Another Milestone- Wings Mounted

This weekend, I installed my wings for the first time. I rolled the fuselage out onto my driveway and leveled it in pitch and roll axis. The wings were slid into their mounts and I drove in tapered wooden pegs to hold things in place. Once the pegs were in, I replaced with hardware store bolts. I discovered that a digital level can either be a curse or a blessing as it can drive you nuts as you chase down that last 1/10th of a degree! I went through the normal amount of measureing and sweating before convincing myself that it was ok to drill the rear spar. After everything was done, we took it all apart and rolled her back into the shop and installed one wing only. I will do all of the things that need to be done, then swap wings. One observation...we sure do have stubby little wings with our RV's. The thing looks like a sheet of plywood hanging off the fuselage out there
Tinman

congratulations

Tinman: I didn't build the 8 model but your post reminded me of drilling those wing spar holes. I measured, remeasured, started, stopped, restarted.....then what the hell, I drilled the darn things. Haven't looked back since. But, it is a real milestone and one to be proud of. See you at a flyin someday. Jack

I did the same thing a couple of weeks ago and have to agree with the part about the stubby wings. In fact, my father came by to see it in the driveway with it's wings on and immediately said in all seriousness "So when do the outer wing sections go on?"

Congrats on your milestone. It's definitely an exciting moment.

Steve Zicree
RV4 Wiring

I just drilled my -7A wings this past Saturday. Took me 4 days to get the courage to drill them. Fortunately I could take my time because I was able to fit both wings on in the garage with the doors closed. And tinman, you are right. The Smart Tool will drive you nuts!



For those new builders that may be interested -- I did not jig my wings. I built a 'T' stand that would hole both of them but I did not clamp the rear spars in place, just left them hanging there. For what it's worth, I have no discernable twist in my wings. Your mileage may vary, of course.

One of the things I noticed using the smart tool is that if you don't get the level perfect in the thrust line (meaning parallel to the rib rivet lines), the level will read the dihedral of the wing...making the process much more frustrating.

Excellent point about the smart tool's orientation, Jamie. You must maintain alignment with the rivet line in order to null out the influence of dihedral. If you don't do this, you will spend alot of time hunting down errors.
Tinman

tinman said:

I discovered that a digital level can either be a curse or a blessing as it can drive you nuts as you chase down that last 1/10th of a degree!

Click to expand...

So TRUE! I called Van's and said something like, "as long as you are within 1/2 and inch. bla, bla, bla..." 1/2 an inch! Holy cow. Since my -9 is in my basement I took my time and got that darn thing zeroed out before drilling. In the end, I used a oak block with an 1/8" hole drilled in it to make sure the drill bit went in straight.

Congrats on hanging your wings, lets go flying!