April 28, 2007 - Mike's RV-7A Wings
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Saturday morning I drove over to Montgomery County Airport to help Mike
mount the wings on his RV-7A. Mike's ahead of me on his 7.
He's got his engine and prop installed, panel done, and fuel and brake
lines run. But he hasn't done mounted the wings yet and since I've
been through it, I came over to help him out. A bunch of people were
on hand to help out. Here's the crew, ready to go. |
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And the right wing is one. Mike's looking happy.
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Both wings are on. Mike's looking really happy. Amazing what
adding the wings will do to make a plane look like a plane. We did all
the measuring with plumb bobs and the digital level. After a few
minor adjustments, everything checked out great. This plane will fly
true. |
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Another big milestone -- drilling the rear spar.
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| Drilling the fuselage center bottom
skin to the wing. |
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| After mounting the wings, we
drilled the rear spars, drilled the forward fuel tank bracket, drilled the
fuse center bottom skin, fitted the fuel vent line, drilled the wing root
fairings and probably some other stuff that I forgot. Then we took the
wings off! Next step was to installed the bezillion nutplates on the wing.
With three people working the problem -- Mike, Karen and myself -- we must
have set a speed record for installing the nutplates. It still took a
couple of hours: drilling, deburring, clecoing, countersinking,
riveting. I finally got to see a pneumatic squeezer in action.
As well as a pneumatic cleco remover. |
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| We probably worked a solid ten
hours. Building in a hangar has its disadvantages over building in the
house basement, but one big advantage is that when you're at the hangar, you
work. I notice that working in my basement, it's too easy to go
upstairs and take a break that turns into an hour away from the work.
I couldn't believe how much we got done. Having done it once before
made a huge difference. The wings are pretty much ready to be bolted
on for good. |
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