Monthly Archives: January 2014
Wings #8 (Left wing skinning – aft skins)
Total build time: 350 hours. Before the skins can be positioned on the wing, the substructure must be made square and free of any twist. My initial method for doing this was to use 2 sawhorses. To hold the frame square, I used 2 pieces of wood bolted to the spars, and clamped them tight … Continue reading
Wings #7 (Left wing substructure completion)
Total Build Time: 342 hours. As with most things that have to be done twice, the second time around went smoother and I was able to make improvements on my technique. For starters, before aligning my root ribs I did a better job of squaring up the wing first, this made the fitting process a … Continue reading
Wings #6 (Right wing substructure completion)
Total Build time: 330 hours. After updrilling and deburring all of the ribs, I marked blue lines on the flanges to align them later with the wing skins. My method was to use a flat table and blue sharpie with a little bit of masking tape wrapped around to shim the point to the … Continue reading
Wings #5 (Right wing root ribs and substructure)
Total build time: 325 hours. To begin the right wing substructure, I first attached the aft ribs with their spacers, then added the forward ribs. I then put the assembly on sawhorses, and clecoed the aft spar in place: The root ribs are special, and the aft root rib in particular needs to be … Continue reading
Wings #4 (Spacers)
Total Build time: 320 hours. Before fitting the ribs to the main spar, a certain number of spacers have to be made to fill the gaps created by the multiple varying layers within the main spar. There are 2 types of spacers… those that are the thickness of the main spar caps: And then … Continue reading
Wings #3 (Rear spar and Forward Root Ribs)
Total build time: 315 hours. For the forward root ribs I made a popular modification that increases access to the flap drive tubes during wing installation and removal. A typical rib is on the left. I connected the 2 holes to create 1 large hole. This is as far as I went with … Continue reading
Wings #2 (Aileron Bell-cranks)
Total Build Time: 307 Hours. The aileron bell crank assembly marks the first flight control interface I’ve built on the aircraft. As such, I took extra special care in making these parts, 1 per wing. It may be difficult to see in the following picture, but i made the holes in my right … Continue reading
Wing Spars #5 (Completion and Mating)
Total Build Time: 296 Hours. Completing my wing spars ranks right up there with completing the turtledeck and seeing the entire aft fuselage come together. So much time put into working the same looking hard-to-work-with parts, it’s easy to lose track of progress and get frustrated in the process. It was with great satisfaction … Continue reading
Wing Spars #4 (Right spar time-lapse video)
Total build time: 292 hours. The right spar was built much like the left spar with some subtle differences in the assembly. However I learned so much during the left spar that the right spar took nearly half the time. This weekend I had myself a marathon session of building the right spar, and … Continue reading
Wing Spars #3 (Riveting Left Spar)
Total build time: 273 hours. The primer is dry and it’s time to start the final assembly of the left main wing spar. Solid rivets! In the picture above you can see most of those angle components that I fabricated earlier. They really help make the root of the spar extremely strong. For installing … Continue reading
Wing Spars #2 (Left spar)
Total build time: 264 hours With all my prep work complete, it’s time to start building the wing spar itself. I start with the left spar. Pictured here is the spar web, with the top and bottom spar caps. The web itself came rolled into a tight circle about 14″ in diameter, surprisingly when unrolled … Continue reading
Wings #1 (Rib Gussets)
Total build time: 242 hours. The airfoil shape of the wings are formed and held in place by the wing ribs. There are 2 shapes of wing ribs, those that hold the shape of the wing in front of the wing spar (along the leading edge): and those ribs aft of the wing spar along … Continue reading
Wing Spars #1 (Angle fabrication)
Total build time: 230 hours. After a break from building for the holidays, I’m back at it. From having reached the decision point of either moving on to the forward fuselage or the wings, I chose the wings. The main reason is that once the forward fuselage is finished and attached to the aft fuselage, … Continue reading