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Titan SS
Building the Wing. 4/23/04. Debbie and I take off Eastward towards Chicago to meet Guy from Titan Aircraft. He left from the Titan factory at about the same time with my wing kit.. We hooked up about 2am and transferred the wing to my trailer. Guy turned around and headed back while we spent the night at a hotel. |
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The first thing to do is to rivet the hat sections to the D-cell. Yes, it's a 26' motorglider wing. | |
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5/2/04. Next is to cleco the ribs on. Without any bracing, they're pretty floppy. | |
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This time around I got the intermediate spar webs in the right spot. On the last plane, the instructions had them upside-down (sitting on top), and Guy had to make special brackets to tie everything together. | |
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5/18/04. Thanks to Steve Rokahr's idea, I built a flap indicator using micro switches. As the flap arm moves, the "flag" travels over the micro switches, activating them one at a time. | |
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I'll have 4 LEDs on the panel; 3 red and 1 green. At 0 degrees, just the green light is on. When the flaps start to deploy, the 1st switch will light the 1st red light. At 10 degrees, the 2nd switch will deactivate the green light. For 10~19 degrees, just the 1st red light will be on. For 20~29 degrees, the second red light will come on, and for 30+ degrees the third red light will come on. | |
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Flaps completely deployed, with the micro switches activated. If you look closely, you'll see a 5th switch at the top.. I intended to have a 4th position LED for 40 degrees, but the travel of the arm didn't go far enough. I'll live with the 3 lights. | |
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5/20. The flap indicator is wired and riveted in. | |
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Putting wing skins on. I kept everything very warm to keep the skins from oil-canning during the summer heat. A towel draped over the back side with a hair dryer forcing hot air through the section did the trick. | |
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A rivet fan tool works great for wing skins. Specs call for rivets every 2" on the ribs. Stretching the fan out to slightly less than 2" brought the holes right in line with the hat sections so I used it there. The good thing is that every rib will be drilled the same because of this tool, making the finished job look great. It saves a bunch of time too, compared to measuring out each rib. | |
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You can see the mark where the bottom of the rib connects to the D-cell. This allows me to precisely line up the fan tool so the holes will be right down the center of the rib. I learned this lesson while building houses. It's a lot easier to find the studs when you have them marked on the floor. :>) | |
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Skins are clecoed to the ribs. By the time I got the spars and hat sections clecoed on, I was out of clecoes. 200 is barely enough to do a plane. | |
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5/31/04. Bottom of the wing finished. Debbie
came out and helped me with the riveting. That saves a lot of time
when she's setting up the heat, and then putting in rivets while I follow
with the rivet gun.
Now on to the top side. I have 4 days until I go to pick up the fuselage, so I better get with it. |
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I decided to do the flaps and ailerons before finishing up with the top wing skins, just in case something needed tweaking. I did have to enlarge a pushrod hole, so it worked out. I was also able to put the aileron stands on the D-cell to lock the controls in place while I adjusted the ailerons and flaps. Overall it worked well, and I'll do it that way the next time, too. | |
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The umbilical cord plug for the wing. I used one of these last time, and it had 18 pins. This one has 15, and I thought it was enough, but I forgot about the flap motor. I doubled up the grounds on a few things and ended up with enough. Note to self: next time put in an 18-pin plug! | |
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From the bottom side, the wing looks almost done, with the exception of the wing tips. That's the next project. 82.5 hours so far. | |
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Not wanting to go with the $100/each Whelen landing lights, I found a set of driving lights that fit well in the space available. | |
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They were considerably easier to mount than the Whelens. Wings are now done and ready for paint. 106.5 hours total. UPDATE: After much consideration, I pulled the lights out and countersunk them into the wingtips. They'll work much better, now. | |
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On to the Fuselage:
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