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UltraFun AirSports |
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1/1/03. Back at the UltraFun AirSports airplane factory (my hangar) I squeezed the wing into the workshop and started on the hat sections. Using a clamped-on square made sure each hole was along the centerline. The black sliding square was removed after it was squared up, so the hats could be slid along the bar. | |
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Hmmmm. The drawings say to drill the first hole 3/4" in from the edge, but they also say the holes should line up with the factory rivet line. The hat section is 7" long, while the D-Cell is 7 1/4", and the rivets are generally at 5/8". An e-mail from Jay says I'm still good, so I'll proceed. | |
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What a great sales pitch. So easy to build, even a 6-year-old can do it! Here, my son Dale puts the rivets into the holes. This was a fun day for him, to help his daddy build an airplane. | |
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A scrap of aluminum sheet was made into a template for the top and bottom holes of the ribs. | |
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Doing the bottom side of a rib. I trimmed the template so the clamps would grab it from the other side. | |
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Marking the ends of the ribs. I clamped the template to the 1/4" lip of the table, and clamped a straightedge vertically at the end of it. Then, I could simply slide a rib up to the corner and mark it. Went pretty fast that way. | |
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Sam gets into the building act by helping me put the ribs on. She was so excited to be using a power tool! | |
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Clecoes everywhere! I used up 175 of them so far, and didn't have enough. | |
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The D-cell is straight across on the front of the wing. You can see the built-in washout on the rear spar. | |
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Another view. Washout allows the root ends of the wing to stall first, which still gives the ailerons some time to work before they stall. | |
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The manual says that the overlap (easier) or butt-splice (more cosmetic) method will both work on the rear spar. After deciding on the latter, I se that the 24" spar extension was designed for the overlap method (slips under the 96" spar). You can see the edge lifting up from trying to go over the splice. Some more metalwork is necessary. | |
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Well the Webs ended up on the wrong side of the hat channel, since I interpreted the drawings wrong. I put the inner ones on the correct side, but if you look at all 3 of these drawings, they show the webs on the rear spar side. Jay will be bringing out new webs this weekend when he delivers the fuselage. | |
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1/22/03. Most of the clecoes are gone. The wing is ready for skins. 49.5 hours, up to this point. | |
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1/26/03. I made a nifty flap indicator out of a heater blower control switch. It will run a row of LEDs on the panel. | |
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With the arrival of the fuselage, and the recommendation that it be much warmer to skin the wing, I moved it outside the work area and will work on the fuselage for now. | |
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