Joshua's RV-9A Project

Fit the leading edge light lens to the right wing, using the same process as for the left wing earlier.  Once that was fit (always easier the second time!), and the light bracket mounted in the wing, I assembled both sets of retainer strips that hold the lenses in place–these parts were primed along with the right wing skins.  Used the double-stick tape to attach them to the lenses, and screwed the lenses in place on both wings.  I did install the thin foam weatherstrip tape inside the opening, as listed in the instructions.

Once both lenses were in place (which completes the LE lights, save for the bulbs) , I flipped the right wing off the stand and into the wing cart, and took apart the stand.  Clecoed the right wing flap & aileron brackets in place, pulled out the aileron/flap gap fairings, and looked at how the flap bracket angles need to be fabricated.  Spent awhile cleaning up the shop from all the projects that have been going on lately…starting to look decent in here again–who knows, might be able get a car or two in here soon!

Before leaving for a day with the girls, Allison helped drive the remaining rivets on the right wing.  All went smoothly, and we finished the main spar and J-stiffener in around an hour.

In a morning and an afternoon session, Allison helped rivet the second pass on the top skin ribs.  After that was done, I slid the J-channels in place and clecoed them to the skins.  I also squeezed the rear spar-skin rivets, so all that remains on the top skins are the skin-spar rivets and the J-channels.

Also picked up lumber and a sheet of 3/4″ MDF to build a box for flap & aileron construction.

This morning, spent a couple hours at the quarterly meeting of the Twin Cities RV Builders’ Group, chatting about planes and listening to stories.  Had the chance to visit Mike Behnke’s recently flying -9A and sit in the copilot seat.  A well done airplane.  Really liking his panel; even better in person than in pictures.  Playing with my paper cutouts, I figured that two AFS screens (my long-term plan) should be configured one on the pilot side, and one on the copilot side, with the radio stack in the middle.  Sitting in Mike’s cockpit (where both screens are in front of the pilot), I had no problem seeing both screens from the right seat–and since the displays share data and any screen can appear on any display, the right-hand display could be configured as the flight data screen if the copilot is flying.  He also still has room on the far right of the panel for a third display; I think an AFS 3400 would fit there, or a Dynon of some variety for dissimilar backup.  His panel is ~1 1/4″ longer than stock, but legroom didn’t seem to be an issue (I was able to sit with my knees bent up), and I think it might be possible to tighten things up a bit more, if a person was concerned about the panel length.

In the evening, Allison helped rivet the rest of the first pass on the top skin rivets.  After that, we fixed the few rivets that needed drilling out, and I pulled clecoes in preparation for the next session.  Also drilled out the rivets on the left wing that I squeezed into the holes intended for the root fairing screws…a stupid oversight of plans-reading on my behalf.  All those holes have also been dimpled, so I’ll be reading ahead in the manual to see whether that’s a problem, or if I need to flatten them out.

Allison helped rivet the first pass on half the top skin to rib lines.

Dusted off the right wing skeleton and dropped the fuel tank in place.  It clicked right into the dimples and lined up nicely–all the bolts for the Z-brackets lined right up, save for the inboard-most bracket, which needed a little finagling (as it did on the left wing).  Inserted & torqued all the spar-tank bolts, then all the screws.  Used a new screwdriver bit, and only managed to mangle two screw heads…gotta get one of those “grippy” bits with the tiny serrations on the tip, maybe those hold on better.

Followed up by clecoing on the top skins, interpolated with plenty of wing-twist measurement checking.  All’s good…ready to rivet!

Primed the top skins, wing walk doubler, and J-channels for the right wing, along with the retainer brackets for the landing light lenses.  Discovered that small bugs are attracted to the large, freshly primed skin panels as the light dims in the late evening–probably because they’re rather white.

Summer is the time for working on projects…and this summer, that’s meant remodeling the bathroom more than building an airplane.  I’ve spent the last three weeks on that project, with at least a week to go, taking into account the fact that I need to go to “real” work at least occasionally…  A complete strip-to-the-studs and buildout of our small bathroom, to follow on the (unplanned) porch and patio projects from last summer.

Not to say there’s been no work on the plane…I set Allison to work deburring and dimpling wing skins when she complained of being too bored.  Several nights ago, I reconfigured the shop for riveting the right wing, plumbed and leveled the skeleton.  Tonight, I did primer prep on the top skins and J-channels for the right wing; hoping to get a chance to prime them tomorrow after work.  I’m guessing we’ve found 6 hours or so in the last month.

Time flies, even if I don’t; school will be starting again before we know it.

Allison was bored enough today while I was at work that she dimpled most of the holes in the right wing top skins.  I also spent some time fiddling with the Gretz pitot mount when I came home…looks like it should be relatively easy to fit up.  Need to read up on the best location (inboard or outboard of the bellcrank bay?) to install it.

Nursing some wrist pain today, so not much productive shop time.  Finished building the wing cart by attaching some swivel casters I picked up last night, and padding the leading edge cutout with foam pipe insulation, then set the completed left wing in the cart.  Looks good, and rolls nicely.  I think there is enough room between the two wing slots that the horizontal stabilizer could be stored on the cart, as well.

Drilled the flap and aileron brackets to the left wing, and pulled out the gap fairings to mess with for a bit.  Torqued the aileron bellcrank brackets in the left wing.  Dimpled the wing walk doubler for the right wing.  Cleaned up the shop a bit, and spent some time just sitting in the shop and looking at things, pondering.

(NB. This post being counted in multiple categories — something which may happen more often, as a work session touches on multiple items.  I’ve split the last several sessions into multiple posts, as the time blocks were larger and more well-defined.  In the case of multiple categories on a post, each category will total the entire number of hours from the session, but the “grand total” will count it only once.  I wish there was an easy way to resolve this, but it is what it is–and since the hours tracking isn’t a requirement of any sort, just for my curiosity, not a big deal.)