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Build chronology milestones

Chronology

OctoberDecember
November 2007

 
17th:After fitting the skins, realized the pitot/static tube hangers should have been installed before the ribs were riveted. However, using the 90-degree drill body, cut-off long drill bits and long drill bits, was able to fit them in place.

 
17th:Another big step was cutting the pitot-static mounting hole in the forward wing skin. Clamped some one-by stock to the skin and had at it with the fly cutter, having pre-drilled a pilot hole. Scary using a fly cutter hand-held. Not recommended, but there wasn't space to get the skin over to the drill press. Though the plans didn't call for it, I slightly countersunk the rivet holes for the CCC-32 nut plate rivets. The pitot-static assembly (plans-made) sits on the outside of the wing skin, but the tubes are a disruption anyway and this is not a 250-kt laminar-flow speedster.

 
17th: The remade aft root rib is installed at last. I had put this off until after the skins were fitted because I misaligned the original slightly and wasn't happy with how close the rivet holes were to the front end of the flange, so I ordered a new blank. After much head scratching and looking, it is necessary to remove the root rib attach angles from the spar to do this, after carefully drilling two pilot holes for alignment. The rear spar attach angle has a couple of rivets in it, that I set before dealing with this problem, so the pilot holes were marked through the attach angle holes with a hand-spun drill bit. I had set the forward rib gusset rivets from the rib side, so had to grind off a bit of the protruding shank to get the lower bolts out. In the future, nothing gets rivetted until the whole assembly is in cleco, to avoid these issues. I had also left ribs 1 and 2 clecoed, thinking I could move these over for drill body access, but the rear spar attach bracket rivets prevented moving the rib. Had to use the hand riveter on the ribs, as there wasn't enough room for the pneumatic tool with the 5-inch rib spacing.

30th: Not much work done the rest of the month other than a good start on the forward rib dimpling, due to honey-do's and other projects, and time out for planning the wiring and lighting, as we suddenly realized it is time to do that before closing the wing. The current plan is to put taxi light on one wing and landing light on the other, with a wig-wag flasher unit. The lighting is mainly for insurance on long cross-countries and to increase pattern visibility on smokey summer days. But, a big milestone: two years and three weeks after receiving the airframe kit, the Jabiru 3300 arrived, a bit early, but a quick look at the savings account showed it wasn't earning interest as fast as the dollar is dropping these days, so we ordered one of the last of the $15.9K motors. Since I don't want it to sit in the crate too long, this puts a speed-up on the completion schedule. Next: order wiring and lighting, then finish dimpling the forward ribs on the top side, ditto the skin, put back together and flip for the lower side.


Copyright 2005-2022: Larye D. Parkins
Last updated: 17 April, 2022.

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