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Wing Mounting

B

Brambo

Well Known Member
I'm getting to the point where the directions want me to mount the wings so as to set the incidence and do all the plumbing. I'm building in my garage and space is limited, so my question is - is it possible to do all the plumbing without mounting the wings (and just leave some extra tubing for the final fitting once the wings are on)? Have many builders tried this?

If not I guess I'll have to do the one wing at a trime bit.

Bill Rambo
RV-7A
Std Fuselage
 
I did that, checked with Van's just in case I was missing something, they told me there was no reason not to do it all later. I am in the same boat as you, fuselage in the garage, completed wings in my hangar. Hope this helps.
 
There's no real need to plug in the wings so soon. You can wait until the fuse and wings are finished and assemble all simultaneously at the hangar to better effect. The critical process is setting incidence and getting both wings exactly the same. You can't do that or set the sweep or compare square-to-the-tail without both installed. When you make two different set-ups you're sure to introduce variation. Match drilling the rear spar, tank bracket, lower skin, and fabbing the tubes don't take all that long. With some support at the tip, one person can drag out the wing three inches after drilling to install the nutplates. Reinstall, stuff in the controls, ailerons, and flaps, and go flying (almost!). Far less monkey motion and superior precision if you wait.

Watch out for this: the round head rivet above the fuse's rear spar slot will likely interfere a bit with the spar cut to plan's dimensions and cause forward sweep. Be ready to deal with this in confined quarters.

John Siebold
 
I agree - leaving the wing mounting to later is no problem. My wings never touched the fuselage until a month before first flight when the project moved to the hangar for final assembly.

Paul
 
A further question on the same line: is there any difficulty mounting wings with the landing gear installed? I guess level is level though, I'll just need to raise my "sawhorses" higher to get it off the gear when installing the wings.

Comments?

Jekyll
 
No reason not to wait in your limited space. I would ad however, that as a rule, do everything you possibly can at home when able where you see it and can do it every day. Too often things get put off for the hanger then its much harder to get to the hanger in your day to day madness of things.

As an example, in this case, if you were able to do it now, you could rig the flight controls, put in the stops, trim the flaps, do the transisition fairings, and so on and so forth. I watched one guy at my field get to the hanger so quickly, that he spent over a year there dong stuff he should have done at home. He rantted and raved for a year about how tough it was to get to the hanger after work blah blah blah.

Just a thought for you.
Will work either way.
Best
 
Ditto Kahuna's comments. I pulled the whole rig into the driveway, leveled it, installed the wings and drilled rear spar attach. Then took one off and wheeled it back into the garage. This way I was able to do flap fitting, plumbing, wiring, tip install, drill for belly skin screws, root fairings, etc. When done, I swapped out the wings and repeat. It's an aweful lot to do at a hangar unless you live real close.
 
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