Category: Wings

My inspector came and checked the wings over and was happy to sign it off as complete. All that remains is for me to fit the left flap by riveting on the hinge, inserting the pins and locking them down.

Next job was to adjust the aileron hinges slightly to remove any binding.

And with that the wings are officially finished. Yay!

After the obligatory celebration photo I covered the wings with old bedding and then relocated them to their new home.

I hope they won’t be there too long! 🙂

The plan today is to finish all the odds and ends before the inspector comes next week.

The first task is to finally mount the right flap by riveting the primed piano hinge to the main wing structure.

Next I fitted the hinge pins and screwed them to the locking mechanism.

Next I inserted the main push rods (the ones that will connect to the control stick) and attached them to the bellcranks and right autopilot servo.

I also fitted the Garmin AoA/Pitot tube and connected the wiring and plumbing. That means the wing is now ready for inspection.

Just a simple session today priming the two halves of the flap piano hinges.

The flaps are mounted using piano hinges and there are two ways in which the pins can be configured to mount the flaps. The first is to run the pin from the inboard end all the way through to the outboard end. Drill a hole in the steel aileron and push the pin in there. The problem is that the flap pin is very difficult to push through all those eye holes while holding the flap at the same time.

Option 2 is to remove two of the eyelets in the middle of the hinge and split the pins. It makes it easier for the pins to be fitted and removed if need be. The pins need to be cut, bent and chamferred at the ends so they fit more easily. the bent ends locate in the middle of the flap. To fix the pins in place I drilled three holes in the flap brace for a number 6 screw and nutplate and rivets too.

It was a surprising amount of work to get the flap pins done today but at least their done.

After that I mounted the right flap by riveting the second half of the piano hinge to the wing structure and fitting the hinge pins which worked a treat.

Just a quick half hour today repeating the rigging from yesterday on the right aileron. No pictures i’m afraid and nothing interesting to add to yesterdays post.

The list of jobs left on the wings is dwindling fast. One of the very last major jobs is mounting the ailerons and flaps. To keep the ailerons safe I put two bolts in the hinges and left it like that until today. Today I wanted to put all the washers, nuts, bolts and spacers necessary to finalise the fitting of the ailerons.

I started by attempting to fit the push rod bolt and washers etc while it was attached to the wing but I soon realised that was going to be impossible. The nut is inaccessible while the aileron is on the wing. Hmm, plan B required. I removed everything and then removed the aileron from the wing. I fitted all the push rod parts to the aileron as per the plans.

This is what it looks like fitted…

As it was inaccessible while mounted I also torqued this nut and bolt to 25″/lbs as per standards. Next I remounted the aileron to the wing again with just a bolt in each hinge point. I then worked on each hinge point one at a time fitting all the spacers and hardware as per the drawings.

Once all the hinge hardware was fitted I then aligned the aileron using some clecos and an aluminium angle. Some builders log sees them making convoluted alignment jigs for this task. I simply used 3 gold clecos. 2 in each of the big rib tooling holes and one in the very aft of the aileron and clamped them all to the aluminium angle. So far as I could tell this is exactly what vans intended to get the alignment of the aileron dead centre.

Once that was done I grabbed the alignment template that Vans supply in the kit and used it to align the other end of the push rod. I adjusted the push rod end bearing until the eye of the bearing fitted smoothly through the bolt while the bolt was in the template and bellcrank. Once there I then adjusted the push rod until it was dead centre of both rod end bearings. I checked the witness holes at both ends to confirm that I could see the thread of the rod at both ends. All good.

With the Aileron rigged I moved on to mounting the left flap. To make sure I didn’t go over the minimum edge distances I marked a line 3/16″ all the way along the wing side of the hinge. Mounting the flap was a bit tricky because alignment had to be in three dimensions while the flap brace was putting pressure one the assembly. The three dimensions where 1/4″ gap between flap and aileron, level with the aft edge of the aileron and, finally, forward/backward about its hinge.

In the end I found an easy way to solve all three dimensions.

1. I grabbed a 1/4″ drill bit and placed it between the aileron and flap to maintian the 1/4″ gap required.
2. I found a block of wood and some metal shims on placed them at the most inboard end of the flap too maintain the correct horizontal alignment. The aileron had 1.3 degrees out of level (because of the wing trolley) so I maintained the same 1.3 degrees on the flap.
3. I used two pieces of aluminium angle and some shims to lock the forward/backward movement in the same position as the aileron.

With that all in place I took a break for a quick drink. When I came back to it I rechecked everything again to make sure I was happy with the alignments and then I drilled the first hole in the piano hinge. Once the first few holes had been drilled and clecod I was really committed to dimensions.

I used my calipers to make sure that every hole I drilled had the same gap between wing skin and flap…

Eventually I finished drilling and clecoing every hole.

After I took the picture above I notice that my red clamp is stuck between the aileron and flap, doh! Not to worry to much as the flap needs to come off so I can debur & prime the hinge, make the hinge pin locking mechanism and rivet the hinge on. All for another day, for now that’s the left side all done. I just need to repeat all this on the right wing too. 🙂

All the parts for the flaps have been primed and left to cure for a few days so today is a good day to rivet the flaps together. It’s always a fun but nerve racking time because so much effort has been spent so far and one small mistake could mean a big do over.

I started with the bottom skins and riveted the 4 inner ribs to the end of the bottom skin and then to the rest of the bottom skin.

Next I riveted the reinforcement plate to the end rib.

Then riveted the inboard end ribs to the bottom skins but left the outboard just clecod for now as they can be reached with the squeezer.

Once that was done I made a couple of V blocks as per the instructions and then put the top skin on and sat the assembly in the v-blocks.

Once it was in the v-block I was able to rivet all the top skin rivets with the tungsten bucking bar and rivet gun. There are a couple of rivets at the very lowest point that must be pop-riveted because of their location but the rest were do-able. Once that was done I riveted on the rear spar using blind rivets as per the plans. I had quite a bit of trouble with the rivets near the reinforcement plate as the holes were too close to the bend and so the rivet puller simply wouldn’t fit. In the end I worked out that a single eye from a piano hinge was the perfect left the raise the rivet puller high enough to do the job. Unfortunately with all that head scratching I forgot to take any pictures until both rear spars had been fitted.

The last job was to rivet on the piano hinge. To do this I needed to change the yoke. There are two pins with ring pulls that hold the yoke in place and today, for some reason, I forgot to put both pins in. As I started riveting there was an almighty crack and the rivet squeezer was toast! The picture below shows the broke part either side of the spring. That part is supposed to be one piece. 🙁

Luckily I still had my pneumatic squeezer so I was able to get the piano hinges finished.

The flaps look good but I’m not 100% happy with the left flap where I had to drill out a blind rivet as it has left a bit of a mess. I will check with my inspector and see if he is happy with it as it is or if he has any ideas on fixing it. A long, but productive, day today.

Still on a high from finishing the main wing structure and ailerons last week I couldn’t wait to get started on the last major assembly of the wing kit, the flaps. First I found the spars, deburred the edges and the lightening holes. Then I found the 12 ribs and deburred those two. Then cleco’d the whole assembly together.

Next the instructions say to match drill the ribs to the spar but there is too much movement there to get an accurate drill. I decided to cleco both bottom and top skins in place so they would hold the ribs firmly in place while I drilled. All this effort is to try and reduce/prevent twist in the flaps. The problem is the top skin curls over and blocks the top holes in the ribs. I got over this little problem by using my angle drill with the smallest possible bit.

Once that was done I removed the top skin and called it a night.

Using the same technique I found on the left skin I riveted on the inboard bottom skins. Nothing new here, it was identical to the left wing.

That’s enough for today, I’ll do the outboard skin another day.