Sunday, March 11, 2012

Mar 11th, 2012

Been working on the ailerons, flaps, flap attach points, etc.

On a side note - yesterday we were moving Rich's frame from the Cherokee hangar over to Mark Banus's hangar. Wish I had a picture of everyone rolling it down the hangar row. It was quite a sight.

The Dismal Swamp Rats were helping to test out Mark's new "man cave". All it needs is some environmental control, carpet and some entertainment and he'll be the most popular guy at the airport.

From Ailerons and Flaps




Jeff Moreau kindly offered me a ride in his RV-8a (down to ONX and back). I'm still grinning. If you haven't seen it his plane is a work of art. Flies like a dream. Super light on the controls without being twitchy, rock solid (like it is on rails in a turn) and excellent performance. Wow. I want one. NOW. :)

From FKN Pancake Breakfast Photos

 

Started out the week test fitting the ribs, aileron counterbalance (about a 3 foot piece of what looks like stainless steel tubing), spar, stiffeners, skin, etc to make sure I had a feel for what was going on. There is a lot of opportunity for putting it together in the wrong way. Not good.

Here's the only pic I thought to take when test fitting the aileron ribs and spar.

From Ailerons and Flaps


Greg jayhawkered his knee (sprained it pretty badly actually) which was bad for him (couldn't drive) but good for me cause I got to go home early on Wed (!!!), and took the opportunity to prime a boatload of parts I've been wanting to prime but the weather hadn't cooperated. No pictures. Imagine a bunch of parts on a frame in the back yard with light green paint.

I'd been working ahead fitting and drilling and such but since I hadn't been able to prime I was skipping a lot of riveting. Took care of all the backlogged riveting Sunday afternoon.

Sunday I finished riveting the flap attach bracket reinforcements (925B&C), the aileron and flap gap fairings and back riveted the stiffeners to the aileron skins.

Reinforcement angles (925B & 925C) after riveting to the inboard flap hinge bracket.

From Ailerons and Flaps


Aileron gap fairing during riveting.

From Ailerons and Flaps


Flap gap fairing during riveting.

From Ailerons and Flaps


Back riveting the stiffeners to the aileron skins.

From Ailerons and Flaps


One of the finished aileron skins.

From Ailerons and Flaps