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Wing tip hinges

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Pirkka

Well Known Member
I didn't get much feedback for my questions about wing kit generally. Hopefully someone has something for this.

If making hinged wing tips, how long the hinges should be? Is 2x6' enough for both wings or not... I tried to Google this stuff out, but didn't find much measurements. And I think that this is worst thing about Van's instructions, there should be much more dimensions available -- but if you do it like plans, you really don't need them. :mad:

About the tips itself, as the fiberglass is pretty thich at that place, would it be possible to put fiberglass side hinge "upsidedown" compared to the wing side hinge. So that the "contact layer" would be on same level. That might make installation easier... or has everyone done this like this?

Extremely poor demostration of above:

Normal hinge:

~~o~~

Fiberglass side upsidedown:

__o~~
 
Or you could use shims on the wing side to offset the hinge down, simulating the fiberglass thickness on the wing skin side. This is how it's done on the cowling.
 
Hinge Info

To help select which hinges might work for your project see

http://www.gen-aircraft-hardware.com/template.asp?pagename=hinge

I would think that the MS20257 hinge would work the best as it woulb be easier to shape and adjust a leaf up or down to get things to fit just right.

This series of hinge is the least expensive and fairly malleble.

I have seen many people put wingtips in with MS21047L04 nutplates and screws such as MS24693S6 or C6, my choice would be NAS514P440-6P, they are the same dimensions as the MS24693's but 2 to 3 times the strength.
If you go with the screws get a good #1 bit before you start putting them in the nut plates. The nutplates are pretty grippy.

Hope all works well for you. Tom
 
Pirkka,

I installed my wing tips with hinge, and the best (easiest) way to do it, is to shim the wing side as Dan mentioned. You'll also need to cut the flange off that would slide under the wing skin.

Here's a link to my entries on how I did it.

Good luck! :cool:

Oh, six foot hinge is what you need. You'll cut a little under two feet off of it, but you can't get it in 5' pieces unless you $pecial order it. Also, MS20257 is what I used, and it worked great!
 
Just an additional note to the hinge installation...

This method adds a significant amount of time to the build. I spend about 30 hours doing it, and it took almost a month of time. Just a heads up! ;)
 
My questions has been answered, thanks. However I didn't want to know the truth how long this easy task can take. ;) While Googling around I found Chad's (been there before, but remembering which selections different builders has done is just impossible) site and looked around. And here:

http://www.chadandbrittne.com/Nov%2020-06.htm

is the second reason (right after price) why I didn't end up building Lancair.

There is still one quesion pending: how do you ensure that the hinge pin won't slip away from the hinge? Haven't seen any pictures of that... I've some ideas how to implement "locking" for it, but it would be nice to see alternatives for comparison...
 
Here's how I'm going to do it...

Pin retainer

12-4-06-005w.jpg

12-4-06-006w.jpg


The pin slides in to the delrin plastic block. The pin is JUST long enough to almost touch the trailing edge of the tip. The block will keep it in place, and there's no room for it to slide aft. I also drilled a 3/16th hole at the very aft end of the close out rib (farther aft than the tooling hole in the picture above) that will be used to tie-wrap the hinges to the rib.
 
Too much work and dirt!

I believe it can be done much easier.

Fit the wingtip flange to the wing, line up the inboard edges of the hinge and the wingtip and hold it with cleco clamps. Drill and cleco the outboard side of the hinge to the wingtip. Than remove the clamps, fit the wingtips to the wing and matchdrill them through the wingskin, wingtip flange, and inboard side of the hinge. Cut of the wingtip flange and use it as shim, when you rivet the hinges to the wings.
 
Sounds like using the flange as a shim would work great, but I can't see how the hinges would be drilled properly to match when put on the inside. You won't be able to clamp the hinge flat on the outside of the skin and tip and be oriented properly. The hinge eyes need to be facing the inside of the wing and tip. If the eyes are facing out (laying flat), the holes won't line up when you flip them over, and the eyes will never line up.

I hope I made sense in my head of your post, and this response made sense to you... :eek:
 
Few more questions: I don't have hinge here right now, but how thick is the hinge? Just wondering would -4 rivet be long enough?

On metal side there is skin (0.024"), thickener (0.040") and then the hinge, probably around 0.04" as well...

for AD3 rivet that would be: (3/32)" * 1.5 + 0.024" + 0.04" * 2 = 0.245 and 4/16" is 0.250, so that would be just fine. If the hinges are on same level on fiberglass side (at least they should), then it would be proper length. It's just that haven't found soft rivets with x.5 sizes...
 
Just curious as to why?

There is nothing in the wing tip to service or inspect unless you put your AP servo there.
I used the #4 screw kit and it took less than a day to install. If they ever need to come off, it might take 30 minutes a side to do it. That beats the heck out of a month of build time for something that may never, or rarely, need to be removed.
I guess the hinges are hidden and would look pretty nice.
 
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