Wings

Today marks the beginning of a new direction. With all the wing rib preparation and spar assembly behind me, it's time for new, more exciting work. Normally, the wing stand is put up at this point so the newly-completed rib-spar skeleton assembly can be put on it. But I'm still trying to figure out where and how I'm going to put up the wing stand. I have to be able to open my garage door, and if I run a wing stand up to the ceiling, I don't know how I'm going to be able to that. The garage door is in the way. More thinking is necessary. So in the meantime, my son Luke helped me build a cradle for the leading edge assemblies and the fuel tanks, and my son Daniel helped me cleco the left leading edge together.

Here's the cradle Luke and I built. This is an essential aid for assembling the leading edges and the fuel tanks.

We promptly put it to use. Here's the left wing's leading edge skin, in the cradle with the nose ribs clecoed in place. This is actually somewhat of a bear to assemble. I discovered that an awl or ice pick is a great tool to line up the holes in the ribs with the holes in the skin so you can insert a cleco. One by one, I got them in place and this assembly took shape.

You can see that the blue vinyl was removed first, and then these ribs clecoed in. This assembly is actually ready to mount to the spar and final drill it.

Another shot of the interior of the leading edge.

This puppy is ready to be mounted on the spar. Cool! I can't put off that wing stand much longer. I still don't know how I'm going to make it.

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