My favorite hangar photos
February 2008
After four sessions with riveting
helpers over the past three months, the
fuselage lower pilot's floor and
side skins are riveted on to the fuselage.
This past weekend I finished
riveting the sides of the gear leg boxes to the
thick heavy metal support for the
gear legs with 27 rivets in each of the
four sides and riveting the top 3/4"
x 3/4" angle supports to the sides of
the gear leg "boxes" with the four
rivets in the center between where bolts
will go.
The next step is to take the
fuselage out of the jig stand and flip it over
so it is right side up and start
working on the upper fuselage skins and
building the interior of the
cockpit.
February 2007
These pictures show the fuselage
side skin after drilling the rivet holes.
You can see my blue sharpie rivet
call outs, sorry for the crappy picture.
The other photo is of the plans with
rivet callouts.
These are pictures of the
gear leg mounting towers that I have been working
on. The lower welded metal
"box" that has all the rivet holes in it is the
one that I had to reorder
for each side when the four outer flanges did not
line up with the aluminum
angle that forms the large "V" in pictures 4 and
5. The whole assembly is
riveted to the side skin and upper and lower
aluminum angle longerons. In
picture 5 you can see the heavy reinforcing
plate inside the outer skin.
The box of fuselage
parts is slowly emptying. The finishing kit is
the only
purchase left from
Van's Aircraft. I already have the landing gear
legs,
brake system master
cylinders, rudder pedals and front and back seat
frames.
The finishing kit
comes with the canopy and fiberglass fairings
for canopy,
wing and tail
section fiberglass fairings, plus engine mount
and front
fiberglass cowl.
I wonder what type
of engines will be popular in the 5 to 7 years
it will
probably take me to
get to that stage...diesel. Electric, solar
power, used
vegetable French fry
oil, or will the satellite GPS system feed me
engine
power too while it
sends be everything else I need to navigate
displayed on
my one-piece glass
instrument panel?
This is a wing
attachment bracket that bolts to the fuselage at
the gear leg
towers to bolt to a
matching bracket at the front spar at the
leading edge
of the wing. You
can see my high tech machining equipment used to
gnaw this
part out of the
large U-shaped aluminum AC6-150x2x4 channel. The
channel is
0.150" thick on the
sides and 0.230" thick on the bottom. Not
enough little
projects like this
to justify buying a heavy metal cutting band
saw. I
think they leave
these thick non-critical dimension parts for us
to slave
over to keep the
builder in the 51% of the work range for the FAA
requirements of a
homebuilt experimental plane. The giant CNC
cutting
machines at Van's
Aircraft could certainly make quick work of this
project
that took me two
days of cutting, filing and grinding.
January 2007
The attached photo show my progress
on assembling and drilling the gear leg
boxes (WD-822 weldment) to the
fuselage. Pictures 1,2 & 3 are my ruinged
parts from the first attempt.
Pictures 1 and 2 show how the metal welded
and powdercoated gear leg boxes slip
in-between the F-843 lower fuselage
longeron (with bend) and the F-844
longeron. Picture 2 clearly shows my
problem with the drilled rivet hole
on the WD-822 weldment upper left ear
not being at least 7/32" inch in
from the outer edge of the WD-822 weldment.
Picture 3 shows my new $88.61 each
book ends clearly showing the misdrilled
rivet holes too close to the edge.
Pictures 4 and 5 show how the gear
leg box tower is assembled in the
fuselage with the three sides
forming a box around the WD-822 weldment (the
inside of the fuselage skins
reflects a mirror image). The fuselage is
upside down in the jig at this point
of construction, so the lower floor
will fit on top in these pictures.
The gold anodized part in the upper left
of picture 4 is the wing spar center
section into which the wing spars are
slid into and bolted. The right side
of picture 5 is the cockpit side of the
stainless steel firewall. The white
powdercoated support bracket in the
lower corner is one of the four
places the engine mount bolts to on the
front side of the firewall.
Picture 6 shows the F-843 lower
longeron with the two 1/4" tabs sticking up
from the outer skin just level with
the upper edge of the F-843 longeron. I
originally had them level with the
floor which was attached to the longeron
which made the outer skin which has
the predrilled holes too low on the
dropped down longeron and made the
hole going into the WD-822 weldment too
high up and too close to the edge.
By shifting it up the holes were exactly
in the center of all four ears of
the WD-822 weldments. Picture 7 shows the
outer skin with all the prepunched
holes drilled through the inner WD-822
weldment and spacers. One of the
1/4" tabs on the skin to be aligned with
the longeron is visible at the top
of the photo with the proper 1/4" of
longeron showing on either side of
the tab when the longeron is properly
aligned level with the top of the
two tabs. The tabs are later cut off
before riveting the skin to the
longeron, as another skin snugs up against
this side skin and is riveted to the
1/4" of the longeron showing bare above
this side skin. After the WD-822
weldments were drilled to each side, the
two sides of the gear box lined up
perfectly with the pre-punched holes in
the skin. You can see the line of
1/8" bronze colored clecos (for AD-4
rivets) going down the skin and see
the inside barbed point of the clecos in
Pictures 4, 5 & 6 going right down
the center of the gear leg tower box's
flange against the inside of the
outer skin. The little ripples between
each rivet hole is the shrinking
done with fluting pliers to make the web
flat so the line of rivet holes is
straight with the curved outside skin's
prepunched holes.
I have the other little 3/4" x 3/4"
.125 bracket, like the one already
attached to the firewall side of the
gear leg box with two clecos, to drill
to the other side and cleco both
brackets to the bottom floor after I
reinstall it between the firewall
and center section (would cover the whole
top in these pictures). I then
remove these whole gear log box assemblies
and rivet them together on the bench
to re-install and rivet to the skins
and longerons later.
I then start removing all the
drilled bottom and side skins that are drilled
and clecoed to the fuselage in the
Picture "Fuselage.rear." After deburring
both sides of every hole, I dimple
or countersink the external visible holes
then start riveting the skins to the
fuselage. The fuselage will then be
flipped over upright to finish the
top skins and interior.
September 2006
July 2006
These are some pictures of the earlier construction of the front
area of the
fuselage.
The longerons (3/4" x 3/4" aluminum angle) are cut and bent from
the
firewall back to the tail wheel assembly, all the bulkheads are
clamped to
the fuselage jig positions and the side skins are drilled and
clecoed to the
Tuesday night I finished the second side skin drilling and am
now
fabricating rear seat belt mounts (three pieces per side) for
the rear
passenger. The bottom floor skins go on next.
The "Fuselage.Inside" shows the seatbelt attachments for the
side and center
seat belt attachments. Since the fuselage is being constructed
upside down
at this point they are at the top of the photo. The gold
anodized part in
the back of the picture is the wing spar carrythrough.
The "Wing Spar Attach" picture shows the wooden shims that hold
the wing
spar center section apart the exact width for the wing spar to
slide into
later.
February 2006
I attached the tail wheel
spring to the rearmost F-811 & F-812 bulkheads.
You can see the holes at the
rear for the tailwheel axle. The F-811
bulkhead towards the front
(firewall) is secured to the jig at its position
at 14' 5 31/32" (173 31/32")
back from the firewall and 12 3/4" above the
reference line (where longeron
3/4" angle meets the jig 2x4 board) and
leveled and centered in the
jig with a plumb bob on a string. The steel
tailwheel spring mount bracket
is clamped to the F-811 and leveled perfectly
so the tail wheel will track
straight, the back of the tailwheel spring
mount bracket rests in the
saddle of the F-812 last bulkhead which is
leveled and stands 12 5/32"
above the reference line. The bracket is drilled
and bolted to the forward
F-811 bulkhead, but the rearmost F-812 bulkhead is
not drilled for bolts yet as
that is done later when the vertical stabilizer
is aligned and drilled to the
F-812 and tailspring mount. For now two
keeper rivets are used to hold
it in position for aligning the skins, the
1/8 copper colored clecos are
now holding it together though the two rivet
holes I drilled.
Next step is to start fitting
the upper longerons between the firewall and
center section and begin
fitting the fuselage skins moving from front to
rear
These pictures
are of the Center Section (spar carrythough)
what the wing
spars attach
to in the fuselage with the fuselage floor
suppor ribs
attached. The
"Seat Belt Attachments" picture shows the cleco
side grips
still holding
on the channel caps on either side. The spring
loaded grips
really make a
painful blood blister when you are holding them
and release
the cleco
pliers and they snap closed on the edge of the
finger you are
holding them
with.
The fuselage is
built upside down on the jig.
I mounted the center
section to the measured cross member 2x4 standing on
its edge at exactly 34
1/32" back from the firewall. I secured it straight
upright with a level
at 25 9/16 above the top of the jig support 2x4
(reference line) then
fastened the ends of the four floor ribs to the F-807a
bulkhead clamped at
81" from the firewall that angles forward with
pre-measured
triangular shims and stands 23 7/32 above the reference
line to
support the rear
passenger's seatback... and the four floor ribs
passively
met the bulkhead
perfectly without having to move them about at all. I
bent
the 115" long 3/4" x
3/4" longerons at the 80 15/16" mark the required 3
degrees that bends
each up 2 11/32" for the fuselage bend behind the
passenger compartment,
then made the second bend at the 33 15/16" point the
required 5 degree bend
for 2 27/32" upwards where the longeron angles back
flat from the
instrument panel up to the firewall. When I laid the
115 inch
long bent longerons on
the jig and clamped them to the powdercoated support
brackets riveted to
the firewall they virtually fell into the slots on each
bulkhead and were
within a 1/4" of being perfect at the tail where they
meet
the F-812 rearmost
bulkhead. The two baggage floor ribs span from the
angled passenger
seatback rib to the next F-808 bulkhead. The 3/4" x
3/4"
angle longeron is
visible attached with Cleco side grips to the bulkheads
in
the bottom of the
"Baggage Floor Ribs" picture.
What a relief to have
a year's worth of jig measuring and building come out
October 2005 Pics of Firewall and
Wing Spar Section
Fuselage start....the
jigs..........May 2005
I completed construction of my
fuselage jig upon which the fuselage will be
constructed. The firewall
attaches to the end that resembles a guillotine
frame, the two 15 foot long
aluminum angle longitudinals will attach to the
2x4 boards and the fuselage
built upside down from those by attaching a
bulkhead at each 2x4 crossbar
location. The 15 foot long longitudinals that
attach to the jig are what my
arm will rest on when I taxi with the canopy
slid back.
Now I have to decide exactly
where to locate it in my hanger's rear tail box
area to still allow me to park
my pickup alongside it when I want to leave
it in my hanger without having
to move the Austin-Healey. The tiny stripe
of tape on the floor in
picture 1 to the right of the last two legs is how
much room I need to park my
pickup to the right of the jig. I will attach
it to the concrete floor with
a quarter sized dollop of Liquid Nails. I
realize that I will have to
live with my location selection for years at my
construction speed. Such
decisions in building an airplane...
These pictures show both wings
complete....Now for the fuselage........
These are the two boxes my fuselage kit arrived in. I removed all the
at
pcowper@webtv.net
Latest pics since February, 2008.............
