Exactly one year ago today, on the 1st May 2016, was when we first brought the fuselage into our converted garage/workshop/hangar! We are currently on De Agostini's 'Build your own Pitts S-1-11B' issue 12 of 9,318. It has been a very busy year for all of us, not just in building the aircraft but also in learning a lot of new skills. Some things have proved easier than others whilst some have proved down right painful, such as reverse engineering the shape of the turtle deck without any plans due to using the Wolf Canopy over the stock canopy.

From this:

To this, in one year:

Not bad considering we're only doing this at weekends! So what have we been doing during our first year of having the fuselage?

Fuel tank & tank straps

Foot tray

Rudder cable assembly

Wooden stringers

Tailwheel assembly

Wolf Canopy

Trim system including trim tabs

All control linkage (minus ailerons) is in

Undercarriage, wheels and brakes

Turtle deck

Firewall

Instrument panel fitted (but no instruments cut out)

We have also purchased the engine and progress is still being made on getting approval for the Raven wings with longer ailerons. It is now slowly but surely starting to look a lot more like the aircraft we had in mind almost 2 years ago, when we first were toying with the idea of building an aircraft. Now that the turtle deck is complete, we will be focusing on getting the metal side panels made, seat and seat back, and then moving onto the fuel system.

There is still a lot of work to do, no doubt, but we are having great fun building this aircraft in our garage. We've met a lot of great people, learnt a lot of new skills, and are looking forward to solving all of the problems we will come across in the future when building this For now though we're just going to kick back, grab some cup cakes, beers and play cards in this awesome garage. Happy 1st Birthday, EWOK (yeah, we're not a normal family!).