These shots show the starboard side and you can get a better view of the full rudder.
      For me, this was a special moment.  Hanging the finished and polished rudder instantly brought to my mind a feeling that is hard to describe, but here goes.


      As all who know me know, I love airplanes and have read extensively about them.  In particular, beyond my joy in photographing them, I have always enjoyed reading about and seeing pictures of planes being constructed or developed into a real plane from just a design idea.

      For people who have seen airplanes being built, they have often seem something akin to this photograph, that is, a 'green' nearly finished airplane or tail section with a completely finished rudder attached. A 'green' airplane is called that because, while it is otherwise finished, the outside shell is just raw aluminum or aluminum with a corrosion coating - very commonly green.

      This is done because, for these planes, the rudders must be carefully balanced and the paint must be taken into account during the balancing.

      The juxtaposition of the finished rudder hanging from the unfinished airplane is to me always a sign of hopefulness and confidence. Hopefulness because the airplane - or like in my plane the major subsection - is nearing completion and very little stands in the way from ultimate success.

      The confidence always comes from seeing the tails with the airline logo's only partially visible and knowing that the rest of the painting will go so perfectly that there isn't the least bit of worry about things lining up.

      Anyhow, here is my 'green' vertical stabilizer with it's polished and complete rudder, ready to move on to the next stage of construction.  Sweet!