Wings June 25, 2006 - Present
12/15/05 Ordered Wing Kit
1/6/06 Received a tentative shipping date for the week of February 27, 2006
5/5/06 After many personal delays (See Empennage) the wings have been re-scheduled to arrive in or near
the 1st week in June
6/10/06 WING KIT ARRIVED!!!!!!! Unfortunately, I am swamped at work and will only be able to inventory the kit this
weekend
06/11/06 Inventoried both crates. Wow! Lots of stuff! Took pretty much all day.
06/25/06 Prepared left main spar for riveting the tank attach platenuts. Machine countersunk spar where fuel tank
skins attach. What a job! I drilled a small piece of steel to clamp to the bottom side of the spar flange to
hold the pilot in place while countersinking the top side. If you don't use something to keep the pilot in
place below the flange, the c-sink bit tends to chatter and will ruin the hole. Took a while but everything
turned out pretty nice. All platenuts are riveted in place and I am ready to install the tie-down brackets.
7/2/06 Prepared the rear spars for assembly today. Match drilled and deburred the spar and doubler plates.
Trimmed excess material off doubler plates per plans. Ready to sand and prime before final assembly.
7/4/06 Primed both rear spars and all doubler plates and riveted the rear spar assembly together.
7/5/06 Began deburring the rib flanges and lightening hole edges. Got a little loud for night time so I will have to
finish deburring the ribs another day. We are supposed to get a lot of rain tomorrow so it might turn into a
SHOP day! :-)
7/9/06 Spent the last 18 or so hours deburring and fluting all the ribs for both wings. Lot's of ribs! Finally ready to
begin the initial assembly of the left wing. Cleared the shop to make room for the wing jig.
7/10/06 Clekod the aft ribs to the main and rear spars, just to make it look like I have accomplished something over
the past week. Looks pretty impressive. Still need to build my wing jig before I go any further. Hopefully I will
get that done by the end of the week. I have a pretty busy work week so I am going to keep my fingers
crossed! I'll post some more photos as soon as I can take the time away from the office...
7/15/06 Completed the wing jig over the last few days. Made some brackets to attach the outer most rib to the jig.
Mounted the Left Wing in the jig and made sure there was no twist whatsoever. Completed final drilling the
ribs to the main and rear spars. Time to start the initial installation of the skins!
7/20/06 thru 7/29/06 Had a BLAST at Oshkosh! Man was it HOT! Saw TONS of RV's and got some good ideas...
Stayed in the campground in my brother's motor home and camped out with some friends and fellow RV'ers.
Left to right... John Marshall, Jeff Roberts and Larry Boggs. John has several RV's under his belt. His
current project is a Super -7 (540 I/O). Jeff has an RV Super 8 (with a 540 also). Larry has an AWESOME
RV -8 (Photo Below Center) And that's me (Below Right) in front of the main entrance. What a great time!
7/30/06 Installed and match drilled all the skins aft of the main spar.
8/1/06 Installed and match drilled the leading edge skin.
8/2/06 Installed the tank mounting brackets. What a time consuming job! Back drilling the mounting brackets without
distorting the pre-drilled holes in the spar wasn't easy. The toughest part was riveting the nut plates to the
brackets and still having the AN3 bolts pass through the brackets and spar without any unwanted angles.
All's well though. I attached the tank baffle to the mounting brackets and the holes lined up perfectly, with the
centerline drawn on the mounting brackets positioned right in the center of the pre-punched holes in the
tank baffle. Very satisfying when things go right the 1st time!
8/5/06 Today I built the left fuel tank and match drilled the skins to the ribs, tank baffle and mounting brackets. I
have been lucky I think... everything has fit almost perfectly at every stage in the wing so far... knock on
wood : ) Fabricated the front fuel tank mounting bracket and completed match drilling the entire wing. I
almost hate to take everything apart to begin the tedious job of deburring, dimpling and priming everything.
8/11/06 I've been extremely busy at work all week and haven't been able to spend as much time on airplane building
as I would like. Today I took everything apart and began preparing the ribs for priming.
8/12/06 Ribs are all deburred, sanded, dimpled and primed! Man! What a job. That is the worst part about building
an aluminum airplane... all the sanding and preparations in order to prime all of them... and there are LOTS
of them! Time to start assembling them for the last time! Probably will be doing that late next week.
Tomorrow's my Wife's birthday so you know what that means... no shop time ; )
8/20/06 Began riveting the ribs to the rear and main spars. Not as easy as I thought it would be. Trying to do this
myself, I smiled several rivets and had to drill them out. Didn't have a lot of time this weekend since I had to
work all day Saturday. Next weekend we are leaving on vacation for a week so I probably will not be able to
get back to work on this until early September.
9/3/06 Finally! Had a full day to myself to do nothing but work on my plane! Got a LOT done today. Finished riveting
the ribs to the rear and main spars. Deburred and dimpled both aft - top skins and cleko'd them to the
skeleton. Everything went back together perfectly. Not really a lot to take pictures of... you have already
seen the wing cleko'd together. The only difference is there is no vinyl protection coating on them any more
and the ribs have all been primed with a wash primer. They now have a greenish gold tint to them.
Tomorrow is Labor Day so I will probably be able to put in a few more hours on the wing. Going to try to
complete the leading edge installation, or at least have it all cleko'd in place and ready for riveting.
We'll see...
9/4/06 Completed the leading edge today! ...At least the skin is riveted to the ribs. Still need to rivet the attach holes
to the main spar though. All in all, I had a productive 2 days. I wish I could work this much every week... I
might have an airplane out in my garage in a year or so! Oh well... back to work tomorrow :-(
9/10/06 Completed the leading edge today. Riveted the ribs to the main spar and completely riveted the skin to the
main spar. I'm at the point where I really need to complete the fuel tank, and in order to do this I must build
the right wing so I can seal both tanks at the same time. Guess what that means... Time to build a bigger
garage! It looks like I am going to start that project next weekend so I will probably not be building anything
(on my plane) for a month or two! My goal is to have the new garage completed by Thanksgiving. I'll include
photos of the old garage coming down and the new one being built.
9/17/06 Began moving all this STUFF out of my old garage into the garage attached to my house. I guess I'll be
parking my truck outside for a while! Man... I HATE moving! It'll be nice to have a nice big garage and new
office upstairs! The garage is going to be large enough to assemble the whole airplane... motor, wings and
all before I will need to transport it into a hangar.
9/21/06 to 1/1/07 Tore down my old shop and built the new office and shop
1/1/07 Happy New Year! Finally have the shop ready to resume building again! Prepared the right wing skeleton to
be riveted together today. We have been having some awesome weather this winter... it's been in the upper
70's most of December!
1/17/07 Finally resumed building again! Match drilled the right wing tonight. It's nice to have the room to build both
wings at once!
1/27/07 Began working on the fuel tanks
6/8/07 I have spent the last several weekends on other projects as well as working on the ailerons . Today, Joe
Giallo and I were able to rivet about 99% of the top wing skins. I am planning to leave the bottom skins off as
long as possible to allow the easy access for wiring and other installations such as a heated pitot etc.
7/7/07 Installed the bellcranks in both wings today. Completed the pushrods for the ailerons and flaps. Installed the
pitot tube line and installed the mounting bracket for a heated pitot that I will probably install after I get it flying
for a while. It will be an easy installation with the mounting bracket and wiring already in place. It sure is nice to
have the wing jigs out of the way and the wings in the cradle. Creates a lot more room to work, not to mention
makes it easier to work on the bottom section of the wings. That will come in handy connecting the ailerons
and flaps to the wings.
7/22/07 Completed the flaps today. They are ready for the initial installation on the wing. Also made the hole in the
skin for the heated pitot. I will probably go ahead and install that now instead of waiting until after flying it for
a while. I'd hate to mess up a good paint job by making a mistake. Prepared all of the bottom skins for final
installation. Everything all deburred, dimpled and ready to install.... much later!
7/29/07 Installed the ailerons and flaps on the wing today. Did the initial hook up of the bellcrank and pushrods to
make sure of a good fit, with no interference from the pitot lines. Perfect! Everything fit like a glove!
1/6/06 Received a tentative shipping date for the week of February 27, 2006
5/5/06 After many personal delays (See Empennage) the wings have been re-scheduled to arrive in or near
the 1st week in June
6/10/06 WING KIT ARRIVED!!!!!!! Unfortunately, I am swamped at work and will only be able to inventory the kit this
weekend
06/11/06 Inventoried both crates. Wow! Lots of stuff! Took pretty much all day.
06/25/06 Prepared left main spar for riveting the tank attach platenuts. Machine countersunk spar where fuel tank
skins attach. What a job! I drilled a small piece of steel to clamp to the bottom side of the spar flange to
hold the pilot in place while countersinking the top side. If you don't use something to keep the pilot in
place below the flange, the c-sink bit tends to chatter and will ruin the hole. Took a while but everything
turned out pretty nice. All platenuts are riveted in place and I am ready to install the tie-down brackets.
7/2/06 Prepared the rear spars for assembly today. Match drilled and deburred the spar and doubler plates.
Trimmed excess material off doubler plates per plans. Ready to sand and prime before final assembly.
7/4/06 Primed both rear spars and all doubler plates and riveted the rear spar assembly together.
7/5/06 Began deburring the rib flanges and lightening hole edges. Got a little loud for night time so I will have to
finish deburring the ribs another day. We are supposed to get a lot of rain tomorrow so it might turn into a
SHOP day! :-)
7/9/06 Spent the last 18 or so hours deburring and fluting all the ribs for both wings. Lot's of ribs! Finally ready to
begin the initial assembly of the left wing. Cleared the shop to make room for the wing jig.
7/10/06 Clekod the aft ribs to the main and rear spars, just to make it look like I have accomplished something over
the past week. Looks pretty impressive. Still need to build my wing jig before I go any further. Hopefully I will
get that done by the end of the week. I have a pretty busy work week so I am going to keep my fingers
crossed! I'll post some more photos as soon as I can take the time away from the office...
7/15/06 Completed the wing jig over the last few days. Made some brackets to attach the outer most rib to the jig.
Mounted the Left Wing in the jig and made sure there was no twist whatsoever. Completed final drilling the
ribs to the main and rear spars. Time to start the initial installation of the skins!
7/20/06 thru 7/29/06 Had a BLAST at Oshkosh! Man was it HOT! Saw TONS of RV's and got some good ideas...
Stayed in the campground in my brother's motor home and camped out with some friends and fellow RV'ers.
Left to right... John Marshall, Jeff Roberts and Larry Boggs. John has several RV's under his belt. His
current project is a Super -7 (540 I/O). Jeff has an RV Super 8 (with a 540 also). Larry has an AWESOME
RV -8 (Photo Below Center) And that's me (Below Right) in front of the main entrance. What a great time!
7/30/06 Installed and match drilled all the skins aft of the main spar.
8/1/06 Installed and match drilled the leading edge skin.
8/2/06 Installed the tank mounting brackets. What a time consuming job! Back drilling the mounting brackets without
distorting the pre-drilled holes in the spar wasn't easy. The toughest part was riveting the nut plates to the
brackets and still having the AN3 bolts pass through the brackets and spar without any unwanted angles.
All's well though. I attached the tank baffle to the mounting brackets and the holes lined up perfectly, with the
centerline drawn on the mounting brackets positioned right in the center of the pre-punched holes in the
tank baffle. Very satisfying when things go right the 1st time!
8/5/06 Today I built the left fuel tank and match drilled the skins to the ribs, tank baffle and mounting brackets. I
have been lucky I think... everything has fit almost perfectly at every stage in the wing so far... knock on
wood : ) Fabricated the front fuel tank mounting bracket and completed match drilling the entire wing. I
almost hate to take everything apart to begin the tedious job of deburring, dimpling and priming everything.
8/11/06 I've been extremely busy at work all week and haven't been able to spend as much time on airplane building
as I would like. Today I took everything apart and began preparing the ribs for priming.
8/12/06 Ribs are all deburred, sanded, dimpled and primed! Man! What a job. That is the worst part about building
an aluminum airplane... all the sanding and preparations in order to prime all of them... and there are LOTS
of them! Time to start assembling them for the last time! Probably will be doing that late next week.
Tomorrow's my Wife's birthday so you know what that means... no shop time ; )
8/20/06 Began riveting the ribs to the rear and main spars. Not as easy as I thought it would be. Trying to do this
myself, I smiled several rivets and had to drill them out. Didn't have a lot of time this weekend since I had to
work all day Saturday. Next weekend we are leaving on vacation for a week so I probably will not be able to
get back to work on this until early September.
9/3/06 Finally! Had a full day to myself to do nothing but work on my plane! Got a LOT done today. Finished riveting
the ribs to the rear and main spars. Deburred and dimpled both aft - top skins and cleko'd them to the
skeleton. Everything went back together perfectly. Not really a lot to take pictures of... you have already
seen the wing cleko'd together. The only difference is there is no vinyl protection coating on them any more
and the ribs have all been primed with a wash primer. They now have a greenish gold tint to them.
Tomorrow is Labor Day so I will probably be able to put in a few more hours on the wing. Going to try to
complete the leading edge installation, or at least have it all cleko'd in place and ready for riveting.
We'll see...
9/4/06 Completed the leading edge today! ...At least the skin is riveted to the ribs. Still need to rivet the attach holes
to the main spar though. All in all, I had a productive 2 days. I wish I could work this much every week... I
might have an airplane out in my garage in a year or so! Oh well... back to work tomorrow :-(
9/10/06 Completed the leading edge today. Riveted the ribs to the main spar and completely riveted the skin to the
main spar. I'm at the point where I really need to complete the fuel tank, and in order to do this I must build
the right wing so I can seal both tanks at the same time. Guess what that means... Time to build a bigger
garage! It looks like I am going to start that project next weekend so I will probably not be building anything
(on my plane) for a month or two! My goal is to have the new garage completed by Thanksgiving. I'll include
photos of the old garage coming down and the new one being built.
9/17/06 Began moving all this STUFF out of my old garage into the garage attached to my house. I guess I'll be
parking my truck outside for a while! Man... I HATE moving! It'll be nice to have a nice big garage and new
office upstairs! The garage is going to be large enough to assemble the whole airplane... motor, wings and
all before I will need to transport it into a hangar.
9/21/06 to 1/1/07 Tore down my old shop and built the new office and shop
1/1/07 Happy New Year! Finally have the shop ready to resume building again! Prepared the right wing skeleton to
be riveted together today. We have been having some awesome weather this winter... it's been in the upper
70's most of December!
1/17/07 Finally resumed building again! Match drilled the right wing tonight. It's nice to have the room to build both
wings at once!
1/27/07 Began working on the fuel tanks
6/8/07 I have spent the last several weekends on other projects as well as working on the ailerons . Today, Joe
Giallo and I were able to rivet about 99% of the top wing skins. I am planning to leave the bottom skins off as
long as possible to allow the easy access for wiring and other installations such as a heated pitot etc.
7/7/07 Installed the bellcranks in both wings today. Completed the pushrods for the ailerons and flaps. Installed the
pitot tube line and installed the mounting bracket for a heated pitot that I will probably install after I get it flying
for a while. It will be an easy installation with the mounting bracket and wiring already in place. It sure is nice to
have the wing jigs out of the way and the wings in the cradle. Creates a lot more room to work, not to mention
makes it easier to work on the bottom section of the wings. That will come in handy connecting the ailerons
and flaps to the wings.
7/22/07 Completed the flaps today. They are ready for the initial installation on the wing. Also made the hole in the
skin for the heated pitot. I will probably go ahead and install that now instead of waiting until after flying it for
a while. I'd hate to mess up a good paint job by making a mistake. Prepared all of the bottom skins for final
installation. Everything all deburred, dimpled and ready to install.... much later!
7/29/07 Installed the ailerons and flaps on the wing today. Did the initial hook up of the bellcrank and pushrods to
make sure of a good fit, with no interference from the pitot lines. Perfect! Everything fit like a glove!
