Before I can close up the Vertical Stabilizer skin, I need to fit the Navigation Antenna, run the wires for the Antenna and the rudder light and fit the skin including up-drilling the countersunk holes in the skin with the rib structure.

So one thing after another, first I gave a quick test fit for the skin and then drilled up all the countersunk holes.

After that was done, I went to work to fit the Rami AV-525 Navigation Antenna I’m going to use. I already fit the Antenna onto the inner rib a while ago before I built the rest of the structure, so now it was a matter of fitting it all with the skin to be able to close the skin around the Antenna.

On the left side, the Antenna comes out one of the pre-drilled rivet holes, so I just had to up-drill that to the correct size.

For the right size, the Antenna comes out offset a bit further behind, so I marked out where I needed to make the hole in the skin, then used a center punch to get a good center to drill the hole:

With the hole in place, I cut back a small notch, so that the skin can slot around the Antenna since the arms of the Antenna are fixed to the internal balun.

After all that was done, I put it all together for a final test fit:

Looks all good, so now I need to finish running the wires on the inside and then I can rivet the skin closed.