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Wing Rigging

CharlieWaffles

CharlieWaffles

Well Known Member
I am a few weeks from attaching the wings to my fuselage. Is there any special rigging or checks that need to be done that are not spelled out in the Wing Attach section of the plans? Just follow the plans, install the bolts, drill the rear attach and that's it? I though I've heard of people doing specific rigging, measuring and plumb bobs to ensure the incidence and other parameters are right before drilling and bolting on the wings.
 
good to go

You can go through all those checks if you like to be sure, but my experience is that they are right on, no adjustments needed.

Gary Specketer
Tech Counselor
 
I have done this twice, once helping Wayne G, and for our aircraft. in boTh cases we folllowed the instructions exactly and later checked the incidence angle, which was right on. If I did it again, if i had the room, I think I would put an 1/8" pin in the rear spar pilot holes and check the angle just for piece of mind.
Make sure to hand select some bolts to use as pins for the fiT check and drilling of the rear spar. I brought a digital caliper with me to the aviation section of Lowes to hand pick some bolts.
 
Same here

Followed instructions precisely and have no reason to think anything is off.
Installing the wing and bolts is a very simple matter and can be done in about 10 minutes. I installed and removed the wings a couple of times after the initial
fit and had no trouble doing it by myself sliding in and out with a table under the wing and padding to accommodate wing dihedral.
Although a set of drift pins are easier than using the close tolerance bolts I did use 2 of those for the initial drilling of the rear spar hole.
It doesn't hurt to check but I don't think you'll find any discrepancies.
 
The 10 is easy compared to the two 8's I built, as previous post stated, just follow the instructions, no plumb bobs, chalk lines, levels, tape measure or special fabricated tools.
 
Pat Stewart said:
The 10 is easy compared to the two 8's I built, as previous post stated, just follow the instructions, no plumb bobs, chalk lines, levels, tape measure or special fabricated tools.
Click to expand...

Not for the wings but you'll get lots of use out of those tools for the Pants & Farings...:p
 
Auburntsts said:
How so? I'm just about ready to mount my wings, but can delay if there's a compelling reason to jump ahead to the fairings.
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Crawling under those low wings will break your back! With the wings off, you can sit on a stool, do the alignment from a comfortable position. My knees hurt from just crawling under there to add air.

Best,
 
Auburntsts said:
How so? I'm just about ready to mount my wings, but can delay if there's a compelling reason to jump ahead to the fairings.
Click to expand...

What Pierre said.

I did my fairings before the wings. I've always had troublesome knees and the work on the fairings was challenging none the less.

Put another way, you are less likely to do a precision job on the fairing alignment with the wings on than with the wings off. I'm guessing that you would need a bit more help lifting the mains off the ground - probably requiring two wing jacks along with an engine hoist. But that's just a guess.

Others can pipe in here.
 
This is proving to be a good thread drift as it sounds like I might want to reconsider and do my fairings before getting the wings on.
 
MauleDriver said:
What Pierre said.

I did my fairings before the wings. I've always had troublesome knees and the work on the fairings was challenging none the less.

Put another way, you are less likely to do a precision job on the fairing alignment with the wings on than with the wings off. I'm guessing that you would need a bit more help lifting the mains off the ground - probably requiring two wing jacks along with an engine hoist. But that's just a guess.

Others can pipe in here.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the gouge. Any recommendations on jacking the fuse with the wings off?
 
Auburntsts said:
Thanks for the gouge. Any recommendations on jacking the fuse with the wings off?
Click to expand...

I C-clamped a 2x4 to each spar stub and used an engine hoist to lift by the engine mount. Lift most of the weight with the engine hoist. Depending on where you lift from the mount, the aft end of the fuselage may want to rotate down. You may/may not need a tripod stand to support the tail cone at the tie down point. I used a bottle jack at each spar stub to fine tune the gap between each tire and the floor. Keep working back and forth with the engine hoist and the bottle jacks till the tires are about 1/8" off the ground and the fuselage is level fore and aft and side to side. Once you have it where you want it, adjust and clamp the 2x4s so they extend vertically from the spar stubs to the floor. Clamp them securely and remove the bottle jacks, so that the jacks will not be in the way of the wheel pants. The 2x4s need to be positioned as far inboard on the spars as possible, or else they will be in the way of the wheel pants. I used a laser level capable of shooting a ceiling and floor line to lay out the parallel lines on the floor. All of this takes a fair amount of futzing around to get everything positioned, but it is worth taking your time to get it right.

Jim Berry
RV-10
 
Auburntsts said:
Thanks for the gouge. Any recommendations on jacking the fuse with the wings off?
Click to expand...


When I did my initial alignment and jacked the plane up, I had my wings on. When I did the other steps, like flowing around the screw hotels, etc, I had taken my wings off. It certainly made things easier.

It also helped to have a 20 year old daughter that did most of the work under the wing. :D
 
Here are a few pics of how I jacked the fuse up.

http://www.mykitlog.com/users/display_log.php?user=MauleDriver&project=224&category=5629&log=108539&row=4

The pics don't show how I used one small bottle jack to get each side up, but I used some oak 3/4" x 1" stock c-clamped to the spar studs to hold them in place. Most of the weight is on the engine hoist.

I too used a laser thingy to put a center line on the floor. Amazing how well the laser split rivet heads on the QB fuse, centerlined the nose wheel assembly and otherwise showed everything to be dead nuts lined up. Once I had the line on the floor, I used a piece of angle iron to mark it and act as an anchor for my tape measure. You end up doing a lot of measuring, jiggling and re-measuring. Again, much easier with the wings off.

If you can hold off on the wings, get this job done, then set all the fairings and pants off to the side, you'll thank yourself later I think.
 
Tayana wheelants

MauleDriver said:
...and infinitely easier if done before the wings are installed
Click to expand...

Hi,
Have a intermittent rudder trim problem on flying RV 10. Flys beautiful in trim than on next flight needs heavy left rudder to center ball. No rudder trim just wedge but flys straight till this happens. Have aerolon trim but does not really solve the problem. What could it be? The nose pant and wheel swivel free enough and don't think it is sticking but not sure. Would really appreciate help and ideas. Also any info on trimming all wheel pants.

Tayana [email protected]
 
Here is your answer. I had the same problem. Talked with Gus at Vans. They had the same problem. They had another aircraft fly with them and check it out. The cause is the nose wheel sticking as the result of a slight slip during take off. The cure is to tighten the drag on the nose pivot belleville washers. You will probably have to do it several times until the washers get a good set. You almost can not overtighten the nut. I also find that a nice tight pivot, that is greater than the 25 lbs Vans suggests, results in less nose wheel shimmy.
 
This is interesting. I would think the opposite, but after thinking through your post, it makes sense that this could actually be the problem. I would think that having the nose wheel loose would cause the wheel to center in the airflow, but having it tight would keep it from getting off in the first place. Al, if you fly over one day soon, especially if you are still feeling it, we can tighten that pivot in about 5-10 minutes. It's an easy thing to do. It really should be done anyway, because it was fairly loose Friday when we tested it. Or, you could get someone over there are the ranch to help you tighten it and see if that helps. It's worth a try. Certainly can't hurt anything.
 
I'd concur with the "tighten the nosewheel pivot" idea even though it seems at first glance, counterintuitive.

Given the variability of the rudder required, I don't think that has anything to do with getting all FG parts lined up. Any discrepancies there would be a constant in flight.

I've paid a lot of attention to the rudder required in cruise. In my case, it is constant flight to flight. I definitely erred on the tight side of the spec in the plans FWIW.
 
The first time it happened it scared the heck out of me. After 30 hours of flight with the ball perfectly centered, all of a sudden the ball is 50% of the way over. I landed and checked things out and found nothing, took off and 5 minutes later it happens again in the climb. I flew home slowly and found nothing again. Made the call followed the recommendation and checked the tension. It had dropped to 10 lbs. Tightened it up to 30 and has not happened since.
 
So I finally got around to getting the wings on and for reference sake I dropped a plumb bob from the tip of each outboard leading edge and ran a string from wingtip to wingtip. I then dropped a plumb bob from the leading edge of the wing near the fuselage. I found that the leading edge of the wing at the outboard edge is 1/8" behind of the inboard leading edge.

Anyone else ever measure or see this? This is with the rear spare cleco'd into the #30 hole prior to drilling.

IMG_0565_zps3735643e.jpg
 
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I'm getting towards this moment. If I end up with everything within 1/8" let me tell you I am going to be very happy - bolt it all together and drill the rear spar is what I say!
 
Evidence?

Mark,

If you correct the sweep of the wing, your hole misalignment at the rear spar will probably look like mine did. (Remember I made all the measurements, didn't take the rear spar hole as gospel, and ended up seeing a crescent moon shape in my rear spar holes. That said, once I drilled it, there was no evidence of the misalignment as the new hole overtook the old. All edge distances were great.

Whether or not a 1/8" difference is significant is unknown to me.

PS- love the new profile picture!
D
 
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A whole 1/8" off?!?! I think you are going to have to start all over again! Just kidding!

I doubt it would make much difference. My take on minor discrepancies like this was to hope that they all balanced out in the end for a zero-sum vector! No tabs required, so i think it worked out.
 
A quick rough and ready calculation shows that 1/8" over a 12' panel equates to about 1/20 deg of "mis-alignment"........... ;)

I would say that getting the fore/aft alignment equal on the wings would be far more critical ie that they are at the same incidence.
 
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