Starboard and Port Wing Construction

Starboard and Port wing construction. The Spars are of composite materials completed at the factory. Due to pitting found on the spars themselves, I elected to sand the spars and anywhere a pit, gap, or crack was found, I elected to use structural fiberglass flox to fill them in with. A final sanding was performed in preparation for the installation of the factory supplied ribs. The next item to be completed is the attachment of the wing skins. The ribs and the wing skins were bonded using a Micro/Epoxy slurry.

There were some problems I found upon inspection of the spars and instructions. The first issue I discovered was that the Spars were marked incorrectly at the factory. The left spar was marked on the right spar and visa versa. The next problem was the location of the first rib that was pre-marked at the factory. I am glad I did a dry fit with the first rib in place on the spar. When I placed the spar into the fuselage, the rib location on the spar was completely off and therefore had to be remarked the right way.

It pays to check and then recheck. A builder should be able to trust what the factory tells them but In my case this was not so. I learned a valuable lesson and have triple checked every instruction printed within the manual.

Next came the internal components such as the bell cranks and associated hardware. Control linkages, rods, flap and aileron hinges, tie down fittings, and access panels al had to be completed.