Synergy Air Fundamentals Class

 So the day finally came and I headed out to Atlanta to visit Synergy Air South.  For those unfamiliar, Synergy Air is a builder assist company that has a large amount of experience building all models of the Van's RV aircraft.  They offer a builder fundamentals class once a month for $250.  This full day course is mostly all hands on and they demonstrate and give practical time to try all the tools that are commonly available/used and the methods for using them.  For someone who has no aircraft building experience or metal work experience, this class was an eye opener for a few things.  But more on that in a minute.  They also offer a empennage build assist class where you would build the empennage with one of their experience technicians.  The nice part is you can bring other help yourself and make the best of the time to maximize it.  This is useful for people looking to build quickly or to get a lot of help at first and learn the basics.  The problem is, you need to be able to take two weeks of time off, pay to stay down there for two weeks, plus pay the additional cost for the build assist time/materials.  Now many people are willing to do so, but working full time and having young kids at home, I think doing the empennage build would land me on the divorced list quite quickly.  But back to my class....

Flying down to Atlanta... Got to sport the aviation facemask.

The Fundamentals Class

Die and Bit Holder.  This was an easy way to organize everything.

After my short one night stay I headed out to Synergy Air for the early morning start.  The class starts at 7 AM which is rough, the town is about 10-15 minutes away from the airport, so it's an early rise and start to the day.  I was up so early that the hotel breakfast had not even been started when I left.  I arrived at the airport and the conditions were heavy fog with an extremely low ceiling.  With the inability to see much, it took a few minutes to find my way to the hangar, figure out parking, and get inside.  I was about ten minutes early and I was shocked to be the first arrival.  The class is capped at six students and they pair everyone up to work in three groups.  The class has two instructors, Allan who is the lead for the whole facility and then one of his techs.  While we were waiting for the rest of the class to arrive, Allan was kind enough to show me around his hangar at the airplanes currently being built.  There were three RV-10's being built in the main hangar plus two other models.  He also mentioned he had some other aircraft his secondary storage hangar (we got to visit and check those out during lunch).

After a short wait, the rest of the class showed up (Well most of them...).  Four gentlemen had signed up to take the class together who were local to the area.  The fifth student we were waiting on actually never showed up, so we ended up with only five people.  This worked out for me since the four guys that were together naturally paired up, leaving me alone to work on the project by myself.  This was great as I got additional hands on time with all the tools, techniques, and project in general.  Allan had me work with his tech on some of it just for time purposes, but he let me do much more than I would of if splitting it with another student.

We started the two projects after about a twenty minute discussion of building techniques and basic terms.  We were given a small book with this information to take home.  The first project was a simple example of riveting two aluminum sheets together and then to a J-Channel.  It made us demonstrate dimpling, deburring, counter-sinking, and riveting.  We used the Cleaveland Main Squeeze and DRDT-2 for this project.  We also discussed some techniques for drilling and using a rivet fan for laying out holes.  It really was a fun little introduction.

After we finished the first project, we continued on to the large project, the small "wing".  This project is the same one Van's sends out and was a great reinforcement to the techniques we used.  We continued and expanded with using a pneumatic squeezer, pop riveter (manual and hydraulic), various deburring methods, and other techniques.  It really was eye opening to see how things came together and the various methods  I will have to use later in the build.  I did get a laugh that I was moving along faster than the other two groups with both projects.  I actually had to keep stopping to let them catch up.  I guess it means that I was doing a decent job, my partner (the Synergy Tech) had complimented me multiple times on nice work for being new to it.  

My Final Thoughts

After we were all said and done, the day wrapped up and we were able to admire that we completed the two sample projects.  Apparently, when our kits arrive, the same two practice projects will be in the kit.  So, I guess I will probably get to do it alone in my own workshop and configure/setup some of my tools before the real build.  So what were some of my takeaways?  I realized that having an organized workshop is quite helpful.  I also realized the importance of monitoring your air tools and insuring you use proper pressures.  I will definitely be making a few changes to my setup than what I originally had planned.  I will detail some of this later when I get it all done.

So what are my final takes?  The fundamentals class was 100% worth the trip.  I really wish I was able to do the empennage class, but I prefer to keep my wife and kids around.  However, I did like that you can come down at any point in the build and pay for time with a tech later.  In the back of my mind, I think it would be more beneficial to get help during the avionics, interior, fiberglass and engine hookup at the end.  Right now, I think this is gonna be the biggest thing for me.  But I got quite some time before that is even a discussion or thought.