Many people are surprised when they hear I'm building an airplane. Naturally it leads to many questions. Some of the common ones include:
Where are you building this airplane?
Often the first question I'm asked is "Where are you building a plane?". In my garage, of course!
This is usually followed by "How are you going to get it to an airport?". The major sections of the airplane, the empennage, wings, and fuselage, are built and stored seperately. Once all of the major sections are complete, these are brought to an airport for final assembly.
Do the parts come partially assembled?
I'm building the 'slow build' version, meaning very few of the parts are pre-assembled, although most parts are already cut and bent to the right size and shape, and most of the rivet holes are pre-drilled. Below is a picture that shows all the parts that make up an airframe. The engine, propeller, instruments and avionics are seperate from the kit allowing each builder to build their plane to best suit their mission.
When will it fly?
Definitely on a Tuesday. I think.
Kidding aside, most slow-build projects tend to take around 1800-2000 work hours to complete. Based on the pace I'm going I'm hopeful that my first flight will be sometime in 2009, but it certainly could stretch into 2010.
What kind of tools do you use to build an airplane?
The majority of the airframe is made of aluminum. Most of the parts are riveted together using solid rivets (not pop rivets), meaning they need to be set with a rivet gun and bucking bar, or a rivet squeezer. The completed airplane will have roughly 15,000 rivets.
Even before you get to riveting, there is a lot of prep work to be done, including temporarily assemblying and match drilling all the parts, deburring the edges of the aluminum parts, dimpling or countersinking the rivet holes to allow the rivets to sit flush with the skins, and in some cases making your own parts.
Most of these tools used aren't laying around in the typical homeowners toolbox. Therefore I started out by buying a toolkit from Avery Tools that contained a majority of the tools you need for building the airframe. I also highly recommend SteinAir, Inc. for electrical tools, wire and other stuff. It seems I'm continually adding to the collection, including a number of "nice to have" tools. Here's a list of what I have so far:
Metalworking - Aircraft tools:
- Avery tool kit with 3x rivet gun, high speed pneumatic drill, and lots of other fun stuff.
- Snap-soc rivet set caps from Avery, a must have for those 470AD4 rivets.
- Tank dimple dies allows space for proseal between rivet head and dimple.
- Extra clecos 100 extra 3/32 clecos came in handy when doing the wings.
- Longeron yoke nice to have for reaching around rib and spar flanges.
- Tungsten bucking bar 1"x1"x2", tungsten is almost twice as dense as steel, from SteinAir.
- Pneumatic squeezer borrowing a friends, very handy when dimpling or squeezing a lot of rivets.
- Rivet shaver bit for shaving a few tank rivets that were sitting slightly proud.
Other tools from the aircraft section of the local home improvement store
- Compressor 26 gallon, oiled. Started with small oil-less, was way too loud.
- Sanding blocks rubber sanding blocks and 180/360 grit foam pads.
- Small files great for all those notches in the ribs.
- Drill bits a couple sizes smaller than #30 and #40 for drilling rivets.
- Drill press a small benchtop model will work just fine.
- Band saw a small benchtop model will work fine as well.
- Die grinder very handy with a scotchbrite wheel at the end.
- Dremel tool handy to have with a variety of bits.
- Clamps different lengths, find I use them all the time.
- Pop-rivet tool a cheap one with a small tip that you wont mind grinding.
- Soldering iron for removing strips of blue plastic from along the rivet lines.
- Bench grinder although I find I rarely use the large scotchbrite wheel.
- Multimeter will get lots of use soon.
- Digital level lots of uses, will come in handy for setting wing incidence.
Special tools
- HVLP sprayer Husky brand from Home Depot.
- Torque wrench Sears, calibrated in inch-pounds (not foot-pounds).
- Tubing flare tool need 100° flare model for all aircraft tubing.
- Tubing bender needed to get the proper radius bends.
- Tubing cutter most any will do.
- Safety wire pliers 6 version, handy for twisting safety wires.
- Ratcheting terminal crimper from SteinAir.
- Wire stripper also from SteinAir, strips down to 26 AWG for those trim servo wires.