Wings 18 (5.0 hrs)


Today I finished all of the dimpling and countersinking of the wing skeleton (ribs and spars). Not a particularly fun job.

Van’s instructs to use a deburring  bit to clean out the dimples on the rear spar slightly to ensure a better fit.  You can see the result in this first picture where I’ve done three turns of the deburring bit in the dimpled holes.20140329-220502.jpg

A good picture of the countersinking of the spar in progress. 20140329-220520.jpg

It took me awhile to figure out what to do here because these rivet holes are not annotated on any diagram nor are they mentioned in any of Van’s instructions.  I suppose you could leave out the rivets and be ok, but I will put the rivets in before attaching the skins. 20140329-220532.jpg

The location of the “missing” rivets is the forward most rivet for each inboard rib where the fuel tank attached.  I have high lighted those locations below. 20140329-220541.jpg

Here is a quick snapshot of the completed wings after dimpling.  Not much to see. 20140329-220552.jpg

In the process, I came across one countersink for the fuel attachment nutplates that I didn’t prime.  How I missed that for several months is beyond me.  It will only take about 3 seconds to fix, but I was amazed that I’ve walked by it so many times and not noticed until now.  It also gave me another opportunity to play with some more of the features of the app I’m using on my iphone to draw arrows etc.  The app is called Skitch. 20140329-220600.jpg


About Peter

plbarrett.com | Certified Flight Instructor (Single & Multi-Engine, Instrument, and Advanced Ground) | Commercial Helicopter

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