Today was productive here in Houston - so very different from what happened with Katrina a few hundred miles east. There but for the grace of God go we...Anyone who lives on the coast has to be thinking about it tonight...
But as I said, it was productive here! We slid the wings into the fuselage for the first time this afternoon, and I was amazed that both wings were in place with drift pins in just thirty minutes. For drift pins, I used 7/16 and 1/4 inch bolts from Sears Hardware, with the threads ground into bullet points. They slid right in with gentle taps.
We spent the next hour setting the airplane up level and measuring the wing sweep and incidence. Despite the fact that we measured three times, I am still astounded - with the spar in a "neutral" (unloaded) condition, there is zero sweep (as close as we can measure using plumb bobs and chalk lines), the distance from a wing tip rivet to the leading edge of vertical stab is the same to within an eigth of an inch, and the incidence is within a sixtyfourth - really, it is a matter of who is reading the bubble.
So my question - has anybody had the experience that things just lined up right off the bat like this? I didn't drill the rear spar, figuring that I'd go buy some lottery tickets tonight instead! I did call Gus at Van's, and he wasn't that amazed that it was lined up so well.
Actually, I spent the night trimming the flaps, and they are close to finished - will measure all the wing parameters again tomorrow, and if they still look good, I'll drill the hole. Heck, the airframe probably warps with temperature by more than the errors I seem to have.
So what do ya'll think, am I lucky, or incredibly bad at measuring?
Paul Dye
But as I said, it was productive here! We slid the wings into the fuselage for the first time this afternoon, and I was amazed that both wings were in place with drift pins in just thirty minutes. For drift pins, I used 7/16 and 1/4 inch bolts from Sears Hardware, with the threads ground into bullet points. They slid right in with gentle taps.
We spent the next hour setting the airplane up level and measuring the wing sweep and incidence. Despite the fact that we measured three times, I am still astounded - with the spar in a "neutral" (unloaded) condition, there is zero sweep (as close as we can measure using plumb bobs and chalk lines), the distance from a wing tip rivet to the leading edge of vertical stab is the same to within an eigth of an inch, and the incidence is within a sixtyfourth - really, it is a matter of who is reading the bubble.
So my question - has anybody had the experience that things just lined up right off the bat like this? I didn't drill the rear spar, figuring that I'd go buy some lottery tickets tonight instead! I did call Gus at Van's, and he wasn't that amazed that it was lined up so well.
Actually, I spent the night trimming the flaps, and they are close to finished - will measure all the wing parameters again tomorrow, and if they still look good, I'll drill the hole. Heck, the airframe probably warps with temperature by more than the errors I seem to have.
So what do ya'll think, am I lucky, or incredibly bad at measuring?
Paul Dye
