Wings

Well, I got a lot more drilling done tonight. I finished drilling the top and bottom skins to the ribs. I also drilled the hinge to the skin and spar on the left flap. Then, I fabricated the FL-706 flap brackets.

Drilling the flap hinge to the flap requires very careful alignment and clamping. I've read that a lot of builders have problems with enough edge clearance on the flap hinge for the rivets, so I very carefully laid it out, measuring again and again while clamping it in place. Then finally, you commit and start drilling holes. Drill a hole, cleco. Drill another hole. Cleco. Move the clamps down the line and do it some more. I put a cleco in every hole and worked my way down the flap hinge, making sure the reference line I had drawn stayed centered in the holes. I left the other half of the hinge in place during this time, to help insure that the hinge stayed straight. Periodically, I would move it up and down and make sure it stayed moveable and didn't start binding up.

Here's the first flap hinge, all drilled in place! Another shot from a different angle below.

Next, the top skin wraps around the trailing edge and gets drilled to the bottom skin and rear spar. The trailing edge is pre-formed at the factory. Nice! No more funky homemade bending brakes to mess with. It's perfect as is. After staring at these skins lying on my shelf for over a year, it really feels good to see them in place on these flaps.

Next, here's the fabrication of the flap brackets (on the right). I carefully measured and marked the angles for drilling.

A couple more shots from different angles. These flaps look cool!

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