Wing Fit Check

Now things started to get interesting! I'm continuing my "work detour" from the firewall forward and wiring stuff and trying to finish non fuselage parts for paint. One section I needed to complete was the wing install, at least enough to get the flaps and wing root fairings trimmed.

First I had to do the fuselage side work. I also completed as many steps as possible in prep for the wing fit day.

We had a great day, busy, but productive. Plus, Brian and Brandi flew over and helped us get the parts trimmed up and everything done in a single day. I wasn't going to leave the plane sitting outside overnight. Brian was a great help; I don't think I could have gotten the job done in a single day without him. Also, I have to say thanks to the guys that helped me get the wings on and off, Kris and Mike. The job was easy with three people. With all the commotion of the day, people coming and going, I didn't get a chance to take pictures of anyone helping or any work being done....why does this happen every time Brian and Brandi come by?

But I did get a family pic in front of the plane!

...and an awesome shot of the plane and the shop from the roof!

...and an end of the day pic - before we pulled the wings off and everything went back to normal.

Wings Down, Fairing Work, Cowl Check

Continuing my "work detour". I'm trying to finish everything that is not permanently attached to the fuselage so it can go out for paint. The last post I talked about finishing up all the tail stuff, and now I'm on to the fairings and such.

First I needed muscle to get the wings down from they're lofty storage. I moved the plane out from the shop to make room for the move. These are heavy wings and it's a tricky move, I was nervous, there is A LOT of work invested in all these parts and moving them racks the nerves.

The plane moved out and sitting in front of the shop.

The wings came down safely thanks to some great helpers. I had to rearrange a little, it's crowded, but it all fits.

I wanted to finish some small steps on the fairings and do a good fit check. I wasn't confident on the bond I had between my little support tabs and the fairing so I decided to reinforce them with some small flush rivets.

As you can see...they also still needed some sanding.

I also did one last fit check of the engine cowling.

My little helper. Coloring "circles" she says.

Finished the Wings!

The wings are finished! Wow it feels good to type that. Things were busy this weekend. My birthday was Friday, July 12, and what better way to spend your 30th birthday than skipping work and building your airplane? Or more importantly finishing the wings to your airplane. Jess took the day off as well and helped all day Friday. It was her first time using a rivet gun and she got the hang of it pretty quickly. The lower skins are a lot of work. You're on your knees crawling around on the floor sticking your arm into the wing and stretching to reach the rivet while holding the bucking bar and straining your shoulder muscles to push against the rivet while it's being bucked (that sentence is as long as the work is uncomfortable). Then repeat another 1.3 million times for all the other rivets.....it's exhausting. Despite the nicks, bruises, and soreness it feels great to have the wings completed!

Wed July 10th - 1.0hr - Installed aileron actuation torque tubes
Fri July 12th - 6.0hrs - Jess helped all day. We completed the upper row of rivets and most of the rivets on the ribs down to the J-channel on both wings
Sat July 13th - 4.5hrs -  Just kept riveting.
Sun July 14th - 7.75hrs - Finished riveting skins. Deburred, dimpled, installed inspection panels.
Mon July 15th - 1.5hrs - Finished odds and ends. Safety wired auto pilot roll servo. Installed bell cranks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Pitot Mast is installed. I'm going to wait until later to install the pitot tube. There's less chance of damage to the pitot if it's tucked away on a shelf instead of hanging out waiting to get snagged in the shop.

 

 

 

 

 

I dinged the J-Channel with the bucking bar while riveting. (Sucks, but the show must go on.) The dent on the outside is hardly noticeable and it's on the lower skin so that's even better. I inspected as best I could for any cracking but did not find any. I don't think a repair is required and I could've just moved on, but for ease of mind I decided to make a little doubler channel. It took maybe 5 minutes and now my mind is eased.

The autopilot roll servo is installed and safety wired. This is my second attempt at my first safety wire job. Turned out pretty nice I think. Also the bell cranks are installed and torqued. I had to "polish" the inside of the bell crank tubes so they would freely rotate on the bushings.  I used a small roll of sandpaper wrapped on a drill bit and spun on a drill. Worked really well and very quickly.

                     

 

 

                   

RH Wing complete.

                   

LH Wing complete.

Summer Travel and Wing Building

I  haven't posted in a while because we were visiting family in Colorado. I got a lot of work done before we left, but never had a chance to write it up. I discovered, while arriving home from work, on the Friday before we left that I had a leak in the main water line going into the house. I'll spare the details but after digging, being covered in mud, discovering it was two leaks, and a night without a shower...I finally got it fixed. So needless to say I didn't find time to update the blog prior to departure.

Here is the summary:

Mon 6/24 - 0.75hrs - Sanded skin lap joint, deburred edges of skin

Tues 6/25 - 1.25hrs - deburred edges of skin, cut pitot mount hole

Wed 6/26 - 1.25hrs - dimpled LH ribs, drilled and tapped pitot

Sat 6/29 - 1.0hr - dimpled RH ribs, test fit pitot to mount

Sun 7/7 - 2.5hrs - Finished dimpling skins

 

 

I cut the hole in the skin for the pitot tube using a variety of tools including a step drill and a dremel. Drilling the holes into the pitot tube was nerve racking. I was really worried about hitting the pitot and AoA tubes, but with a stop drill and luck there wasn't any damage. Tapping was easy and I used four short MS51957-41 Screws I ordered from Aircraft Spruce to attach it.

 

 

 The wires from the control box are long enough to poke out the bottom of the pitot mount. So the plan is to leave them hanging out when the skin is installed, connect to the wires to the pitot tube connectors and then slide the pitot into place. This will make future disconnects really easy.

 

Here is a better view of the tubing and wiring. The tubes will be held in place by the disconnects. Notice I made a tube guide for the blue line around the bellcrank. The power wires will go into the conduit. And the control wires are held by an adel clamp.

 

 

 

All the skins are dimpled and ready for install. The end of the wings is near. 

 We flew commercial to Colorado. The next flight to Colorado hopefully will happen in my own plane, but renting a slow airplane for this long trip just wasn't economical. Looking at the math I can fly us there cheaper and faster (no layovers) than the commercial guys. And when Ayla is older and we actually have to pay for her seat it would only be even more expensive making flying ourselves even that much better. We really love the Rockies and plan on doing a lot of westerly flying when the plane is finished.

 

 



We hiked around a reservoir that was at 9000' elevation....that's a normal cruising altitude for me! The hike was 15 miles and took 6 hours, but it was beautiful.

 



Pitot, Lower Skins, and a Fuel Tank

It's been productive around here...I really want to finish these wings.
Tue 18th  - 1.5hrs - Started aileron actuation section, cut and drilled long pushrods
Wed 19th - 1.25hrs - Drilled RH lower skins
Fri  21st   - 2.5hrs - "Deburr Party" deburred all lower wing skins
Sat 22nd  - 5.5hrs - worked on pitot mount, worked on pushrods
Sun 23rd  - 6.5hrs - Primed parts, installed RH Fuel Tank, riveted pitot mount, worked on push rods

Total time for this post = 17.25hrs 

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My Dynon stuff arrived! It was like Christmas in June.

I received the heated/AoA pitot tube, it's controller box, the autopilot roll servo, mounting bracket and wiring kit. Everything look to be of very high quality. Really nice pieces of equipment....good job Dynon!

The servo just has 7" or so of wire coming from it, nothing has a connector installed. So my first order of business, with my new avionic,s was to install the connector on the servo and on one end of the wire bundle. The wire bundle will run down the conduit I installed in the wing and therefore one end of the wires need to remain without a connector installed to fit through the conduit. Having never installed a connector and it's pins before I recruited Mike, a coworker and friend of mine who happens to be an electrical engineer dealing with avionics integration everyday, for help. So I walked down the hall to Mike's office for a lesson on pinning connectors. Turns out it's really easy and we finished the job on our lunch break.        

No problems installing the connectors to the servo.

Drilled out the RH lower skins.

Installed the RH Fuel Tank.

 

Friday night the wife and I had a "Deburr Party", yep it's what you think it is, you stand around and deburr wing skins into the wee hours of the night. Of course the party can't get started until the baby is sleeping. Grab the monitor and sneak out to the shop, she'll never know we were gone : ). We finished all of the lower skins in a single night!

I got a lot of the aileron actuation section complete as well. I cut and primed the push/pull rods and attached the ends, which I etched and alodined, looks nice.

 

 

I needed to mount the pitot controller near the pitot tube so I made a mounting plate to attach to the rib. It rivets into place using four 470AD4 rivets which minimizes the size of the holes cut into the rib. The controller then screws into place using four #6 screws into the nutplates. There are two angles attached to the back to stiffen the plate and provide attachment points for Adel clamps to hold the pitot and AoA lines and wiring. The power wires run from the bottom of the controller and are held in place by an Adel clamp mounted on a spacer to the hole on the lower side of the mount (LH side of the picture below). More pics of the installation will come later when I get everything finished up.

Here is the single picture I have of the install more pics will follow when I finish up the wiring and such...kinda looks like a mess right now.

Finished Flaps and Other Stuff

I finished up the flaps on Saturday. These were a really easy build and they look great. I riveted the trailing edges with proseal and with the rivets altering directions, facing up, facing down, facing up.... I did this to prevent any warping in the part during riveting. (I also did this on all the other trailing edges I have made, so nothing new). I laid some blankets down inside the fuselage and stored them in there for now.

Saturday June 15th - 4.25hrs - Finished Flaps, Riveted trailing edges.
Sunday June 16th - 5.25hrs - drilled skins, pitot tube mount, drilled holes for pitot lines, installed fuel tank

Finished Flaps Total Time = 26.25hrs

I installed the LH Fuel Tank yesterday, RH will come later. This was easier than what I thought it was going to be. I imagined lots of sweat and grunting to be required, but everything lined up really well. I first spaced them up using boards underneath the jigs they were sitting in and then after lining up the first hole I inserted a cleco into the nutplate to hold that end. I then raised the other end and did the same. I few more clecos and everything was lined up. Then I started installing the 56(?) screws...there were a lot.

I drilled out the LH skins and I got some help marking holes I drilled. Then we did the big cleco migration, where every cleco moves over one hole, to final drill the unmarked hole it was previously installed in.

 

 

 

The pitot/AoA lines are installed. I am using the Pitot/Static kit from SafeAir1. It provides tubing, connector, etc for cheaper than if you buy the stuff seperately (trust me I researched it). The tubing is nylon and can withstand -40F to 200+F, very durable. I had to drill new feed through holes for the green line, which will be my pitot line. The blue line will be my AoA line and I used the existing feed throughs made per the plans.

 

 

I worked on my pitot mast installation. I am using the Gretz pitot mast kit to install the Dynon pitot. The instructions for the install are decent, but it leaves a lot up to you, which was fun.

I used an old rib part I messed up on to scavenge an angle bracket.

Here are the 2 main parts. The angle bracket and the backing plate. (Note: This pic was post drilling, the parts don't come with holes)

 

I match drilled the backing plate to the spar first, removed it, then clecoed the skin in place. Reclecoed the plate to the spar on the outside of the skin and with the angle bracket clecoed to the spar I match drilled through the plate, skin, and bracket at the same time.

A picture with the parts clecoed in place. The skin will install over this.

I am installing in the third bay from the wing tip on the outboard rib.