Spent 7 hours in the shop today and got a lot accomplished. Fitted the upper wing extension skin and the splice plate using the hole duplicator tool. Once clecoed together, both the main spar and the rear wing spar are perfectly square. Next step will be to match drill the holes to the correct size. The it all comes apart to be deburred and reassembled with clecos. We'll then flip the wing over and do he whole process again for the lower skin. Once all deburred and clecoed together, the final rivets will be pulled. We haven't decided if we are going to cut the wing tip curves yet but probably will do those before final riveting. Last weekend I popped into the Edenvale Gathering of Classics aircraft and car show. I saw this "pilot name" on the side of a homebuilt Hummelbird airplane. Cool way to express the joy this pilot obviously experiences flying his craft! I'm getting closer to having this wing repair done. Once we get this off the table, we're going to open the production line and assemble 5 sets of slats and 4 of flaps for Ron's projects and my 750. I've got to start getting my Corvair stuff together for my trip to the Zentih open-house at the end of September. Having a chance to get an expert opinion on my core items is exciting :) Stay tuned, more to come.
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Decided to upload some pictures of the 701 wing repair and realized I haven't posted in a while. Which also reminds me it's already August! Summer has been slipping by and I've accomplished little... <sigh> This new Monday to Friday work schedule isn't helping matters! Anyhow, here are some pics of the continuing 701 wing repair. When we flipped the wing over to begin fitting a new top skin on the extension, it became very apparent that the rear wing spar was not aligned properly with the main spar. Neither of us can figure out why as it was dead on straight when we riveted it. Very frustrating! So, drill out the rivets and start again. Hate doing things twice, but do it right, right? To help keep things lined up correctly, we fastened a long aluminum angle to the top of the inboard spar using clecos, leaving the angle extended out the end of the rear spar tip. C-clamps hold the rear spar at the correct position. Cleco clamps hold the upper and lower skins to the wing ribs, ensuring everything is square New rear brackets for both wing ribs. This requires a bit of finesse fitting in the clecos without disturbing the square of the whole assembly! With everything square again, I riveted it all back together. We'll leave the angle attached until the skins are fitted and drilled. This is much better and the skins will just add further stiffness. One of the advantages of "monocoque contruction" is the inherent rigidity of the structure of ribs and skins. Light and strong. More information on what monocoque means can be read here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monocoque That's it for this update. Thanks for tuning in, more progress soon. |
New here? Try starting at:AuthorHusband, father and 911 dispatcher. Long time pilot with a licence that burns a hole in my pocket where my student loan money used to be. First time aircraft builder. Looking to fly my own airplane. Categories
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