We started on the setup work for the back wing spar:
- Smoothing of edges
- Match drilling
- Deburring
- Counter Sinking
We still need to trim W-707D, which is waiting for the metal blade for the bandsaw.
Author: Manal Habib
Flight Controls Engineer and Pilot. I love to write autopilot code for precise maneuvering of aircraft, I love to fly planes and I love to build.
Front Wing Spar
Worked on the tie down assembly:
- Grinned the brackets to size, since we only needed to remove about amm.
- Drilled matching hole with the main front spar.
We were not able to go ahead with the fabrication of the spacers wince we needed a blade for cutting metal for the bandsaw, so I ordered one to follow up on this work next time.
We started on the front wing spar, we worked on the plate nuts on the sides of the spar, for both wings:
- counter sinking the side holes for the rivets
- priming the holes
- riveting the plate nuts
- countersinking for the screws
Left wing
Right wing
We dimpled the access plates
Finished Wing Stand
Garage and Wing Stand
I got the garage setup for the wings by moving the work table around to make space for the wings stand where most of the wings work will take place.
I bought few items to build the wing stand and I got started in the building. I am going for a simple wing stand design, with no wheels for now, so that it is stable for the build. I will add the wheels later on, once I am done with the wings build so that the wings are movable.
Finished the Elevator
- We pop riveted the remaining hard to reach rivets
- we rolled the leading edge of both the left and right elevator
- We riveted the leading edge of both the left and right elevator. It was a bit tricky to get the two surfaces to mate smoothly together, we had to do additional adjustment to the bend at the area where the two surfaces meet, and by the end we got some pretty good results.
Then we attached the elevator to the horizontal stabilizer, we had to adjust the number of rotations of the bearing to get good range of motion. We have now bigger than the max 30deg range of motion, which we can reduce later on. We also had to remove a little bit of material from the horizontal stabilizer to make room for the horns, to get the large range of motion.
The empennage is looking pretty good, time to move on to the wings.
Finished the Trim Tab
- We primed the trim tab.
- We riveted the trim tab.
- We attached the trim tab to the elevator by riveting the hinge to both the elevator and the trim tab.
- We attached the trim servo and adjusted the length of the the rod
We have a pretty good range of motion of the trim tab
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Elevator Riveting and Trim Tab
We finished the elevator skeleton riveting.
We riveted the elevator skeleton to the skin. We missed putting RTV at the trailing edge where the stiffeners meet, which is because it was not specified in the instruction, but it is recommended by Van. I checked with Van and they said that it is ok to proceed and that the elevator is air worthy without the RTV.
We still need to do few rivets that can not be reached with the pneumatic or back riveting, I am ordering some more flash pop rivets for those.
We started working on the trim tab:
- Match drilling
- Deburing
- Dimpling
