I am at that point where Van's says to attach the wings to set the angle of incidence. My problem is that I have limited work space and I will be lucky if I can make enough room to do one wing at a time. I have spoken to several builders who thought it was a mistake to do one wing at a time. Hangar space is way too expensive at this point in the build. Has anyone done one wing at a time and was it a problem? Is there a down side to putting this off until the end? All opinions much welcomed.
Van's Air Force
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Wings to fuselage
- Thread starter wpisar
- Start date
dan
Well Known Member
Nothing wrong with waiting until you have more space. The only implication is that certain tasks get put off until later...obviously setting sweep/incidence, but also rigging the flaps, plumbing fuel & vent & qty sender, drilling wing root fairings, etc. No big deal doing that stuff later, it just shifts the order of things around.
I suspect the reason Van's has you do this stuff "now" rather than later is to stick to the valid philosophy of "do as much as you can while the airplane is at your house." The more you can do when the plane is just a few steps away, the less you have to do when the plane is a "commute" away. I know this varies from builder situation to situation, but in general that's the philosophy.
I suspect the reason Van's has you do this stuff "now" rather than later is to stick to the valid philosophy of "do as much as you can while the airplane is at your house." The more you can do when the plane is just a few steps away, the less you have to do when the plane is a "commute" away. I know this varies from builder situation to situation, but in general that's the philosophy.
frankh
Well Known Member
The other option is
Do it outside but it will have to be a still wind day.
If this is an option for you (and you get still winds in the mornings) then
1) Make sure you trim the rear attach plate...ask me how I know!...Even QB rear spars need to be trimmed.
2) Get yer buddies to help put the wings on the night before.
3) Set the sweep and incidence in about 2 hours start early before the wind gets up and blows your plumb bobs around.
You will need 4 good quality plumb bobs...Taps up your friends at least a week before.
Dan is quite correct in that IF YOU DON"T PAINT before flight you could rig your wing, aileron, flaps as part of the final assembly...If your going to paint first you definatly want it all trimmed and hung first.
Hey this is cool...Now I'm flying I can offer helpful advice....
Frank
N484H flying
Do it outside but it will have to be a still wind day.
If this is an option for you (and you get still winds in the mornings) then
1) Make sure you trim the rear attach plate...ask me how I know!...Even QB rear spars need to be trimmed.
2) Get yer buddies to help put the wings on the night before.
3) Set the sweep and incidence in about 2 hours start early before the wind gets up and blows your plumb bobs around.
You will need 4 good quality plumb bobs...Taps up your friends at least a week before.
Dan is quite correct in that IF YOU DON"T PAINT before flight you could rig your wing, aileron, flaps as part of the final assembly...If your going to paint first you definatly want it all trimmed and hung first.
Hey this is cool...Now I'm flying I can offer helpful advice....
Frank
N484H flying
Creative space efforts
There is never enough shop space.
Here is what we did to accomodate putting the wings on in a very crowded garage.
We turned the fuselage (still in the garage) parallel to the garage door opening, with the plane far enough inside that when we put the (both) wings on, there was still room to walk at the front of the garage and some of the opposite wing hung out the garage door. Then we leveled everything and took care of setting the wings. Afterwards, the wings went back on the garage wall and we rolled the plane back into its work position.
Pat Garboden
RV9-A 942PT (reserved) tip-up
(V9-A 942WG (reserved) slider
There is never enough shop space.
Here is what we did to accomodate putting the wings on in a very crowded garage.
We turned the fuselage (still in the garage) parallel to the garage door opening, with the plane far enough inside that when we put the (both) wings on, there was still room to walk at the front of the garage and some of the opposite wing hung out the garage door. Then we leveled everything and took care of setting the wings. Afterwards, the wings went back on the garage wall and we rolled the plane back into its work position.
Pat Garboden
RV9-A 942PT (reserved) tip-up
(V9-A 942WG (reserved) slider
pierre smith
Well Known Member
No
Hi Wpisar,
I'd be very reluctant to do one wing at a time, especially if it's a fairly long time between mountings. My reluctance stems from the fact that unless the airplane is in EXACTLY the same fore/aft/lateral level position for the second wing, you could have a difference in incidence between the two wings. This condition is very, very difficult to correct later.
Secondly, don't buy plumb bobs. Use a nut or bolt or anything, tied to a string (four of them) to set wing sweep. Just hang the strings from the leading edges with duct tape or similar with the nut/bolt/whatever, dangling. Then stretch a string from one side of the airplane to the other, six inches or so off the floor, not quite touching all four strings and you'll see the sweep/no sweep by the distance between the four dangling strings and the long string perpendicular to them.
I did this by myself and used two concrete blocks with the string tied to them coming over their tops and slowly moved the blocks closer to the strings, one side at a time until you finally inch up to the dangling ones.
Regards,
Hi Wpisar,
I'd be very reluctant to do one wing at a time, especially if it's a fairly long time between mountings. My reluctance stems from the fact that unless the airplane is in EXACTLY the same fore/aft/lateral level position for the second wing, you could have a difference in incidence between the two wings. This condition is very, very difficult to correct later.
Secondly, don't buy plumb bobs. Use a nut or bolt or anything, tied to a string (four of them) to set wing sweep. Just hang the strings from the leading edges with duct tape or similar with the nut/bolt/whatever, dangling. Then stretch a string from one side of the airplane to the other, six inches or so off the floor, not quite touching all four strings and you'll see the sweep/no sweep by the distance between the four dangling strings and the long string perpendicular to them.
I did this by myself and used two concrete blocks with the string tied to them coming over their tops and slowly moved the blocks closer to the strings, one side at a time until you finally inch up to the dangling ones.
Regards,
n2prise
Well Known Member
Wings at the airport...
I did not put my wings in for the alignment until I got to the airport. With everything that I was doing, it turned out to be about 10 days after the move before the wings were fully aligned and the aft spar bolt holes were drilled. http://www.n2prise.org/rv9a124.htm
Jerry K. Thorne
East Ridge, TN
RV-9A N2PZ
I did not put my wings in for the alignment until I got to the airport. With everything that I was doing, it turned out to be about 10 days after the move before the wings were fully aligned and the aft spar bolt holes were drilled. http://www.n2prise.org/rv9a124.htm
Jerry K. Thorne
East Ridge, TN
RV-9A N2PZ
JoeBlank
Well Known Member
FAQ
I agree with all of the previous information offered for setting wing incidence and sweep. Be sure to take your time and take multiple measurements before drilling any holes. One additional critical item is to thoroughly read and understand the FAQ on Van's website regarding this construction task. It can be found here:
http://vansaircraft.com/pdf/Wing_ Incidence.pdf
The most important reason is to ensure that you have the adequate hole/edge distance on the rear spar tabs. If you goof up on this, fixing it is much more of a problem.
Blue Skies!
Joe Blank
RV-6
N6810B
I agree with all of the previous information offered for setting wing incidence and sweep. Be sure to take your time and take multiple measurements before drilling any holes. One additional critical item is to thoroughly read and understand the FAQ on Van's website regarding this construction task. It can be found here:
http://vansaircraft.com/pdf/Wing_ Incidence.pdf
The most important reason is to ensure that you have the adequate hole/edge distance on the rear spar tabs. If you goof up on this, fixing it is much more of a problem.
Blue Skies!
Joe Blank
RV-6
N6810B
Thanks for all the input. I am leaning to putting this off until I have adequate space to do both wings at the same time. Is there any reason I can't move on to plumbing the brake & fuel lines and just leave an adequate length of fuel line tubing sticking out of the fuse for the wing connection later?
frankh
Well Known Member
Sure
My fuel pumps are in my wing roots and I didn't make my final connections until final fitting time....Whether you paint it of not makes no difference here.
As I said earlier If you are going to fly before paint then waiting till you get to the hangar to fit the wings/flaps/ailerons all at once is fine..In fact I think it will be more efficient this way.But if your going to paint first you'll want everything fitted up front.
Once again on the painting front, I chose to paint my tanks seperately and attach them with SS Torx screws after the fact to aid removal in the future should I (God forbid) get a tank leak.
Good luck
Frank
My fuel pumps are in my wing roots and I didn't make my final connections until final fitting time....Whether you paint it of not makes no difference here.
As I said earlier If you are going to fly before paint then waiting till you get to the hangar to fit the wings/flaps/ailerons all at once is fine..In fact I think it will be more efficient this way.But if your going to paint first you'll want everything fitted up front.
Once again on the painting front, I chose to paint my tanks seperately and attach them with SS Torx screws after the fact to aid removal in the future should I (God forbid) get a tank leak.
Good luck
Frank
I did one wing at a time on my RV 7A in my garage. Asked van's and they said it would be no problem. airplane has over two hundred hours and flies great. checking for sweep after assembling plane shows less than 1/8 inch difference between wings to tail measurement. I say go ahead with one wing at a time and get this done before moving to airport. when i moved to airport i had the airplane flying 30 days later. only my opinion fwiw fred
