The flaps and ailerons aren't very difficult to built, as they aren't all too much different than the elevators and rudders built early in the project. The harder part is drilling and riveting all the attachment angles and brackets to the rear wing spar and ribs. There is a lot of rivets holding the flap and aileron brackets in place, all 1/8" diameter and generally long. Additionally, these are riveted in some tight quarters, making it a challenge to get good rivets set.
Total Construction Time: 144 hours and mostly finished
December 2, 2006 (2 hours)
Began cutting the aileron stiffeners.
December 3, 2006 (2 hours)
Finished up deburring the 28 aileron stiffeners.
December 4, 2006 (1 hour)
Spent an hour in the morning deburring the left aileron parts.
December 5, 2006 (2 hours)
Spent an hour in the morning finishing deburring left aileron parts then began drilling and assembling the aileron in the evening. Attached and drilled the doubler plates and the nose ribs and marked the hole positions in the counterweight pipe.
December 6, 2006 (2 hours)
Spent an hour in the morning deburring the right aileron parts, finished in the evening then began drilling and assembling the aileron. Attached and drilled the doubler plates and the nose ribs and marked the hole positions in the counterweight pipe.
December 8, 2006 (3 hours)
Drilled the holes in the counterbalance pipes and temporarily riveted and cleco'ed them to the aileron nose ribs. Match drilled the stiffeners to the aileron skins. Also moved the right wing onto my table and finished the last couple dozen rivets along the rear spar and also at the outboard ribs.
December 9, 2006 (2 hours)
Worked on aileron and flap brackets for both wings. Gary Specketer also stopped by to look at my progress to date. No concerns on his part so I'll keep on building.
December 10, 2006 (2 hours)
Match drilled the aileron and flap attach brackets to the spar and deburred edges.
December 12, 2006 (1 hour)
Worked on deburring flap attach brackets.
December 13, 2006 (1 hour)
More deburring the flap attach brackets. Probably overdoing it, but feel better with these brackets being just right.
December 14, 2006 (1 hour)
Finished deburring the flap attach brackets and got a good start on the aileron brackets.
December 16, 2006 (3 hours)
Finished deburring and countersinking the aileron attach brackets. Aaron also helped me remove the blue vinyl from the aileron skins and then I deburred the edges and dimpled the stiffener holes.
December 17, 2006 (4 hours)
Deburred the aileron and flap gap seals, then primed the aileron seal, skins, stiffeners, and attach brackets and the flap attach brackets and gap seal.
December 18, 2006 (2 hours)
Riveted the aileron and outboard and inboard flap brackets to the rear spar on the right wing.
December 19, 2006 (2 hours)
Aligned the center flap bracket to ensure the hole aligned with the inboard and outboard brackets. Then I drilled the holes in the wing rib and riveted it in place. I then drilled the holes in the reinforcing angle between the bracket and the rear spar.
December 20, 2006 (1 hour)
Drilled the rivet holes in the reinforcing angles between the bracket and the bottom skins.
December 21, 2006 (8 hours)
Drilled and countersunk the holes in the bracket to bottom skin reinforcing angles. Then riveted all the reinforcing angles to the brackets. Also match drilled, dimpled and riveted the aileron and flap gap fairings. These are some pretty tough rivets to set, especially working at odd angles in tight spaces. Only drilled out a couple of bad ones.
December 22, 2006 (3 hours)
First I back-riveted the stiffeners to the aileron skins. Then I cleco'ed the aileron skins in place including dimpling the bottom skins at the ribs and adding a couple of temporary rivets. Then cleco'ed the leading edge skins in place. Finally weighted down one of the ailerons in preparation to drill the rivet holes in the counterbalance pipe and the trailing edge.
December 25, 2006
One year has passed since starting the kit! I've logged 230 hours building the empennage, excluding the tips. I've also logged 318 hours on the wings and should be done in a few weeks.
December 26, 2006 (2 hours)
Drilled the holes in the counterbalance tube, the trailing edge and match drilled all skin to spar and rib rivet holes for the left aileron, then disassembled it.
December 27, 2006 (2 hours)
Drilled the holes in the counterbalance tube, the trailing edge and match drilled all skin to spar and rib rivet holes for the right aileron, then disassembled it. Started deburring the rivet holes for the ribs.
December 28, 2006 (4 hours)
Deburred, countersunk and dimpled all aileron parts.
December 29, 2006 (4 hours)
Prepped and primed all aileron parts.
December 30, 2006 (8 hours)
Finished riveting the ailerons!
December 31, 2006 (2 hours)
Attached the attach brackets to the ailerons. It's cool to finally have moving parts! Also straightened the flap nose rib flanges.
January 1, 2007 (3 hours)
Deburred all of the flap main ribs.
Pete Howell gave me a ride in his RV-9A this afternoon! His is a beautiful airplane and it flies incredibly well, handles easier than I expected. This is going to be a great VFR/IFR/local/cross country plane when I'm done.
January 2-6, 2007
Took a short break from building. Received the Luxeon LED's and spend time designing and testing the constant current circuit I plan to use, and also calculated the intensity of them to ensure I get adequate coverage to meet the FAA requirements.
January 7, 2007 (3 hours)
Deburred all of the flap nose ribs.
January 8, 2007 (1 hour)
Spent an hour before work deburring flap brackets.
January 9, 2007 (1 hour)
Spent another early morning hour deburring flap brackets.
January 11, 2007 (2 hours)
Spent more time deburring flap brackets.
January 12, 2007 (1 hour)
Finished a good first pass at deburring all remaining flap and aileron brackets.
January 14, 2007 (3 hours)
Fabricated the two inboard flap brackets and the associated spacers. The angles on these are hard to follow, so I left them slightly oversized for now. Also cut a replacement angle for the rear spar to flap bracket attachment.
January 15, 2007 (1 hour)
Deburred the flap spars.
January 16, 2007 (1 hour)
Assembled the flap nose ribs and brackets to the spars.
My fuselage kit arrived today!!! Lot's of fun parts to get started on if I can finish up these flaps one of these days. Hopefully it will warm up a little so the garage isn't so cold.
January 18, 2007 (1 hour)
Spent most of an hour in the morning drilling the nose rib assemblies to the flap spars.
January 21, 2007 (4 hours)
After cleaning up the mess in the garage from making pinewood derby cars for the last week, I finally got some work on the flaps done. First I modified the table to it would be easier to build the flaps on and drilled the holes for the clecos. Then I match drilled the ribs to the spar and the bottom skins.
January 24, 2007 (3 hours)
Cleco'ed the top and nose skins in place.
January 27, 2007 (6 hours)
Match drilled all the skins to the ribs, spars and trailing edge. Later took it all apart and removed the plastic from the skins and spar.
January 28, 2007 (6 hours)
Deburred the rivet holes in the ribs, spars and brackets. Also drilled the holes for the flap rod attach point including the nutplates. Then I countersunk the rivet holes in the spars and AEX trailing edges (that's 550 countersinks).
February 1-4, 2007
It's been way too cold to spend time in the garage. My garage heater can only raise the indoor temperature about 30 degrees warmer than the outside air. With the outdoor air temps staying sub-zero the flaps can wait. Instead I decided to teach myself html and build this website.
February 10, 2007 (4 hours)
It's still plenty cold out, but managed to get the garage heated up to almost 60° so I did a bunch of deburring of the flap parts. Have to do the skins yet, then dimple and prime and then I'm ready to rivet the flaps.
February 17, 2007 (2 hours)
Dimpled most of the rivet holes in the skins and ribs.
February 18, 2007 (2 hours)
Finished dimpling the rivet holes in the skins and then looped safety wire in specific rivet holes to keep track of what part goes where in prep for priming. Now I just need a warmer day so I can shoot primer. I'm hoping next weekend will be warm enough.
February 23, 2007 (2 hours)
Cleaned/etched most of the aileron parts with the AFS Etch product in preparation for priming.
February 24, 2007 (3 hours)
Finished cleaning/etching the aileron parts. Plan to prime these and some of the fuselage parts tomorrow morning.
February 25, 2007 (2 hours)
Primed all the flap parts along with a bunch of parts for the firewall.
February 26, 2007 (3 hours)
Riveted the nose rib / hinge assemblies together then riveted them to the flap spars. Also clecoed all the main ribs to the flap spars. Been quite some time since I've done any riveting. Also today was the first time I used my new tungsten bucking bar and it worked great, well worth the money.
February 27, 2007 (1 hour)
Riveted the main flap ribs to the spars. It's too difficult to get the squeezer on the rivets at the inboard end where the short angle piece it attached, so I had to buck those rivets. My tungsten bucking bar fit in there just right.
February 28, 2007 (1 hour)
Riveted the inboard stiffener plates to the inboard ribs and then the nutplates to the plate and rib. It would have been easier to rivet the nutplate first due to clearance issues, but I was able to make it work.
March 1, 2007 (1 hour)
Clecoed the top and nose skins to the spar/rib assembly. Also touched up a couple of spots I missed with primer.
March 2, 2007 (2 hours)
Riveted the flap nose skins and top skin to the spar and ribs on the left flap.
March 3, 2007 (7 hours)
Finished the left and right flaps. Trailing edge came out very straight. My left flap has less than 1/8" twist from inboard to outboard end and the right came out perfect. Now all I have to do is add the aileron and flap brackets to the left wing, but you can see both on the right wing in the picture below.
August 19, 2007 (5 hours)
As you can see by the big date jump, it's been a long time since I did anything with my wings. I want to get my fiberglass tips done before winter sets in, but I still needed to attach the flap and aileron brackets and gap seals to the left wing. So today I pull the left wing off the cradle and spent a few hours match drilling and deburring each of these parts.
August 22, 2007 (2 hours)
Before work I deburred the aileron and flap gap fairings, then after work I shot them with primer.
August 24, 2007 (1 hour)
Riveted the aileron bracket parts together in the morning.
August 25, 2007 (4 hours)
I popped into the garage around 6:30 this morning to rivet the aileron and flap brackets to the spar and ribs. I was only able to hand squeeze about a dozen or so rivets, then realized I needed to buck the rest. I knew I couldn't make all that noise that early in the morning, so I came back inside. By 8:30 am, even though everyone else was still sleeping, I couldn't take it anymore. So I finished all the brackets, then also had a chance to rivet the aileron and flap gap fairings to the spar.
August 26, 2007 (4 hours)
Riveted the aileron and flap gap fairings to the top skins. Next I cut the four aileron pushrod tubes to length and deburred the ends. After that I taped up the ends and poured some rustoleum paint inside the tubes, rolled them around to fully coat the insides, then drained as much as I could out to minimize the weight.
August 27, 2007 (1 hour)
Other builders have mentioned that the blind rivets in the short aileron pushrod can catch on the hole in the rear spar. Instead of enlarging the spar hole, I decided to bring the shorter pushrods and ends, which are steel, to a welding shop. The longer pushrod tubes and rod ends are aluminum, so this evening I shot my rattle can primer on the rod ends and pushed them into the ends of the tubes. Then I made punch marks around the ends in prep for drilling holes for the blind rivets.
August 28, 2007 (1 hour)
I drilled the holes in the ends of the long pushrods and rod ends and then riveted them. Dan Checkoway had a neat idea to dip the blind rivets in primer before installing them, so I went ahead and did that. I also got the short pushrods back from the welder and ground the ends smooth.
September 3, 2007
Had a pretty busy week so didn't get much done on the plane. On top of that my garage is so disorganized that I couldn't find space to work on anything. So I spent almost two full days completely cleaning and reorganizing the garage, including making a new workbench. Now I should be able to work on the empennage and wingtip fiberglass.
