WING CONSTRUCTION

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WING CONSTRUCTION

The kit arrived in July and I began to work on building wing ribs. After only TWO MONTHS, I had the 52 ribs and 48 false ribs built. As I lined up this stack of ribs as shown here, I was only a little nervous when I had to trim the tails on my neighbors radial arm saw.

After completing the ribs, I started on the spar construction. This basically involved building an "I" beam for the main spar while constructing a much lighter rear spar. This picture shows the full size blueprints while I finished up the first spar. Note the crate in which the wing kit arrived mounted on the wall on the right side which used to keep all of the ribs in alignment after I finish getting them in place

The ribs are slid onto the spar. Note the angle iron.

After the ribs are installed the geodetic strips are glued into place. Its during this process when the words "You can't have enough clamps.... or troops in Madigascar" begin to make a lot of sense. In this photo you can see the brackets for the interplane struts and the flying wires. The nosepieces are glued into place and the leading edge plywood is added, then scalloped. The aileron is then cut out and its leading edge is added.

By the end of 2000, I had the two bottom wings finished, two more to go!

I finished the last two top wings, each taking about a month. The learning curb really goes up quickly with this type of construction. Total time on the four wings, about 325 hrs.

Starting in March 2001, I began the center section. This required its own special oversized ribs. The auxiliary fuel tank fits inside of this.

I then constructed the elevator, horizontal stabilizer and rudder. Like the wingtip bows, these required me to laminate many pieces of wood together. I would usually start by making a copy of the plan (so I can still read the original) and laying it out on the workbench. Cover the blueprint with plastic, drive nails around the perimeter and start slopping T-88 everywhere. After using every clamp in sight, the part would start to take shape and it’s off to the next step. Construction time for the tail feathers, two months.