Day 17

Today we finished the flaps and ailerons assemblies.

We began by finishing the left aileron. It was done the same way was the right side. We had already assembled the ribs so it went pretty quickly. We Cleco’ed the ribs in place, clear drilled, de-burred and riveted them in place using the rivets specified in the build manual. The front row and leading edge is left unriveted at this time until they get aligned on the wings at a later stage.

The same process was followed for the flaps. We had not assembled the rib assemblies yet, so we did those first. Then we scuffed and prepped the outside ribs that would be getting paint, as well as the flap skins. Doing this process now will make for a better quality paint job later on done the road. It’s a little extra work now, but will make up a significant amount of prep time when it comes to to paint.

After everything was prepped, we then assembled the ribs using cleco’s and followed the same pattern as before, clear drilling, de-burring and riveting everything in place. The leading edges and front row of rivets on the flaps are also not done at this time.

We are really cooking along. Everything is coming together very quickly. We are very excited to see so much progress in such a short amount of time!