December 13, 2008 - Mount Wings!

Big day today -- mounted the wing, permanently!  Now that the most of the airplane is at the airport, I'm pretty much limited to working on it during the weekends.  I could work on the cowl at home in the evenings, but I took this week off. 

On Saturday, I was joined by Mike Bullock, Bill Burner and Jan Scott to help with hanging the wings.  Bill B. and Jan flew the Citabria from the Flying Cow.  It was a nice day for flying:  sunny, mid-30s and light wind.  Mike is also building an RV-7.  He's a little behind me but working hard and doing a great job.  I think his web page,  RVplane.com  is one of the best RV builder sites around.  If I was starting out, I'd be checking his site every step of the way.

Having people to help was a real luxury.  While I was making preparations for the install,  Mike screwed the aileron booties to the fuse, and ran draw strings through the wing conduit.  Then we laid the left wing on some stands about a foot away from the fuse.  We pulled the various wires through the conduit.  Then with one person on the wing tip and one each on the forward and aft side or the root, we inserted the wing spar into the center spar.  It went in fairly easily.  We got the spar holes lined up well enough to get a drift pin in the top and bottom holes.   Then there was nothing else to do but start with the big close tolerance bolts.  I had them on ice in hopes of their contracting a little bit.  Maybe it helped, who knows?  While the man on the wingtip rocked the wing up and down, we hammered in the spar bolts.  I wouldn't say it was easy, but it wasn't bad, either.  After the four big bolts, the four smaller AN-4 bolts went in quick and easy.

The right wing went on as smoothly as the left, and that was that.   She really looks like a plane with the wings on.