Initially steering with your feet is a new feeling and a bit of a challenge, especially with the take-off roll in a crosswind. It takes a little bit to remember to steer with your feet but roll the ailerons level in time for rotation, and not roll them again when that cross-wind begins to sweep you across the runway. That works itself out fairly quick as well as radio calls I found. But I never felt comfortable with landings, it just always seemed foreign. I was starting to feel a bit frustrated so I watched a few you tube videos and reviewed my Instructors whiteboard notes a few times. Then it began to click...it’s all about hitting the numbers as you turn to final. I began to concentrate on where I am and where I need to be as I turned onto base and before I turned final. Then everything started falling into place. After a few circuits....the sight picture of the runway made sense, the instrument scan felt quick and smooth and finally decisions on when to deploy (or not deploy) flaps was falling into place.
After showing Mark my Instructor a few good circuits, he hoped out of the plane and said go do one more circuit and see how you do...”Show me a good one” he said. Well I knew this was coming but frankly I didn’t have much time to think about it. I was so concentrated on what needed to be done that I wasn’t able to entertain any other thoughts of nervousness or happiness or anything else. Before I knew it I was on final and then getting ready to flair. The problem with your first solo circuit is that it’s over so fast!  
 

Finished riveting the right wing - 2 hours

A couple hours in the evening and I completed the riveting on the right wing. So glad to be done. Just the left wing left to do.

More wing riveting with a slight oops - 5 hours

As I continued the right outboard wing riveting, I found that I had skipped dimpling a couple of rib holes. Of course...I had set one rivet in the undimpled hole but on my inspections after each rivet I noticed the mistake.

I ended up drilling out the perfectly set rivet. I though for a while on how to fix the missed dimples. I was really reluctant to drill out all of the rivets in the rib that I had set. I finally had an idea of using the tight space dimple bar with the rivet set on the gun. Of course I was very concerned about marring the exterior skin. I figured that if I used the tight space rivet bar with the bucking bar, it would be very similar to the standard bucking process.

Sure enough... using this setup with the pressure on the gun dialed down a little. The day was saved and I very easily dimpled the two holes. You would never know I missed them.


A few more hours and I was nearly complete the right wing.

More wing riveting - 4 hours

More riveting. Checking each rivet as I set them. Slow progress but good progress.