Archive for category Ailerons
Wings Complete!!! (12/4/11)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Ailerons, Construction, Flaps, Main Structure, Wings on December 4, 2011
2.3 Hours -
The wings are now completely finished!!! That’s not even one of my usual ”finished except for…” lead-ins. They are now going to sit as they are until it’s time to mate them to the fuselage. Speaking of the fuse, I received a shipment notice/tracking number from Van’s, and the fuselage is scheduled to be delivered by ABF on 12/7/11. Great timing!
The fuselage is on its way! If all goes well, deliver should be in three days.
The work I did today to finish the wings was pretty easy. The first thing I did was to reinstall the left aileron on the wing. To make this a little easier, I decided to install the push-rod on the aileron while the aileron was sitting on a work bench. Once the push-rod was attached, I could insert it into the aft end of the wing before positioning the aileron on its brackets. Once the aileron was positioned, it took a little time to get all the washer/spacers into the correct positions, and I also had to remake one spacer (the original was too short and I didn’t catch it before), but I eventually got everything connected.
I forgot to mention a new tool previously, but I did spend $30 to get a set of washer wrenches from Avery Tools. They seemed a little expensive for what they are, but they really do make washer insertion much easier. In my opinion, they pretty much paid for themselves during aileron installation.
The Avery washer wrench set has a total of four wrenches like this one. Each wrench holds two different sizes of washers.
Next, I riveted the pitot mast to the left wing. The mast attaches with only 5 rivets, but I managed to screw up one of those. I had been doing great with my riveting, with almost no re-dos on the bottom skins, so I guess I was due. In addition, as I was working on the mast, I had my first broken cleco. The cleco wouldn’t stay in the wing. When I checked it, I found that one of the small “dogs” had broken off. Unfortunately, this is an unfixable issue. However, this little cleco had seen a lot of use…you can still see some of the tank sealant on it from when it was used on the fuel tanks.
This cleco gave its life for the cause.
Once the mast was riveted, I routed the pitot/AOA tubing through the wing. For now, I have it running under the bellcrank. It looks like it should be fine, but I may decide to anchor it to the spar sometime down the road.
For now, the pitot/AOA tubing is routed under the bellcrank. I may clamp it to the spar sometime in the future.
The pitot mast with the pitot/AOA tubing protruding.
With the tubing in the wing, I decided to go ahead and install the pitot/AOA tube as well. This was just a matter of pushing the two tubes into the fittings, and then using four #6 screws to attach the pitot tube to the mast. I had purchased a cheap pitot tube cover, but it is about an inch too short for the Dynon pitot/AOA. It will function OK for keeping the pitot tube clean in the garage, but I’ll have to buy or make something else once the plane is ready to fly.
The installed pitot/AOA tube...hopefully, there's no leaks!
My cheapo pitot cover is a bit small. I'll have to buy a different one or maybe make one. Of course, the old rubber chicken is always an option!
Next, I reinstalled the flaps on both wings. With the wings in the cradle, installation of the hinge pins is a bit tricky, so I don’t have them in all the way yet. I really hope they are easier to install once the wings are on the plane!
The last thing I did was to install the access cover plates on the left wing. With the covers in place, there was nothing left to do with the wings but try to find a good place for storing them in the garage while the fuselage is built.
Wings...DONE!!!
More Wingtip Work and Right Flap Installed (6/12/11)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Ailerons, Construction, Flaps, Main Structure, Wings, Wingtips on June 12, 2011
2.5 Hours -
With today’s work session, I passed the 500 hour mark on the build. This means I’m anywhere from a third to a fifth of the way finished as far as build time goes.
I started the day off by working a bit more on the wingtip cutouts. I had already transferred the pattern to some sheet aluminum, so I used my band-saw to cut the pieces out. Once cut out, I did some edge finishing with both a belt sander and a Scotchbrite wheel. However, I won’t be able to finalize the shape until they are bent and I can hold them in place on the wing.
The left wingtip cutout before bending. I also made one for the right since it is just a mirror image.
Since I had the left wingtip on the bench, I decided to go ahead and attempt to bend the left cutout. To do this, I simply used the edge of my workbench and a section of 2″x4″. After a few attempts, I had the angle correct, but the cutout had quite a bit of extra material that needed to be removed. My belt sander made quick work of this and made it easy to keep the curved edge intact on the aluminum. For now, I’ll just use the left cutout to work on making the plexiglass pieces and figuring out the LED arrangement. Once everything is finalized, I’ll come back and finish the right.
After bending the cutout, I had to do a little trimming and finishing to get it to fit correctly.
Next on my to-do list was to get the flaps installed. Since the right aileron has been neutralized, and the bellcrank jig was still in place, I decided to start with the right flap. The biggest problem with mounting the flap is that there is a gap between the bottom wing skin and flap brace if no clecoes/rivets are installed. To eliminate this gap while aligning and drilling the flap hinge, I used a method that I found on a build site called Matt’s RV-7 Project. However, he gives Dan Checkoway credit for the idea.
The basic idea of this method is to eliminate the gap temporarily by installing several oops rivets (NAS1097). These rivets will be flush on the flap brace side during initial flap mounting. Then, before riveting the flap hinge to the wing, the oops rivets are drilled out and reversed so that the flush head is now on the skin side of the wing. To make this work on my right wing, I ended up drilling holes for 7 oops rivets. After manually countersinking the flap brace, I squeezed the oops rivets in place, and the gap was gone. With the gap closed, I could easily set the flap in position and clamp it with two side-grip cleco clamps.
I drilled 7 holes through the bottom skin and flap brace in each wing for temporary rivets.
The flap brace is countersunk for an oops rivet. After mounting the flap, I'll drill out these rivets and re-insert them with the flush head on the skin side.
Two clamps held the flap in position while I adjusted it. Here's the outboard clamp near the aileron hinge.
The inboard clamp was much easier to install and adjust compared to the outboard clamp.
With the flap now clamped in position, I could make small adjustments, nudging the flap inboard/outboard, up and down, until the trailing edge was aligned with the trailing edge of the aileron and there was a 1/4″ gap between the flap and aileron. Before starting to drill I had to make sure I would have enough edge distance on the wing side of the hinge. Since I previously drew a line on the hinge indicating minimum edge distance, DO NOT CROSS, it was a simple matter of glancing through the holes in the wing skin to see where the line was. The line was barely visible at the forward side of the holes, so I had more than enough edge distance. I was partly surprised by this since I’ve read so many accounts of builders having to order a wider piece of hinge stock in order to meet the edge distance requirement. I can only hope the left wing works out the same!
The right flap hinge is now drilled to the wing. No hinge edge distance issues here!
The gap between the flap and aileron is a perfect 1/4" the entire length.
Since everything was lined up perfectly on the right flap/wing, I decided it would be good to take a lunch break before drilling the hinge and then return to double-check the alignment with fresh eyes. After lunch, I remeasured the flap to aileron gap, double checked the trailing edges were in-line, and re-checked that my edge distance would be more than sufficient. With everything still satisfactory, I started drilling at the outboard end of the flap. Since the flap was only being held in place by two side-grip clamps on the hinge, and a bigger clamp holding the flap in neutral position with the aileron, I started drilling very cautiously and with very little pressure on the drill. After the first hole was drilled and clecoed, I, once again, checked that everything was still in the correct position before proceeding to the next hole. I continued this way for sever holes. Then, when I felt the flap was sufficiently held in place with clecoes, I picked up the pace ever so slightly. A few minutes later, the flap hinge was completely drilled and clecoed. As usual, something I was really worried about working came out great.
Of course, now that the right flap is drilled, I have to repeat the entire process on the left wing. For today, I managed to install the bellcrank jig and get the left aileron neutralized, and I also installed the 7 temporary rivets in the flap brace and wing skin. At the next work session, I’ll be ready to align the left flap and drill the hinge.
After a couple twists of the pushrod ends, the right aileron was aligned. The angle isn't on the center of the aileron's trailing edge since it is aligned with the side of the bolts.
Misc. Wing Work (6/8/11)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Ailerons, Construction, Wings, Wingtips on June 8, 2011
1.0 Hours -
I’ve been using the heat as an excuse to not work on the plane, and I wasn’t planning on working on it today, but a potential RV builder contacted me and asked if they could come see my project. I’m always happy to show my work to anyone interested in building, and it gave me a reason to go into the garage, battle the heat, and get a few things done.
I started off by making the spacers that are needed to connect the W-716 pushrods to the bellcranks. As with other spacers in the wings, these were just pieces of aluminum tubing cut to the length specified in the plans. Once the spacers were made, I temporarily installed the pushrods, leaving the nuts only finger tight. My right wing still has the bellcrank alignment fixture installed, but I could push and pull on the right pushrod and make the aileron move. Granted, this is the way it is supposed to work, but its still exciting when you actually get to see some parts come together and work the way they are supposed to!
An aft view of the bellcrank with both pushrods installed.
A bottom view of the bellcrank with both pushrods installed.
The W-716 pushrods stick out the inboard end of the wings. For now, I wrapped them in bubble wrap to keep them from getting scratched.
Next, I wanted to continue working on my LED nav light project. The next step is to start fabricating parts and see how everything is going to go together. To start, I pulled out the left wingtip and made a paper template of the cutout where the lights will go. A file folder worked great for this since it already had a fold in the middle. Once the wingtip cutout was traced onto the folder, I cut it out and transferred the shape to a piece of sheet aluminum. At this point, I had to set it aside as the potential builder showed up.
I made a paper template of the wingtip cut out using a file folder.
The template was transferred to a piece of sheet aluminum. Eventually, this will get cut out!
After about 45 minutes of answering questions and talking about flying/RVs, I went back to work for a few more minutes. The last thing I wanted to do was to start working on aileron alignment. I started with the right wing since it is the easiest to access. Van’s instructs you to build a simple alignment jig out of wood. However, I decided to make this even easier by using a 4 foot length of aluminum angle held against two bolts sticking through the tooling holes in the wing. The tooling holes are in-line with the neutral aileron position, so all I had to do was adjust the aileron pushrod length until the trailing edge of the aileron was in perfect alignment with the bolts. The aluminum angle is simply a straight edge that lets me check the position. To achieve neutral, I only had to adjust one rod end about 1.5 turns. This adjustment equated to about 1/4″ of aileron travel.
I simplified Van's aileron alignment jig a bit. I inserted bolts into the tooling holes and then used a piece of aluminum angle to see if the aileron was aligned with the bolts. The right aileron was only 1/4" off to start.
After a couple twists of the pushrod ends, the right aileron was aligned. The angle isn't on the center of the aileron's trailing edge since it is aligned with the side of the bolts.
More Left Flap Work and Aileron Installation (3/27/11)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Ailerons, Construction, Flaps, Main Structure, Wings on March 27, 2011
4.0 Hours -
About half of my time in the garage today was spent deburring the left flap skins and dimpling anything I could reach with my squeezer. However, I got stuck on about 4 holes on the top skin. I can’t find any way to dimple the aft-most holes because the bend in the skin is so tight that nothing I have can get in their. So, as I thought about what to do, I moved on to other items including priming the FL-706A & B (these will be the only flap parts that get primed) and installing the ailerons on the wings.
On the ailerons, I decided to start by installing the bellcranks even though I don’t have any of the push tubes completed. To install these, I had to remove both bellcrank brackets and re-drill them to 1/4″. Apparently, the drill bit I used originally was slightly undersized and the AN4 bolt wouldn’t go through. I was going to have to remove at least the top bracket anyway, so removing both wasn’t such a big deal.
After re-drilling the brackets, I reinstalled the lower bracket, then slid the bellcrank bolt through the top bracket, bellcrank bushing, bellcrank and lower bracket. Before installing the bushing, I lubricated it with some Aeroshell 33. Van’s just says to use your preferred grease. Since I don’t have one, I decided on Aeroshell 33 since it advertises itself as and all-purpose airframe lubricant.
The aileron bellcranks were easy, but time-consuming to install since parts of the bracket have to be removed to insert the long bolt.
Next, I installed the ailerons on the wings. First, I had to make a spacer for the lower end of the inboard aileron bracket. This spacer was just a piece of tubing stock cut to the appropriate length. Actual installation of the ailerons was simple, but sliding all the washers into place is a bit of a pain. It was nice to see the ailerons in place. For some reason, they make the wings look more like wings!
The ailerons are attached to the inboard bracket using a spacer and several washers.
The aileron is attached to the outboard bracket using several washers and there isn't much room to work.
The outboard end of the wings with the ailerons installed.
Another view of the aileron on the right wing.
Flaps Started (3/20/11)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Ailerons, Construction, Flaps, Main Structure, Wings on March 20, 2011
3.3 Hours -
At first, my plan for the day was to mount the ailerons on the wing. With this in mind, I started working on the aileron bellcranks. I drilled the holes in the bellcrank to the proper size for AN3 bolts. Then, I pulled out the brass bellcrank bushings and used a 1/4′ drill, chucked in my drill press, to open up the bushings for AN4 bolts. After doing this, I rethought my plan for mounting the ailerons and decided to switch to building the flaps. No real reason for this change.
I started the day by working on the aileron bellcranks. I got as far as drilling the bellcrank bushings to size, then decided it would be better to wait on the rest until I'm ready to install the ailerons on the wings.
My flap work for the day consisted of a lot of deburring and fabrication. By the end of the work session, I had everything made that is fabricated by the builder (not much), and I completed the edge finishing on all the parts except for the skins.
On to the flaps!
First up, I finished the edges of all the ribs. This includes four FL-704 exterior ribs and eight FL-705 interior ribs. These were finished using only my large Scotchbrite wheel mounted in the drill press.
Here's a pile of flap ribs after deburring their edges.
After the ribs, I needed a little break from deburring, so I fabricated the FL-708 spacers. These spacers will be placed at the bottom, aft of each of the exterior flap ribs to fill a gap between the skin and the rib. As usual, Van’s provides a full-scale drawing with detailed dimensions for parts that the builder fabricates. Since this part is nothing more than a small rectangle of .025 alclad, I didn’t have to rely on the drawing too heavily! To make the spacers, I cut them from scrap aluminum using my bandsaw, and then finished the edges on the Scotchbrite wheel.
The FL-708 spacers (2 per flap for a total of 4) had to be fabricated from scrap aluminum...fairly simple stuff.
Four FL-708 spacers ready for drilling.
Next, I deburred the edges of the FL-703 spars. The long edges were easy to finish using the large Scotchbrite wheel, but the small lightening holes are more of a pain. For these, I used a combination of tools including a swiveling edge deburr tool, small Scotchbrite wheel in a die grinder, and a maroon Scotchbrite pad. Fun stuff (not really)!
The flap spars after deburring...the lightening holes take a significant amount of time to deburr.
With the spars deburred, I moved on to the FL-706B plates. These plates are made from thick aluminum and they reinforce the area where the flap actuator mechanism attaches to the flap. Since these are made from thick stock, I first filed the edges with a vixen file to remove all the marks left from fabrication at the factory. Then, I ran them through the big Scotchbrite wheel to knock of the corners and polish the edges. These parts will be given a slight bend later on, so I went ahead and marked the bend line now. One will be bent up approximately 6 degrees and the other down 6 degrees in order to create a left and right part. The actual bending shouldn’t be difficult, but it’s going to have to wait for another day.
I deburred the FL-706B plates and marked were they are to be bent. One goes up 6 degrees, the other down 6 degrees.
The final thing I did today was to fabricate the FL-706A angles. These are used in combination with the FL-706B plates to reinforce the area of the flap where the actuator is attached. As with the FL-708 spacers, a detailed drawing with dimensions is provided, and it is up to the builder to cut these from supplied angle stock. Again, these are fairly simple parts. The angle stock is cut to the appropriate length. Then, the short side of the angle is cut down even further. Finally, the parts are deburred using a combination of a vixen file and Scotchbrite wheel.
The FL-706A angles have to be fabricated from this piece of stock angle.
As usual, Van's provides dimensions for parts that the builder fabricates. Here's the FL-706A drawing.
The FL-706A angles after cutting to size and deburring the edges.
With all of these parts prepped, it should be a relatively quick process to finish up the flaps. The only thing I’m not looking forward to is dealing with the flap hinges.
Ailerons Finished (3/17/11)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Ailerons, Construction, Tools, Wings on March 17, 2011
2.0 Hours -
My new bucking bars from The Yard arrived yesterday, and I was anxious to “play” with them. The first thing I did was attempt to set the aft-most rivets in the right aileron’s trailing edge. With the new, narrow bucking bar, these were a piece of cake to set. I wish I would have bought this when I started working on the empennage!
I bought two new bucking bars from The Yard. The one on the right is specifically for bucking the aft-most rivets on the ailerons. The one on the right just looked like it would come in handy.
The new bucking bar made setting these rivets a cinch...I wish I would have bought it when I was working on the empennage!
Next, I went to work on the left aileron, repeating everything I did on the right aileron. For details, see my post from March 15th, which details the aileron assembly. Everything went according to plan while riveting. However, my pop-rivet puller started giving me problems. The jaws don’t seem to want to grab the rivet shank…sometimes they grab, sometimes they don’t. It was a hassle, but I managed to set all of the pop-rivets and it’s definitely time to buy a new rivet puller!
All riveting on the left aileron is complete. It looks nice and straight...I'm happy!
Side view of the left aileron.
Once all of the riveting was completed, I bolted on the aileron brackets. The inboard brackets were easy, but the outboard brackets are too narrow for a wrench. To tighten these, I had to hold the bolt head with a set of pliers, and slowly tighten the nut with the smallest wrench I could find. Eventually, all of the bolts were tightened and torqued. However, I didn’t put torque seal on yet. I was getting tired and hungry and decided I would recheck the torque another day and apply inspection lacquer at that time.
The inboard aileron brackets are attached with three bolts.
Side view of the inboard bracket.
The outboard bracket attaches with two bolts. Due to the narrow space between the bracket walls, these brackets weren't the easiest to install and torque.
The ailerons are now completely finished. Next up is the flaps. After that, nothing is left except installing push rods and riveting the outboard bottom skins.
Right Aileron Almost Finished (3/15/11)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Ailerons, Construction, Wings on March 15, 2011
2.0 Hours -
After another hour and a half of riveting, I managed to get the right aileron into a very nearly finished state with only 4 rivets and 5 bolts left to install.
Van’s instructions for the ailerons really do a good job of explaining the order that everything is riveted on the ailerons. First, the leading edge skin is riveted to the nose ribs on the top side only. Then, the aft ribs are riveted, again by squeezing, to the spar. The aft skin can also be riveted to the ribs at this point, but, once again, only on the top side. My squeezer wouldn’t fit between the rib flanges for the aft-most holes. So, rather than attempting an indirect back-rivet method now, I’m going to wait for a couple new bucking bars to arrive that I ordered from The Yard. With luck, one of these bars may fit in this narrow area and I’ll be able to buck these rivets directly. If the new bars don’t fit, I’ll go back to the indirect method, but I wasn’t too happy with that when I tried it on the empennage.
After riveting the top of the leading edge skin to the nose rib, the main ribs are riveted to the spar.
The top side is done.
Once the skins are riveted to the tops of the ribs and spar, the aileron is flipped over. On the bottom, the first thing completed is riveting the counterbalance pipe to the leading edge skin with pop-rivets. Overall, I was pretty happy with the way these rivets turned out. Since the dimples weren’t really full dimples, I was worried that the rivets would stand a bit too proud of the surface. In the end, there are one or two that I may tap a bit with a hammer to get one side of the rivet to conform to the leading edge better, but, overall, they turned out pretty good.
The counterbalance rivets turned out pretty good. There are a couple that I may tap with a hammer to flatten them even more.
After riveting the counterbalance pipe, the rest of the bottom side of the skin is riveted starting with the ribs. Once the skins are riveted to the bottom of the ribs, the only thing left is to rivet the bottom side of the spar with pop-rivets.
My occasion picture specifically for the FAA...Here, I'm pop-riveting the bottom side of the skins to the spar.
Once all the pop-rivets were set, the right aileron was essentially done. I still have 4 rivets that need to be set, but I’m waiting on new bucking bars for that (should arrive tomorrow), and I also need to install the aileron brackets. The instructions tell you to install the brackets at some point during the riveting process, but if you do this, you will no longer have access to some of the rivets that still need to be set. Therefore, you have to ignore Van’s when they say to install them and just leave them off until the very end.
Except for the aft-most rib rivets and bolting on the brackets, the right aileron is done!
With the right aileron out-of-the-way, I started up on the left, but only got as far as riveting the top of the skins to the ribs/spar. Everything else will wait for another day.
A Little Aileron Riveting (3/13/11)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Ailerons, Construction, Wings on March 13, 2011
0.8 Hours -
My Dad came over today to show me how to fix underground sprinkler systems. After a quick lesson on replacing valve solenoids, we headed into the garage to work on the airplane.
I needed a second pair of hands to finish riveting the skins to the top of the aileron spars. These can probably be done solo, but the reach was awkward enough for me that I figured a helper would make the job much easier. Together (I bucked, he shot), we finished fairly quick. The rest of the aileron rivets can either be squeezed or they are pop-rivets. However, they’ll have to wait for another day.
With my Dad's help, we quickly riveted the top of the skins to the spars.
Left Aileron Prep Finished/Assembly Started (3/12/11)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Ailerons, Construction, Wings on March 12, 2011
3.0 Hours -
After three hours in the garage, I finally had the left aileron built to the same stage as the right. Both are now ready to have the skins riveted.
The left aileron was no different from right. I spent most of my time deburring and dimpling all the parts. Once this was done, assembly was started.
The first step was to rivet the nose ribs to the counterbalance pipe using pop-rivets. Then, the counterbalance assembly is riveted to the spar. This time, I decided to rivet the assembly to the spar prior to clecoing the leading edge skin in place.
Unlike with the right aileron, this time I left the leading edge skin off until after I riveted the nose ribs to the spar.
Once the counterbalance and nose ribs were riveted to the spar, I decided to build some stands in attempt to help make riveting the ailerons slightly easier. I can’t take credit for this idea as I saw it first on Chad Jensen’s build site and then again on Brad Oliver’s site. Each stand is made by screwing together two 2×4″ blocks. The aileron spar is then stretched across two stands, and screws are inserted through the aileron bracket holes. The stands can be clamped to the table, and they are also small enough to make frequent repositioning of the aileron convenient.
Once the aileron was in the stands, I set the first few rivets on the top side. After the fifth rivet, positioning started to get awkward, so I decided it was time to quit. My Dad is coming over tomorrow and I’ll have him help me finish riveting the ailerons.
I built a couple of wood stands to hold the ailerons during riveting. A big thanks to builders that have gone before me and figured out all these little tricks!
The left aileron is ready for the skins to be riveted.
Started Deburring Left Aileron Parts (3/10/11)
Posted by Ethan Jacoby in Ailerons, Construction, Wings on March 10, 2011
0.5 Hours -
Tonight, I started deburring the left aileron parts. However, I didn’t make it very far. I only managed to deburr the holes on the aft skin and remove some of the blue vinyl from the leading edge skin. I stopped at this point because dinner was ready and I was hungry!
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