Wings: attaching the ribs (major mess up)

Seemed like a simple thing to do..  The rear ribs were ALL attached incorrectly!

Pay close attention to which side of the flanges you are attaching the ribs to!!!

I had to drill out all of the rear ribs and re-attach them.  It wasnt difficult, but there were so many rivets that needed to be drilled!

Wings: ribs

Ribs ribs ribs.

Fluted all of them.. tried to do many gentle flutes in the center of the ribs,  rather than just a couple big flutes.

Etched and primed all the ribs.  Also just sprayed some primer on the main spar.  I did not prepare it in any way.  If the primer sticks, it sticks.. if not.. then .. it'll just flake off.

As it turned out (me from the future), there were some spots on the left main spar that flaked off over the winter.   Most of these spots were the pre-riveted bare-aluminum flanges.  I tried to rough them up a bit and spray a little more primer.  I doubt it will stick.

Wings - rear spars

Hello from the future again..  Here is a walkthrough of the rear wing spars.  A short video, just to document what it looks like.


The hinges were a pain.  The problem was that you have to press-fit a bearing into a piece of aluminum.  This was eventually accomplished with a C-clamp, and a socket that was big enough to press only on the material and not the bearing.

I'm not sure exactly why, but two rivets of the hinge are flush, and one isn't.

Wings - stub spar (forward spar)

The forward spar was fun and easy to work on because the materials were thicker aluminium.

Here we see the finished product and a walk-through of all the countersunk holes I drilled.

WINGS ACROSS NJ - Main spars

With the tailkit done.. mostly..  I've moved onto the wings..

In the wings section, there are a few main sections/categories:

1. Main spar preparation
2. Stub spar (forward) preparation
3. Rear spar preparation
4. Rib preparation
5. Rib attachment
6. Forward/Read spar attachment
7. Stall warning switch fitting
8. Bottom skins
9. Top skins

(the next videos are short clips)

Here we are looking at the left spar and reviewing the directions.

Right spar, reviewing directions:

More review:

And of the right spar:

EMPENNAGE DONE

Everything from the tailkit is done.. except for:

1. Stabilator fairings (they'll come in the finishing kit)
2. Stabilator re-inforcement due to the new Service Bulletin of 2018.
3. Rudder/VS fairings

I really want to do all the plastics on one day...  but if I have some downtime, I may do it early.

Heres the last look inside, now that its all closed up.  The static lines have been run.

Attaching the Horizontal Stabilator

Hello from the future.  Here is a back-dated photo of the HS being attached.

NOTE:  This will need to come back off -- there is a service bulletin on it concerning reinforcing the forward side of the HS spar.  Apparently there was a plane that had some cracking in that area.